The Helium Foundation has announced that One Planet Education Network (OPEN), Seeed Studio, and Tingkart have collaborated to design and deploy a smart agriculture IoT sensor network in a Brooklyn school garden.
This initiative aims to inspire students in New York City schools to advance sustainable projects locally, providing them with the necessary tools and technology. Powered by the Helium IoT Network, one of the world’s largest public LoRaWAN network, the programme is a notable example of grassroots initiatives achieving public good. The Helium Network offers affordable, reliable, and widespread connectivity, facilitating innovative IoT educational programmes in underfunded school districts.
“The garden project at Dr. Ronald E. McNair/P.S. 5 has transformed into the ‘Learning Garden.’ The students now garden with a purpose. By hypothesising and conducting the OPEN sustainable agriculture experiment, our students have an opportunity to engage in an experience where they learn how artificial intelligence can help students and farmers produce healthier and more productive crops to further ensure food security,” said Lena Gates, Principal of PS5. “Our students can also collaborate with fellow students, farmers, and experts in many parts of the world. Consistent monitoring of air and soil quality has created an ongoing learning opportunity that encourages students to solve challenging environmental problems.”
The sensors, enabled by the Helium IoT Network, create a decentralised, open-source, accessible, and secure wireless network, with hundreds of thousands of active IoT Hotspots in use today. The longer-term goal of the OPEN project is to produce healthier, locally grown food crops for PS5’s student-run school restaurant and demonstrate the value of smart gardening systems to the local community. With outdoor gardens and a greenhouse, students can create and manage community farm stands, providing their neighbourhoods with healthy vegetables and produce year-round.
The project, which commenced in late April 2024, was well-timed for the spring planting of Dr Ronald E. McNair’s (PS5) school gardens. The OPEN-PS5 project utilised a Seeed Studio sensor to monitor soil temperature and moisture, ambient light, CO2, air temperature, and humidity, among other factors. The Tingkart AI and Machine Learning crop management knowledge system gathers local weather data, using information from PS5’s Seeed sensors for ongoing assessment of the garden vegetables, soils, CO2 output, and growing conditions. The system offers recommendations to the apprentice gardeners for optimal care and results, considering the ever-changing environmental conditions.
“Seeed Studio, RAKwireless, and OPEN have been community builders on the Helium ecosystem for many years, creating products that help solve real-world problems,” said Abhay Kumar, CEO of The Helium Foundation. “I’m thrilled to see so many Helium partners working together to help support this initiative to educate our youth using the people-powered network for good.”
“Our goal is to provide hands-on IoT education and related science education to students of all ages,” added George Newman, CEO and Founder of One Planet Education Network. “Teaching them the intricacies of IoT, data science and the positive applications and utilisation of AI and Machine Learning early on, we are upskilling them for the rapidly evolving AI-ML directed workplace. Applying IoT and AI-ML to sustainable community development, we are also challenging them to address the many environmental challenges faced by the broader local and global communities. These young minds are at the forefront of solution-making, as these environmental problems we face are universal. They are our future, and it’s critical that schools across America integrate these programs and technologies into their curricula.”
Since 2019, OPEN has leveraged the Helium Network for Smart Farming and Sustainable Community projects, including the collaboration between OPEN and the Forestry Training Institute (FTI) in Liberia to deploy Internet Sensors.
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