Smart School Lab and Participatory Citizenship : The potential of the Internet of Things

This study is based on the question of the poor involvement of students in their respective educational community, as far as citizen science is concerned. The research takes place in a Secondary School in the central coastal region of Portugal. In order to answer the research problem - “How to develop citizen science strategies using the Internet of Things, within the scope of a SSL, aiming to enhance the participatory citizenship of students?” - design-based research (DBR) strategies will be applied, in an iterative evolutionary approach, interchanging between action and critical thinking, with integrative activities that will fuel the project.Artefacts and guidelines will be co-constructed between researchers, teachers, students and local community - didactic kits with transdisciplinary contents, promoters of citizen science skills and supported by digital electronics and IoT - that should endure beyond the study and be subsequently adopted, adapted and used by other teachers from the institution where this study takes place. Regarding the results expected with this study, the highlights are: the production of the didactic kits “education” and “citizen” which will contribute, per se, to the common good, with the detection of environmental problems in the target city of study; the improvement of the students' citizen science skills; and the realization of the potential of the IoT by the teachers who take part in the study, mainly in what concerns the development of pedagogical - didactic and social-communicative skills.