The COVID-19 pandemic has placed extra challenges on academic science teaching labs and the Internet of Science Things (IOST) lab at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock has provided to the public resources through the LibreTexts OER to assist schools in running remote IOT enabled chemistry labs. These resources include collaborative online activities involving hands-on experiments, virtual labs and simulations (Phet and ChemCollective), in addition to IOT enabled data streams, where students design experiments, gather data and analyze the results. These activities were performed in Zoom breakout rooms where students collectively worked on Google Docs and Sheets that were integrated into their LibreText lab manual.
The IOT-enhanced remote labs we are reporting on are made possible through the use of $35 Raspberry Pi microcomputers connected to a variety of sensors (pressure, temperature, pH,...) that are connected to the internet and can be used in multiple disciplines. The software resources we developed are open source and posted on the instructional resources section of the LibreText lab manual. We posted to LibreTexts a second course on the "Internet of Science Things" that introduces students to Python programming and how to set up a Raspberry Pi, download and install an open source operating system, build basic circuits and run code to operate them. This additional OER can assist schools in implementing IOT-enhanced science labs.
To demonstrate how the experiments posted in the LibreTexts OER enable online collaboration we will run an IOT-enhanced calorimetry lab in real time. Presentation attendees will effectively join a "student group" in the data collection component of this lab, where the "student" mixing the actual chemicals is in a home in Ward, AR, while the Raspberry Pi is remotely operated by another "group member" in St. Louis, MO, while under the guidance of a "professor" in Little Rock, AR.
By connecting laboratory devices across the internet IOT enables advances in the science curriculum that can be of great value to online learning. Interested parties are welcome to check our Google group devoted to IOT in STEM, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/iosted where they can meet other interested parties and find additional resources.
Learning Outcomes: -How to get students to collaborative work on Google Docs and Sheets while in Zoom breakout rooms while working on an OER lab manual in chemistry. -How to engage students in remote (chemistry) labs where data is streamed over the internet through IOT devices -How other faculty can use our OER to develop and run IOT-enhanced labs.
