Development and deployment of distributed mini-observatory nodes to couple STEM training with coastal biogeochemistry

提供近实时流数据的环境传感器观测站的商业解决方案的高成本限制了研究人员可以部署的单元数量，并且对于学校K-12计划或感兴趣的“公民科学家”来说成本过高。该项目将开发一个强大的，新颖的，廉价的，开源的仪器传感器系统和数据工作流程，使人们能够了解影响水质和海洋地球化学的过程。随着最近低成本、开源、紧凑型微控制器的可用性增加，水生环境的环境传感出现了新的可能性，其成本仅为从前从头开始建立传感器数据记录器系统的一小部分。由于科学界越来越重视跨学科研究，越来越多的研究人员希望部署多参数测量传感器节点，并且由于越来越多的STEM学生和公民对环境监测和气候变化感兴趣，因此越来越需要开发一个负担得起的沿海海洋传感器数据平台，用于水质和海洋地球化学研究。这项研究将建立在一项新的但经过验证的技术基础上，该技术使用开源硬件组件和自定义软件脚本，这些组件和脚本可以由高中和本科生、环境管理组织或精通技术的公民组装、测试、部署和维护。科学家，吸引他们对STEM领域的兴趣。技术进步特别针对多参数仪器，以监测，调查，并最终预测水质参数和与水柱和沉积物-水界面生物地球化学通量相关的事件。将部署一个商用热敏电阻链，以足够高的精度测量水柱和上层沉积物温度，以便计算孔隙水迁移率。传输速率计算将耦合到一套环境传感器测量（例如，溶解氧、温度、电导率、pH值、氧化还原电位、水深、气象数据），以全面了解化学通量和沉积物孔隙水交换在沿海生态系统运行中的作用。此外，每个微型节点将使用低成本、开源的电子硬件组装，并通过互联网提供近实时的数据访问。

The high cost of commercial solutions for environmental sensor observatories that provide near-real-time streaming data limit the number of units that can be deployed by researchers and is cost-prohibitive for scholastic K-12 programs or interested 'citizen scientists'. The project will develop a robust, novel, inexpensive, and open-source instrument sensor system and data workflow to enable an understanding of the processes affecting water quality and biogeochemistry in coastal environments. With recent increased availability of low-cost, open-source, compact micro-controllers, new possibilities are emerging for environmental sensing of aquatic environments at a fraction of the cost that it once was to build up sensor data logger systems from scratch. Because of the increased emphasis of the scientific community on interdisciplinary research, more and more researchers want to deploy multi-parameter measurement sensor nodes, and because more and more STEM students and citizens are becoming interested in environmental monitoring and climate change, there is a growing need for the development of an affordable coastal marine sensor data platform for water quality and biogeochemistry studies. This research will build upon a new but proven technology that uses open-source hardware components and custom software scripts that can be assembled, tested, deployed, and maintained by high school and undergraduate students, environmental management organizations, or the technologically-savvy citizen scientist, engaging their interest in STEM fields. The technological advances specifically target multiparameter instrumentation to monitor, investigate, and ultimately predict water quality parameters and episodic events associated with water column and sediment-water interface biogeochemical fluxes. A commercially-available thermistor chain will be deployed to measure water column and upper sediment temperature with high enough precision to allow for calculation of porewater transport rates. Transport rate calculations will be coupled to a suite of environmental sensor measurements (e.g., dissolved oxygen, temperature, conductivity, pH, redox potential, water depth, meterological data) to provide a comprehensive understanding of chemical fluxes and the role of sediment porewater exchange in the operation of the coastal ecosystem. Further, each mini-node will be assembled using low-cost, open-source electronics hardware and provide near-real-time data access through the internet.