Kiwrious
Science is a creative, tentative human endeavour. Many students disengage with science because it is presented in the classroom as a body of knowledge which is unchanging, absolute and with little real connection to everyday life.
Kiwrious allows students to experience the fun, creative and social nature of science first-hand. A set of low cost plug and play sensors make invisible natural phenomena visible, encouraging children to let their innate curiosity run wild and free.
They can investigate their body, their pets, their surroundings and environment to find answers to their questions and understand the world around them.
The Kiwrious science platform is student-driven and encourages students to formulate inquiries, make multiple observations, represent their findings in creative ways and discuss what they have found with their friends.
Students can also use the sensors with Kiwrious Play, which connects the sensors to the scratch programming platform and allows students to create animations, games and other projects that react to their real world environment.
Supported by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Curious Minds grant, we are conducting a national pilot with Kiwrious sensor kits in 35 schools across a range of deciles in New Zealand.
PUBLICATIONS
Using Sensor-Based Programming to Improve Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectancy for Students from Underrepresented Groups
Suriyaarachchi, H., Nassani, A., Denny, P. and Nanayakkara, S.C. 2023. Using Sensor-Based Programming to Improve Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectancy for Students from Underrepresented Groups. In Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 (ITiCSE 2023). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 187–193.
Striving for Authentic and Sustained Technology Use in the Classroom: Lessons Learned from a Longitudinal Evaluation of a Sensor-Based Science Education Platform
Chua, Y., Cooray, S., Cortes, J.P.F., Denny, P., Dupuch, S., Garbett, D.L., Nassani, A., Cao, J., Qiao, H., Reis, A, Reis, D., Scholl, P.M., Sridhar, P.K., Suriyaarachchi, H., Taimana, F., Tang, V., Weerasinghe, C., Wen, E., Wu, M., Wu, Q., Zhang, H., Nanayakkara, S.C. 2023. Striving for Authentic and Sustained Technology Use In the Classroom: Lessons Learned from a Longitudinal Evaluation of a Sensor-based Science Education Platform. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction (IJHCI).
Scratch and Sense: Using Real-Time Sensor Data to Motivate Students Learning Scratch
Suriyaarachchi, H., Denny, P. and Nanayakkara, S.C., 2022. Scratch and Sense: Using Real-Time Sensor Data to Motivate Students Learning Scratch. In Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (SIGCSE 2022), March 3–5, 2022, Providence, RI, USA.
Primary School Students Programming with Real-Time Environmental Sensor Data
Suriyaarachchi, H., Denny, P., Cortés, J.P.F., Weerasinghe, C. and Nanayakkara, S.C., 2022. Primary School Students Programming with Real-Time Environmental Sensor Data. In Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE ’22), February 14–18, 2022, Virtual Event, Australia.
Sensor-Based Interactive Worksheets to Support Guided Scientific Inquiry
Cao, J., Chan, S.W.T., Garbett, D.L., Denny, P., Nassani, A., Scholl, P.M. and Nanayakkara, S.C., 2021. Sensor-Based Interactive Worksheets to Support Guided Scientific Inquiry. In Interaction Design and Children (IDC ’21), June 24–30, 2021, Athens, Greece. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 7 pages. Best Short Paper Award!