A smart agriculture IoT sensor network has been deployed in a Brooklyn school garden using the Helium network.

One Planet Education Network (Open), Seeed Studio and Tingkart designed the network to serve New York City schools, with the goal of inspiring pupils to advance sustainable projects at the local level, while equipping them with the right tools and technology.

The Helium IoT public LoRaWan powers this programme. It offers low-cost, reliable and widespread connectivity, opening the door for innovative IoT educational programmes in cash-strapped school districts.

“The garden project at Dr Ronald E McNair/PS 5 has transformed into the Learning Garden,” said school principal Lena Gates. “The students now garden with a purpose. By hypothesising and conducting the Open sustainable agriculture experiment, our students have an opportunity to engage in an experience where they learn how artificial intelligence can help students and farmers produce healthier and more productive crops to further ensure food security. Our students can also collaborate with fellow students, farmers and experts in many parts of the world. Consistent monitoring of air and soil quality has created an ongoing learning opportunity that encourages students to solve challenging environmental problems.”

The sensors are enabled by the Helium IoT network, a decentralised, open-source, accessible and secure wireless network with hundreds of thousands of active IoT hotspots in use today. The longer-term goal of the Open project is to produce healthier, locally grown food crops for PS5’s student-run school restaurant and demonstrate the value of smart gardening to the local community. With outdoor gardens and greenhouse, students can create and manage community farm stands, providing their neighbourhoods with healthy vegetables and produce year-round.

The project, which began in late April 2024, was timed for the spring planting of the school gardens. The Open-PS5 project fielded a Seeed Studio (www.seeedstudio.com) sensor to monitor soil temperature and moisture, ambient light, CO₂, air temperature and humidity, and more. The Tingkart (tingkart.com) AI and machine-learning crop management knowledge system gathers local weather data, ingesting the data from PS5’s Seeed sensors for ongoing assessment of the garden vegetables, soils, CO₂ output and growing conditions.

The system makes recommendations for the apprentice gardeners for the best care and results given the ever-changing environmental conditions.

“Seeed Studio, RAKwireless and Open have been community builders on the Helium ecosystem for many years, creating products that help solve real-world problems,” said Abhay Kumar, CEO of the Helium Foundation. “I’m thrilled to see so many Helium partners working together to help support this initiative to educate our youth using the people-powered network for good.”

George Newman, CEO of Open, added: “Our goal is to provide hands-on IoT education and related science education to students of all ages. Teaching them the intricacies of IoT, data science and the positive applications and utilisation of AI and machine learning early on, we are upskilling them for the rapidly evolving AI-ML directed workplace. Applying IoT and AI-ML to sustainable community development, we are also challenging them to address the many environmental challenges faced by the broader local and global communities.”

In a related development, RAKwireless (store.rakwireless.com), a provider of WisBlock sensor modules for developers, launched a line of IoT education sensor kits with Open targeted for vertical markets. RAK has partnered with Open to develop courses and associated network services that will first focus on the environment and agriculture. Students will design, build and programme their own air quality sensors for deployment around their NYC schools, while learning about the IoT industry and additional socially responsible AI-ML applications.

The Helium Foundation (www.helium.foundation) is a not-for-profit dedicated to the proliferation of secure cost-effective connectivity around the globe.

Open (oneplaneteducation.com) is an IoT and AI-ML provider and education technology company. It works with state and federal ministries, universities, community colleges, K-12 institutions, and industry partners to develop IoT and AI to serve the local and global communities.