Project description
Portable device assesses the impact of temperature changes
The EU-funded ATEMPGRAD project has developed a device designed for classroom use that is intended to enable teachers and students to conduct a variety of inexpensive and insightful experiments in physics, chemistry, biology, geography and mathematics. The device allows flexible creation of temperature patterns. Linear gradients from cold to warm as well as complex temperature environments can be set, helping to explain phenomena where small, local temperature differences have a weak or great impact. The device can be used to interpret the behavioural biology of insects, the thermal conductivities of different materials, the melting points of lipids or permafrost conditions.
Objective
The ATEMPGRAD technology is based on the ASSISI|bf paradigm, which shows how an active dialogue can be engaged with organisms, instead of just observing them. The PocketEthoLab takes up this principle and transforms it into a cost-effective and portable device, which is designed for use in educational institutions. It offers a range of interaction possibilities with different organisms (especially insects, but also plants, micro-organisms or even chemical reaction agents), especially through a temperature gradient or more complex and dynamic thermal patterns, which in their own rightoffer a range of interaction possibilities with the organisms. In addition, the device optionally offers a way to automatically observe and analyze the organisms’ behavior and a way to adapt subsequent stimuli to the observed behaviour. Through an extensible interface, many different stimuli can act simultaneously on the organism. Thus, we can provide a simple to use yet versatile tool for small scale research and educational purposes, which we would like to make commercially available to the general public by designing it as a novel educational tool for modern interactive forms of teaching biology, physics, ecology, ethology and global change.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
CSA - Coordination and support actionCoordinator
8010 Graz
Austria