1. Network of secondary schools observing CO 2 in the air, The Netherlands www.rug.nl/fwn/school-CO2-net Harro A.J. Meijer, CIO, University of Groningen Project initiated jointly with the Institute for Didactics and Educational Development (IDO) Idea:Pupils from secondary schools get hand-on experience with real CO 2 measurements: "CO 2 is for real!" Raises their interest for the global climate issues Raises their interest for science and technology Well-suited for exam projects

2. Selection, purchase and calibration of instrumentation Development of software Implementation at schools Teacher's group -guided by IDO- for development of educational material Project Contents:

3. Start of the Project: Grant by the Gratama Foundation (July 2005) Funding for:(1) Instrumentation for three schools Vaisala "Carbocap" GMP 343 CO 2 meter Davis fully-equipped wireless Meteo-station

4. (2) Student Assistantship for software development: At schools: Automatic measurement and data collection Automatic data delivery to central database Central: Web-approachable database containing all data Extra (as part of their studies Education & Communication): Development of full web-site for the project by master students

9. History of the project so far: Instruments selected and bought : Autumn 2005 Test run at my home: Christmas 2005

10. History of the project so far: Instruments selected and bought : Autumn 2005 Test run at my home: Christmas 2005 Instruments and basic software delivered at the schools: February 2006 Installation at the schools: April / May 2006

11. History of the project so far: Instruments selected and bought : Autumn 2005 Test run at my home: Christmas 2005 Instruments and basic software delivered at the schools: February 2006 Installation at the schools: April / May 2006 (+ "soon now") General website ready: June 2006 First data in web database: September-October 2006

12. First Results

14. A school is not a university work group: Difficulties of all kinds with "basic" technology Many people involved in a project like this: Teacher, Technical Education Assistant, ICT person... Definitely not the highest priority (obviously) => Pace is slow, but we are getting there.. Development of Educational material is underway Some "mid-term" remarks:

15.  Socrates grant for CarboSchools  National funding available in principle  Surplus costs are ≈ 4500 Euro per school BUT: We need a dedicated employee:Technicalities at the schools Software and web site maintenance Leading the educational development Best would be a teacher for 50% of his/her time Ph.D. degree in Educational Development would be possible Growth of the initiative: