About

Inquiry-to-Insight (I2I, funded by WGLN III),  is a partnership between University of Gothenburg, Sweden and Stanford University, USA. I2I aims to increase high schools students awareness on climate change issues with engaging ICT tools and international collaboration. They develop, implements and tests digital resources addressing climate change and environmental issues. The students involved in I2I collaborate with students from another country through a private social network, in order to investigate and envission solutions to global environmental issues. By sharing perspectives on how their respective communities view these environmental challenges students transcend their parochial point-of-view, motivating them to envision solutions to the vast environmental problems and challenges of the 21st century. Inquiry-to-Insight (I2I) also provides online educational activities and resources on climate change;

1. Ocean acidification virtual activity (fig. 1 and fig. 2). This tool allows students to improve their background knowledge of OA and to become virtual scientists, conducting and analyzing research on the effect of ocean acidity on a key and well known marine organism: sea urchin. Their results from a pilot study in two high schools in Sweden and California indicate that the OA I2I activities in particular and other I2I tools in general, increase students' awareness and understanding of OA.

Figure 1.Screen shot from ocean acidification digital activity: Background on ocean acidification and chemical reactions involved

Figure 2. Screen shot from  ocean acidification digital activity: Virtual lab bench to set-up experiment on ocean acidification and understand its impact on calcifiers.

2. Carbon footprint calculator (fig. 3). The development of their Carbon Footprint calculator was motivated by their inability to find an existing one that: 1) is relevant to high school students; 2) includes detailed information on different footprints across the nation and globe (e.g. based on electricity sources in different locales); 3) shows clearly how each decision impacts the overall footprint; and 4) allows the students to compare their footprint to a typical member of their community, as well as those in other parts of the country or world. In response to the students comments, I2I staff is refining this activity to make it as accurate and relevant as possible. This calculator is still in beta version.

Figure 3. Screen shots from the carbon footprint calculator with the 4 sections (Home energy, Transportation, Food, Personal Purchases) and the bottom bars, displaying the average from the country selected and your carbon footprint.

3. Interactive scientific talk. They also use emerging technologies to promote long-distance interactions between scientists and students (fig. 4).

Figure 4. Screen shot from the first I2I interactive talk on ocean acidification by Dr S. Dupont (on voicethread)

Strategy

The students from today are the decision-makers for tomorrow and I2I envisions providing them with solid scientific knowledge and an understanding of “science as a way of knowing”
 
All future citizens need to have those tools in order to take responsible decisions for our planet. Moreover, their tools (such as their carbon footprint calculator), will help students to become aware of their own impacts on the environment.  The collaborative learning platform will foster reflection about their responsibilities, and how environmental concerns transcend national boundaries. I2I students will also be able to identify clear and effective means to improve their footprint by clearly understanding the impact of each single behavior.

As a fundamental principle, the I2I team believes that transitioning their societies towards a sustainable existence will require everyone to identify ways in which to lessen their impacts, even those whose personal footprint may already be below the mean for their communities. In accord with this philosophy, each of their staff members has also used their carbon footprint calculator to identify areas in their own personal and professional lives where they can lower their footprints.
As an example from the point of view of the I2I team as a whole, the team promotes virtual meetings –both within the team and within the scientific community (ex. Klima 2009 participation)– as much as is feasible.

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