Measuring CO₂ with an Arduino: Creating a Low-Cost, Pocket-Sized Device with Flexible Applications That Yields Benefits for Students and Schools

Abstract

In this article, a low-cost and pocket-sized setup for measuring CO2 is presented. This setup is based on Arduinos, making it economic and open to modifications or improvements that satisfy other needs. It is composed of an Arduino board, a CO2 sensor, an SD-card module, and a control panel. The device has been tested in three different experimental contexts that are typically used in primary and secondary science education: chemical reactions, plant photosynthesis and respiration, and gas diffusion. Results show major potential for the device, both for promoting students’ model-based inquiry and for encouraging students to build their own devices and develop engineering practices. The other advantages of the proposal, compared with commercial data loggers, are also discussed.

Teaching Chemistry with Arduino Experiments in a Mixed Virtual-Physical Learning Environment

“…Arduino and other similar microcontrollers have already been used in various educational Chemistry applications as there is a wide variety of sensors which can be used, that are not expensive and produce highly accurate and reliable measurements (Pino et al, 2019). Arduino technology has been exploited for the construction of inexpensive Chemistry measuring devices such as pH meters and thermometers (Kubínová & Šlégr, 2015) that can even be used for students with visual impairment (Costa & Fernandes, 2019;Soong et al, 2018).…”

“…A state-of-the-art learning tool is the microcontroller technology, with Arduino being one of the most popular, as it is suitable for people with little knowledge of electronics (Urban, 2014). It can be used in conjunction with various low-cost sensors to produce highly accurate and reliable measurements (Alo et al, 2020;Pino et al, 2019). Therefore, it is considered a valuable tool for implementing laboratory work in Chemistry education (Kubínová & Šlégr, 2015;Grinias et al, 2016).…”

A New Application in Biology Education: Development and Implementation of Arduino-Supported STEM Activities

“…Since Arduino includes a simple circuit connection [23], teachers think that Arduino is more suitable for physics subjects and they designed and implemented activities in the physics subjects of the science class [24,25]. When the studies done with Arduino are examined, it is seen that biology is given a very little place in the studies [26,27]. With this study, biology was combined with physics and robotics and a resource that teachers can use in their lessons related to these three fields is presented.…”

A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Arduino-Based Education in Korean Primary and Secondary Schools in Engineering Education

“…In the classroom activities of gifted students, experimental devices or data collection devices are sometimes used. Arduino can be used to replace existing expensive experimental devices (Arrizabalaga et al, 2017;D'Ausilio, 2012;Goncalves et al, 2019;Hahn et al, 2019;Jin et al, 2018;Mercer & Leech, 2017;Omar, 2018;Pino et al, 2019;Ragazzini et al, 2019;Sarao et al, 2016;Soong et al, 2018;Uyanik & Catalbas, 2018) and in automated data collection or measurement devices to process data more efficiently (Galeriu, 2018;Galeriu et al, 2015;Kubinova & Slegr, 2015;Nichols, 2017;Wong et al, 2015). Furthermore, because many gifted students choose STEM majors in college (Vu et al, 2019), a proper Arduino education can be an effective method of attracting talented people in engineering.…”

“…Arduino was also used in the teaching of programming (Litts et al, 2019;Montironi et al, 2017;Perez & Lopez, 2019), in STEAM education (Lu & Ma, 2019), and as a teaching aid (Carvalho & Hahn, 2016;Kang et al, 2019;Perenc et al, 2019;Rivera-Ortega et al, 2018). Furthermore, Arduino has been used to replace existing expensive laboratory equipment (Arrizabalaga et al, 2017;D'Ausilio, 2012;Goncalves et al, 2019;Hahn et al, 2019;Jin et al, 2018;Mercer & Leech, 2017;Omar, 2018;Pino et al, 2019;Ragazzini et al, 2019;Sarao et al, 2016;Soong et al, 2018;Uyanik & Catalbas, 2018), in automatic data collection and measurement equipment (Galeriu, 2018;Galeriu et al, 2015;Kubinova & Slegr, 2015;Nichols, 2017;Wong et al, 2015), and in prototype implementation (Escobar et al, 2017). Accordingly, attempts have been made recently to apply Arduino to education in primary and secondary schools as a device to help people realize projects that were previously possible only in their imagination (Galeriu et al, 2014), These attempts have become an important opportunity for ordinary students to experience engineering education because microcontrollers, which were only available to minority engineers in computer science or electronics a few years ago in specialized laboratories, are now accessible to ordinary students in ordinary classrooms.…”