Onboard sensors in your phone or tablet ofter tons of potential for authentic science learning.
Community Review for Arduino Science Journal
My Take
Although the true potential for student learning will come at the hands of middle and high school students, I also see a benefit for elementary students with teacher support. How can we make objective observations? Just open the app and we'll quantify some information! What is data? Let's collect some now and talk about it! How can we visualize information with a chart? Here's what we just observed and here's what it looks like as a graph!
Specifically, I look forward to using Science journal with my kindergarten students this coming school year to record different noise levels in the classroom, on the playground, and in the forest behind our school to discuss the quietest environments available to us, sharing the graphs via a classroom Chromecast. Now that's science!
How I Use It
I love what Google has done with Science Journal- Taking sensors already present in Android devices and made them available to collect data. I can imagine a lot of creative mini student science projects created as a result of having little more than a light sensor. For instance- Ask students to research how light levels can affect learning and then set them loose on the campus to record lumen levels in different locations, followed by a presentation of findings. Not quite cutting edge science, but most definitely a real-world application of data collection and analysis.