Robots for biodiversity protection: an educational classroom project

Our project aims to improve skills in the area of digital and STEM disciplines for primary and secondary school students and intends to do so raising awareness about environmental protection and sustainability. The "Otonga Greenhouse" was programmed on the mBlock platform, with the use of minirobots “Codey Rocky” and “mBot” by Makeblock®, as well as sensors and motors powered by solar energy; it represents a teaching proposal that can be applied to the school curricula, in the shape of a group work with peer education dynamics, optimal for the disciplinary enhancement of coding and the development of computational thinking, as part of a biological science laboratory that promotes green behaviors and consciousness about natural resources management. The project was carried out as part of the activity of the Laboratory of Behavior Simulation and Educational Robotics "Luciano Gallino" belonging to the Department of Philosophy and Education Sciences, at the University of Turin.