Building Futures Together

Digitalising child-led citizen science for sustainable schools.

Developed by the Welsh School of Architecture and the School of Geography and Planning, this project empowered children as environmental advocates by co-creating citizen science learning resources focused on sustainable buildings.

The project collaborated with seven primary schools, engaging over 500 children and 40 teachers to explore the indoor environment and sustainable building practices. Participating schools were located in in Bargoed and Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales—areas of high deprivation with Free School Meals (FSM) rates above the national average.

Building STEM skills

Interactive activities enabled children to express how they felt in terms of temperature, lighting, and ventilation, take scientific measurements of indoor environmental conditions and compare their classroom with a digital classroom. Children discussed how their classrooms could be made more comfortable in sustainable and energy efficient ways.

The children were very enthusiastic and showed a good understanding of sensory experience in buildings. Teachers praised how the resources enabled children to practice maths, science, technology, and communication by exploring their own classroom.

STEM Ambassadors/See Science was a key partner in the project.

Next steps

The project team have  secured a Leverhulme Research grant to work on ‘Living labs’ in primary schools to support children and teachers to explore, experiment and learn in their own schools about building performance, indoor environment and sustainable building concepts.

Contact

For more information about this project, contact: