Towards interdisciplinarity with STEAM educational strategies: the Internet of Things as a catalyser to promote participatory citizenship

ABSTRACT This study focused on the design of interdisciplinary STEAM educational strategies supported by the Internet of Things. The second cycle of a Design-Based Research approach was implemented, refined prior citizen science strategies designed, implemented, and analysed in a co-creation process, in the first cycle. The iterative implementations/evaluations aimed at answer the secondary research questions: How to develop citizen science strategies that foster students’ participatory citizenship? Teachers designed citizen science learning materials, emphasizing the co-construction of knowledge and educational practices, under STEAM . Research instruments were used the participants – students and teachers. A closer look at the data reveals the existence of students’ voice amplification with evidence of ’ their perception of having an active voice regarding the resolution of community problems after the teachers implement the STEAM educational strategies. This reinforces the need to foster the implementation of relevant participatory citizenship strategies, customized STEAM learning solutions that addressess the issue of low participatory citizenship, to involve students in community issues. A shift in the educational environments is essential within a STEAM approach, engaging students in real-world citizen science projects that encourage cooperation between teachers, stakeholders, and students, thus allowing students’ personal and social development within the scope of educational intervention projects.


Introduction
It is imperative and urgent to involve citizens in a bottom-up approach, identifying and co-creating solutions, actions, and resources (de Sousa Santos et al., 2022), with technological innovation that is expected to generate innovative solutions to pressing societal challenges such as climate change.In the same line of thought, Hecker et al. (2018) emphasize that there is a need to develop a institutions to incorporate IoT into the school environment (Suduc et al., 2018), and leverage the classroom to a wider range of fields, where students will be able to gather data in real-time from their own surrounding environment, described as hypersituation (Moreira et al., 2017(Moreira et al., , 2020)).The National Academy of Sciences report on data science education (E.National Academies of Sciences and Medicine, 2018, p. 6) stressed the importance of addressing real-world problems, in a smart city topology aided by "things" (connected IoT devices).Kassab et al. (2020) noted several studies carried out in the educational field, however, also highlight the need to clearly consolidate and render coherent views on the use of IoT in education.From IoT devices that allow student's attendance and behavior, and participation evaluation with sensor data, Kassab et al. (2020) also refer to teachers' capacity to know each student's learning pace and difficulties and also the possibility to share data, and learning resources in real-time.But, so far, we are just scratching the surface on how to use them for educational purposes (Al-Emran et al., 2020;Chweya & Ibrahim, 2021;de Sousa Santos et al., 2022;Marquez et al., 2016;Moreira et al., 2017).
The integration of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), considered a multi-discipline approach to teaching (Hom, 2014), has become a priority for national education programs across the world, for example Next Generations Science Standards, 2 Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, 3 and Department of Education of Western Australia. 4The United Nations report (Boon Ng, 2019) refers that STEM is essential to supply competences in that field and will provide solutions to several Sustainable Development Goals issues.Practitioners, policy-makers and other educational stakeholders focused on defining the concept of integrated STEAM education.STE(A)M IT 5 is the first European integrated reference framework, mainstreaming innovative interdependence practices in education and integration across the STEM field.The A (Arts) will provide deeper connections among the STEM domains, according to the Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM. 6Ramli  et al.'s (2022) study suggests that art inclusion will lead students to find science "attractive" and would be "more focused during classroom sessions" and allows learners to understand science concepts and processes more easily.In the same line of thought, Kassab et al. (2020) and Suduc et al. (2018) suggest, particularly regarding participatory citizenship with citizen science strategies, a STEAM educational approach.Digital is on Europe's agenda, and Portugal has also defined its Action Plan for Digital Transition, 7 with education gaining special prominence with specific measures that aim to develop and enhance digital skills and competences in schools for the digital transformation.But learning and teaching in Portuguese schools remain largely fragmented by subjects.Most of the schools organize classes daily timetable in segments of time for each of them.Each subject is taught according to the predetermined scale, an integration of formerly separate subjects (Beswick & Fraser, 2019;Daneshpour & Kwegyir-Afful, 2021), a crucial barrier for implementing an integrated STEAM interdisciplinary approach (Belbase et al., 2021;Wu et al., 2022).Inter means between, among, 8 so interdisciplinary means among and between all disciplines.Interdisciplinarity does not necessarily imply the elimination of the identity of the disciplines, but a way of ensuring that there is a dialogue between them, establishing convergence, complementarity, and interconnections between different types of knowledge (Beswick & Fraser, 2019;Daneshpour & Kwegyir-Afful, 2021).
The potential of these new technologies is not gaining solid ground in the educational communities to create new learning scenarios that are innovative, interdisciplinary, and disruptive, promoting students' participation in community issues (Kassab et al., 2020;Suduc et al., 2018).At the time of writing the manuscript, and to our knowledge, the incorporation of IoT and citizen science strategies in a STEAM context, in a co-creation and bottom-up approach between teachers, students, parents, local community and local power, has not yet been reported.

Method
The complete study was carried out in four phases in a DBR (initially advanced as design experiments by (Brown, 1992) and (Collins, 1992)), an evolutionary approach -iterative, cyclical and spiraling -with integrative research activities that feed the process (McKenney & Reeves, 2021;van den Akker, 1999).Phase three of the DBR approach, based on what was developed in the previous phase, as a potential solution to the identified problem, was implemented and evaluated twice to determine the effectiveness of the framework.With multiple iterations, refinement, and evolution of prototypes (see Figure 1), the second cycle of a DBR approach was carried out, focussing on its versatility, complexity, and potential to bridge the gap between research and practice (Brown, 1992).Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected employing teachers' workshop, students' pre-and post-test survey, classroom observation, and teachers' self-awareness reflection notes (phase four of the complete study), focused on the lack of citizenship regarding students' attitudes.This paper will focus only on data collected and analysed from the second cycle (phase four of the complete study), focused on the lack of citizenship regarding students' attitudes (de Sousa Santos et al., 2022).More information regarding phase 1, conducted in 2019, is available at de Sousa Santos et al. (2022) and phases 2 and 3 conducted in 2020, at [authors' unpublished manuscript].

Study context and IoT-based STEAM educational strategies developed
The present study began with the researchers carrying out an initial three-hour workshop with the four teacher participants of the study in the early school year.Seven didactic kits co-developed in a teacher training course in 2020, the first design-based research (DBR) [authors' unpublished manuscript], were presented and their functionalities discussed as well as their pros and cons, regarding their implementation/adaptation in the teachers' classes.Participants expressed enthusiasm for the implementation/adaptation of two projects: Sound analysis (monitoring sound in several spaces, renamed SmartSound) and MobySeg (active citizenship regarding the recording of local issues and preservation of municipality spaces, renamed BikeTrack).Teachers defined the tasks to be performed by each one, in a co-creation dialogue, to proceed with the improvement of the work carried out in the first DBR cycle.Both projects gathered information about the surroundings, with IoT technologies and open data, enabling engaged citizens to become active shapers of the surrounding environment.

Smart Sound
STEAM teaching materials used in this project were designed based on a coconstructed framework between Technology, Engineering teacher and the students (see Figure 2).Maths and Science teachers produced and implemented guidelines in their classes with curricular integration of the sensor and the data provided by it, available online.The Arts teacher was paramount in the definition of the project website. 9 (1) Technology and Engineering: Students programmed the microcontroller, the sound sensor, the actuators and built the support structure.It was intended to provide students with skills to create instruments to monitor  problems associated with noise, more specifically, a sound sensor to monitor the level of decibels.Data were stored in ESP32 SPIFSS flash memory and shared online, using Wi-Fi technology, for public consultation in the ThingSpeak 10 application.Values were presented on an OLED display and graphically using three LEDs in a semaphore metaphor, also available on the school website.( 2 (3) Science: Initially, the teacher pointed out the problem question to be addressed in class: "What is the level of sound intensity measured at different times of the day and/or at different locations at school?".Then, the students answered six contextualization questions for the problem under study.After completing the previous task, the students were subdivided into two work groups.One of the groups remained in the classroom and the other received the SmartSound sonographer to collect data on a field trip inside the school yard.The first group was asked to download data available on the ThingSpeak platform to complete a questionnaire, using a grid with the values previously registered in channel 1,700,097 of that platform.As for group 2, equipped with the SmartSound sonographer, they were asked to collect data from different locations in the school and record it in a previously provided grid.In the end, each group answered two more questions related to the observations recorded.

BikeTrack
STEAM teaching materials used in this project were designed based on a co-constructed framework between Technology, Engineering, Arts, and the students.Prior to the APP implementation, researchers had already developed an IoT-based kit to monitor recycle bins.A LILYGO® TTGO T-Beam microcontroller was used to gather recycle bin problems and a TTGO ESP32 FTP server as a centralized Hub (see Figure 3), allowing the connectivity of the devices through typical IoT and communication protocols such as LoRa (Guerra-Londono et al., 2022).
(1) Arts: Students focused on recycling, household waste, bicycle-related problems, damaged public equipment, vandalism, and environmental issues, as classroom activity.The students were required to work in small groups and researched visual/graphics elements.The visual/graphics elements were edited using image/vector images.After that, students drew the Smartphone APP windows sketch wireframe.
(2) Technology: The teacher challenged a group of three students to develop a new concept of innovative application in recycling and garbage issues, leaving the remaining students to carry out other tasks/ applications.Based on the graphic structure defined by the 12 th grade Arts students, using these concepts, the 3 students developed an application in MIT AppInventor 11 to interconnect with the BikeTrack kit to monitor recycling, bicycle-related problems, and other issues (see Figure . 4).The application enhanced the participatory citizenship of students, fundamentally by resorting to something that is always present, the cell phone.The data gathered by the BikeTrack APP is shared with the community, uploading it to an ESP32 microcontroller, housed at the school.This microcontroller will share the data, using Wi-Fi technology, with the Parish Council, forwarding, in its stead, the information gathered to the company responsible for the recycling management, when related  to recycling, or keeping it for analysis, if regarding other community issues.
(3) Engineering: Initially, the Technology teacher assigned the project of creating a manual for the BikeTrack application.Students used Google Docs to build the manual in a collaboration environment.The class dynamics involved dividing the class into two groups, initially with one of the groups having the task of removing the images from the application, for subsequent use by the other group that would write the texts for the manual.The BikeTrack application allows citizen engagement, afforded by mobile media and in combination with other technologies, adding valuable data that enables tackling recycling and bicycle-related problems, and other community issues.Concerned citizens can gather and share information with the connected local power, as vigilant eyes, and ears of the city.

Data gathering procedures
All instruments were implemented in the 2021/2022 school year, with previous validation by the General Council of the school where the study was implemented.The European Commission's General Data Protection Regulation ethical guidelines for educational research were carefully observed throughout the process.
Following the initial expression of interest and consent, students received an electronic copy of the survey to complete.Four teachers teaching third grade and secondary level were purposively chosen as research participants.Initially, the main researcher personally approached several teachers from his school, and only a few of them expressed their availability and willingness to participate in the study.When approaching teachers to be part of this study, researchers found some similitudes with the STE(A)M IT Integrated STEM report. 7Teachers assumed that creating connections between STEAM disciplines would promote self-efficacy and encourage the implementation of interdisciplinary lessons but required time investment in cross-disciplinary and collaborative pedagogical design.A fair representation of expertise within the STEAM field was also considered; hence, there was one teacher each who majored in Physics and Chemistry (Teacher 1), Mathematics (Teacher 2), Arts (Teacher 3), and Technology and Engineering (Teacher 4).Students from four secondary classes were chosen to answer the questionnaires.Questionnaires were only intended to be carried out with secondary school students where the teachers intended to apply the STEAM educational strategies.During the study, Teacher 2 could not implement the STEAM educational strategy in the selected class due to COVID-19.A thirdgrade class was chosen from Teacher 2 to implement the strategies and for classroom observation.At the time, it was not possible to introduce a new class in the study and implement the pre-test.

Students' surveys
To characterize students' beliefs, behaviors, and opinions (Dillman, 2020), the research focused initially on the characterization of students' participatory citizenship prior to the implementation of the STEAM educational strategies.An in-depth description of this survey is offered in de Sousa Santos et al. (2022, p. 84).A universe of 56 pre-test and 30 post-test validated answers -students that respond to all questions -were considered eligible for the study.The 26 missed answers in the post-test are related to COVID-19 students' confinement and school dropout.

Classroom observation and teachers' self-awareness reflection notes
An email containing relevant documents, including informed consent and research overview, was sent for documentation and formality to each teacher to become research participants.Teachers were also informed about the confidentiality of the responses and the academic purposes of the study.

Data analysis procedures
Prior to starting the data analysis, teachers were anonymized from Teacher 1 to Teacher 4. To gather the perception of the students' participatory citizenship, descriptive statistics was used to analyze quantitative data.As for the teachers' self-awareness reports, the questions focused on (1) general data about the subject; (2) summary of what happened (what participatory citizenship strategies were developed with their students; what dynamics of class organization they used); (3) incident log (most striking aspects to be highlighted, positive and/or negative; strategies that could not be carried out and why; other strategies carried out and that were not planned); (4) incidents to consider when planning a future intervention (why and how).The data was analysed based on three main categories: (1) what went well; (2) what did not go well; (3) things to think about prior to a following implementation.During the classroom observations, after each strategy, the main researcher filled in a questionnaire with notes addressing the most relevant aspects during the implementation of the strategies, describing details about (1) observation context, (2) observed strategies, (3) developed citizenship skills, and (4) researchers' final remarks.

Results and discussion
To gather the initial perception of the participants, descriptive statistics was used to analyse quantitative data.Qualitative data was analysed with the software WebQDA.The full study used an analysis tree with three main categories, and for each of them, three subcategories emerged.Regarding this paper, only one category was used (see Table 1).For more detailed information about the analysis tree, see de Sousa Santos et al. (2022, p. 85).
The data collected provided a closer analysis of the teachers' perspective on the remarkable occurrences obtained through reflection after the implementation of the strategies, as well as students' participatory citizenship and their engagement in community issues before and after the implementation of the strategies.

Teachers' self-awareness reflection notes
After the implementation of each strategy, teachers filled in a questionnaire with reflective notes addressing the most relevant aspects that emerged from the implemented strategies, describing details of the learning process, together with an analysis of how these elements may have influenced the whole process.A total of nine responses were recorded, with one response given by teachers 1 and 2, teacher 3 responded twice, and teacher 4 made five responses.Table 2 presents the most relevant examples of teachers' self-awareness reports after the implementation of the strategies.
Teachers did not point out any problems regarding the kits utility to achieve classes objectives, only the lack of SmartSound sonographers, "only one equipment was available", which leads the researchers to acknowledge that citizen science strategies' refinement was successful.Teachers' feedback on how the instructional sequence should be adjusted to accommodate classroom scenarios strengthens the ecological validity, results that should provide a basis for adaptation to other situations.things to think about prior to next implementation "excellent atmosphere when collecting the data with the sonographer" "personal and interpersonal development fully achieved" "interaction between the working groups, and critical thinking environment" "only one equipment was available to record the data" "the lack of kits made it impossible to gather data outside the school" "technical problems . . .old computer equipment" "amount of idle times . . .due to not having all the images" "ensure that there are multiple sonographers" "involve the ICT discipline for data processing with spreadsheets" "students should collect the data at home" "use of better computer and larger monitors"

Classroom observation
Concerning the observed context, all classes lasted 50 minutes, and as for the students attending the classes: 3 classes were attended by 6 students; 2 classes by 10 students; 1 by 11 students; 2 by 12 students; 1 by 22 students; and 1 by 23 students.An observation of classes was carried out in a class of the 8 th year of basic education, with the remaining classes being observed in secondary education, more specifically: three in 10 th grade, two in 11 th grade and three in 12 th grade.

Observed strategies
As for the strategies adopted within the scope of citizen science with the use of the kits, the highlights are as follows: (1) create products that allow data collection; (2) collect data inside of the school; (3) data analysis; (4) discussion about issues, based on data analysed.As for the resources and materials favored by the teachers: (1) Sensors; (2) microcontrollers; (3) data from local sensors or online platforms; (4) worksheet.Of the digital platforms used, the one most used by teachers was ThingSpeak.
The remaining items of the observation record allowed classification on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 corresponds to "Not at all evident" and 5 to "Totally evident".The educational kits proved to be adequate to the objectives of the class, and there was no observable difficulty on the part of the students in carrying out the tasks.It was evident the adequate functioning of the technological equipment, the adequate duration of the class, and the resources/ materials suited to the strategies proposed by the teachers.

Developed citizenship skills
The proposed tasks aimed to pay attention to situations and problems, expressing involvement and curiosity.Students articulated knowledge to understand situations or problems, putting into action the necessary procedures for solving problems, such as: searching, selecting, and interpreting information in a critical way according to issues, needs or problem-solving and their respective contexts.Students identified, selected, and applied working methods, having carried out activities independently, sometimes of their own initiative, autonomously in a critical and creative perspective, taking responsibility for fully carrying out the tasks.Participation in interpersonal and group activities made it possible to assess respect for norms, rules and criteria for action, reciprocity, and work in various contexts.Students were able to communicate, discuss, and defend their own discoveries and ideas, giving their partners space for intervention, establishing, and respecting the rules of collective work.The students evaluated/assessed and adjusted the working methods to their way of learning, as well as to the needs of the group and the objectives pursued.

Researcher' final remarks
The use of data collection equipment was one of the strengths of the activity, as students could see in real time the values they were collecting and saving on the ThingSpeak platform.The students were very receptive, active, and interested in working on different issues, like environmental issues, exhibiting a more participatory attitude regarding citizenship, inside and outside the classroom.It is expected that they remain motivated and involved in solving environmental and other problems, with a participatory attitude as to what concerns citizenship.It is also relevant to highlight the importance the students attributed to the fact that the data could be collected by them.It was clear how motivated and interested the group was in carrying out the assignment, when using a mobile application.The development of students' technical skills, regarding the use of electronics in the IoT field and in the promotion of participatory citizenship and citizen science strategies is notorious.The involvement of the class in improving the smartphone application was notable, with suggestions that show a sense of belonging to the community they live in and the desire to be useful in local problem-solving.

Students' surveys
Firstly, participants were asked about their sociodemographic context to figure out a path between students' sociodemographic context and their participatory citizenship.It was intended to find points of connection between sociodemographic data and the involvement of students in local issues, but this could not be achieved in both surveys.

Pre-test students' perceptions
Inquired about their involvement during the 2019/2020 school year in participatory citizenship activities in a disciplinary or project scope, only 36% of them answered affirmatively.Some student responses show a positive impact regarding their participation: "being aware of the difficulties that our society is going through", "increased desire to help others and evolve into a more united community", "made me aware of the various problems that our society faces and enabled me to help solve them", and "help families in need and support a kennel giving food".
Students tend to agree and some of them also completely agree about their civic participation and having an active voice in society.They also identify the school and the community as the places where they can have a voice and should engage with troubleshooting community problems.Still, regarding community issues, 57% of the students disagree about not being able to help their community solve local problems, and only 41% feel the same way at a national level.Forty percent of the students see themselves as being involved in their community.Respondents tend to agree that when citizens get involved in their community, they can improve the way it is managed, and see themselves as a local community engaged citizens (46,43% totally agree; 30,36% partially agree).A great majority of students, 46,43%, totally agree about being happy where they live and their sense of belonging is notorious, 21,14% partially agree and 37,25% totally agree.
With respect to the involvement of students in participatory citizenship activities during the 2021/2022 school year, 70% of the respondents have been involved in at least one activity, and 55% of them managed the activities alone or with other persons.The tasks they carried out were donating money, contributing knowledge, raising funds, participating in discussions or events.However, students did not organize or sign petitions, nor did they participate in any campaigns.More than half of the students have the intention to participate in activities promoted by SSL, and there is a greater willingness to participate in civic initiatives -promoted by the school, the Parish Council, and the municipality.
The information resulting from data analysis was the starting point to assert whether students will change their disposition, as participatory citizens in their community, after the application of strategies of participatory citizenship promoted by their teachers.

Post-test students' perceptions
After the implementation of the strategies by the teachers, data present some changes in students' awareness about their civic duty and the ability to be interventionist in the inquired places.There is an increase in the number of students who have been involved in participatory citizenship activities.The question of whether they can be an active voice in the different locations has increased, although it is less significant in relation to a global level.Regarding helping with issues in several domains, there has been a considerable increase in the number of students who tend to fully agree that they can and should be of help in this matter.There is also an increase in the number of students who want to participate in the initiatives promoted by SSL, as well as school, Parish Council, and the Municipality.These changes could be attributed to the implementation of the citizen science strategies by the teachers.

Conclusion
This study reports the second refinement cycle of a design-based research regarding STEAM-based citizen science strategies aiming to foster students' participatory citizenship, catalyzed by the IoT, answering the secondary research question: How to develop citizen science strategies that foster students' participatory citizenship?
Findings of the study suggest that IoT and citizen science strategies supported teachers' understanding of pedagogies involving interdisciplinary practices, including analysis and interpretation of primary online and real-time data sources.Likewise, teachers saw IoT and citizen science as an opportunity to challenge students to interpret a variety of local and global issues to gain a deeper and more contextualized understanding of what might be done to solve local problems, regarding students' citizenship engagement.In the post-test questionnaire, students shared a clearer view, obligation, and potential of their civic duties regarding local and global issues.Not only did they acknowledge their proficiency in problem-solving, but they also noted that their voice could and should be heard both at micro-level, local and community, as well as macrolevel, national and global.One student, for example, said that he feels "capable of being more active in society, I believe that I have the opportunity to exercise my right as a citizen and to help.", likewise, one teacher reported that "It is essential that students become aware of the need to take an active citizenship stance".What we glean from the analysed data is that students largely see themselves, with the aid of the implemented strategies, as agents of change, rather than only vessels to fill up with information about local and global issues.It is hoped that the processes and results of this study will contribute to increase/improve/expand the knowledge about the effectiveness and sustainability of interdisciplinary educational strategies, based on a STEAM approach, that promote learning activities and participatory citizenship, catalyzed by IoT technologies.In addition, the authors do not claim that these approaches are better than others, they only prove to be adequate and that they were effective in answering the research question.The findings of this study reveal integrated STEAM interdisciplinary activities, supported by IoT, designed, and implemented by the teachers, in a co-creation process with the students, to promote students' participatory citizenship.
However, this study was constrained by some limitations.First, only four teachers agreed to participate in the study, which also limited the number of participating students.Second, the questionnaires were only answered by secondary school students.It is important to understand whether the strategies have the same positive impact on elementary school students.Third, the study is based on two data activities, one in Mathematics and another one in Physics and Chemistry.Future studies should examine the effects of more STEAM activities supported by IoT and citizen science strategies.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. BikeTrack citizen kit installed in a bicycle.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Screenshots of BikeTrack citizen kit APP and a recycling problem to report.

)
Maths:The kit was used in Professional Education classes in the following domains: (i) General Statistics; (ii) Organization and interpretation of statistical characters.Students should give answers to the following problem: "What sound intensity level is measured at different times of the day and/or at different locations in the school?".The following resources were used for this purpose: (i) SmartSound, a sound level meter for data collection; (ii) Data in CSV format from field 1 of channel number 1,700,097 of the ThingSpeak platform.Students were divided into pairs, and each pair received a Microsoft Excel document.The observation of a table with the recorded values of the sound intensity level over the course of a day was requested.Then, students answered a set of questions and recorded the observations/conclusions in the daily notebook.