Teacher: Ana Belén Yuste Martínez
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Ana Belén Yuste Martínez
Ana is a Scientix Ambassador, support teacher in the Life Terra project and Ambassador of the European Climate Pact in Spain. She holds a degree in Environmental Sciences and is a biology teacher, head of studies, tutor of the Teaching Digitization Plan and STEAM Project Coordinator at the IES Consaburum in Consuegra (Toledo, Spain), as well as founder of Zienziaburum: Annual Science Fair since the 2017-18 academic year. A Biology teacher since 2008, she teaches classes to students between 12 and 18 years old. She has taught and tutored several training courses at the Regional Teacher Training Center of Castilla-La Mancha. In the last four years, it has won more than twelve awards in various educational science and innovation competitions at regional, national and international levels.
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Overview
There is much evidence of the existence of climate change, and one of the consequences of climate change will be a rise in sea level. This increase will result in the disappearance of beaches, marshes and wetlands; coastal flooding; shoreline erosion; brackish water intrusion; and significant economic damage. This project aims to raise awareness of these outcomes among the population through the creation of the GLUP-GLUP mobile application (app), which generates a notification when the person is in an area that will be flooded by the sea in the year 2100.
Theory of Change
People are often not aware of the effects of climate change because they occur in the medium or longer term. Ana and her students therefore set out to find a way to deliver information to the wider population in a user-friendly manner, ensuring that the message is transmitted to more people, effectively increasing environmental awareness. They hope that this will lead to people being more directly aware of the effects of climate change on their daily lives and will be more willing to actively collaborate to try to stop it.
Approach and Actions
This project was developed with a group of 15 students in the last year of high school and was led by Ana and a Technology teacher colleague. The project involved two main activities which were carried out in parallel; the development of the app and the creation of a website.
A program called Android Studio Arctic Fox (version 2020.3.1) was used to build the GLUP-GLUP app, the program is free to access and is based on Java programming language. The program allows both image files and files related to the position of a user to be created (a system other than GPS was used as some mobile phones do not support GPS). Once the app has determined a user’s position in real-time, a notification is sent to inform the user if they will be below sea level in 2100. By clicking on the notification, the user is able to access more information through the project web page. The app has been distributed by word of mouth to people living in the local coastal area.
The web page was created using Google Sites, which is a free online application provided by Google. This page was set up to provide information on what climate change is; what its causes and consequences are; and what can be done about it. For this, different sections were established, with links to different government pages, videos and interactive activities.
Impact
The team is very proud of their work and the results they have obtained. A questionnaire was used to gather feedback and much positive feedback was collected from users of the app; the app was found to work correctly and users were particularly impressed that it works anywhere in the world, the attractive design and organisation of information on the app was also commented on.
No evidence has yet been collected regarding the longer-term implications of the app but is hoped that after receiving a notification that an area a person is situated in will be flooded in 2100 it will cause people to reflect on the effects and losses that a rise in sea level will produce, and will cause people to analyze their habits and to consider more sustainable options. The team hopes to extend the app to include notifications related to different consequences of climate change- they are currently working on a desertification extension to the app.