pHyter: An Oceanographic Tool for Citizen Science and STEM Education

NOAA SBIR topic 9.5 includes as a research priority the development of tools, platforms, … to make environmental information… more accessible, usable, understandable, and relatable to students, citizen scientists, and the public. Sunburst Sensors has twice used NOAA SBIR funding to successfully create new products. We propose using phase 1 funding to demonstrate the prototype pHyter as a tool for students and citizen scientists to collect ocean biogeochemical data. The pHyter is an inexpensive instrument that accurately measures pH using colorimetric methods. It uses an iPhone app that records location, time, temperature, pH and meta-data via Bluetooth. The instrument will work well in the hands of students and citizen scientists, and it will serve as basis for the development of other inexpensive instrumentation in phase 2. The prototype instrument was developed over the past few years and requires real-world demonstration. We will build 50 instruments and distribute them to 3 programs doing educational or citizen science work requiring accurate pH measurements. We will assess performance both in terms of data quality and user experience. Simultaneously we will develop a dual platform application (iOS and Android) for the device and evaluate existing data portals as potential repositories for collected data.