Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as ‘drones’, are aircraft that can be piloted remotely by an operator.  Drones have many practical uses in a diverse array of industries, including agriculture, construction and security.  Increasingly, drones are also being used in response to environmental and humanitarian challenges.  Giving operators a birds-eye view of events – as they unfold – today’s drones can record vast amounts of high-quality aerial photographs and videos.   

A less obvious use for drones is in the area of education, to help facilitate teaching and learning.  Certainly, drones have been useful in many schools for the purpose of educating students in the fields of science, technology, art, engineering and mathematics (STEAM).   

For example, I had gained some experience with drones several years ago in El Salvador, using the DJI Phantom 2 as a hook to get students interested in programming and robotics.  

Since then, having bought the DJI mini 2 last year, I have become somewhat of a drone enthusiast!  As I regularly take my drone with me on trips, for example, around Brazil, or in the UK, I have been able to capture some fantastic images to share with friends and family.  I love to make educational videos (as I have written about previously, when I made a documentary about the Brazilian Amazon). These experiences have enabled me to reflect on additional  ways of using aerial photos and videos in education – to teach important concepts while captivating students’ attention. 

Example 1 – Using Drones to Teach Maths:

For maths, we were recently able to plan for the drone to be used to teach our Class 3 students the topic of angles.  Getting students to move together in unison, simulating different angles in the playground, the drone was able to capture this brilliant footage:

Watching the video recorded of the childrens’ movements themselves, helped convey for the students, in an engaging and novel way, the concept of angles and how they are measured.  

Example 2 – Using Drones to Teach Geography:

In geography, our Class 4 students have learnt how to draw and read maps.  In order to help students with their learning of this topic, class teachers led a walk around the school block in which students had to make notes and rough sketches that would later form part of their mapwork.  Meanwhile, I was able to capture some high resolution aerial photos of the school and its grounds – which would come in useful later on to help students visualise the walk they had done around the school block:

Example 3 – Using Drones to Teach Environmental Science:

Climate change is a key topic that we revisit with students several times during the year.  Having visited the Pantanal last year, I was able to capture firsthand some compelling video footage of the forest fires that had been ravaging through the area:

It is estimated that fires burnt through some 1.7 million acres of the Pantanal last year.  Shown from above though, these drone images of scorched earth served as a powerful way for me to communicate, during one of our assemblies, this idea of climate change and the effects it is having on wildlife.

Example 4 – Using Drones for School Trips:

One of the school residential trips I organise is to Paraty, which is a municipality located on a lush green coastline in the state of Rio de Janeiro.  As well as its historical significance, the region is famous for the environmentally protected area of Saco do Mamanguá.  

Saco do Mamanguá is a peculiar geographical feature, which resembles a fjord. It has an 8 km inlet of ocean water and mountains on either side.  At its innermost point of this inlet, there is a preserved mangrove which meets multiple rivers running down from the mountains.  These mangroves provide a buffer between the mountain sediments and the sea, serving as a ‘marine nursery’ for a variety of small creatures such as crabs, shrimps and fish.

      .            

In order to help students better visualise (and understand) the environmental science and geography of this protected area, I took my drone to the region during a recent previsit.  In this same video, I was able to record other places that the students would visit on this trip such as the Gold Trail and Quilombo community.  Such videos are also great to show parents during information sessions about upcoming school trips.

Concluding thoughts…

It has been my experience that drones can increase students’ engagement in their learning while providing them with a richer insight and understanding into key concepts.  In the future, as drones become easier to fly and cheaper to buy, there will be increasingly more scope for them to be used in education to enhance teaching and learning. Aside from the obvious application for drones to be used in programming and robotics, the images and videos that they can obtain from otherwise impossible to reach places, can add value to any curriculum subject.  

Drones are simply flying cameras, which can provide fantastic aerial photos and video footage. I recently tested out the Phantom 2, one of the most popular drones currently available to consumers. I was keen to better understand its educational value.

I first encountered the Phantom 2 on a road trip in Guatemala over the Christmas holidays. Whilst briefly stopping off in the remote town of Rio Hondo, I happened to meet two Guatemalans who work as freelance photographers. The purchase of a drone turned out to be a turning point for their business because it meant that they could offer a premium service. The drone enables them to provide video footage from a myriad of vantage points in the sky, a really novel feature for wedding videos and photos. Having seen the drone in action, I was impressed and could see several uses for this technology in school.

Our school bought the Phantom 2 a couple of weeks ago. I tried it out with the help of one of our students who already had a Phantom 2 at home, and has thus become the school’s in house drone expert. The Phantom 2 is remote controlled and can be connected to a range of tablet devices. Using the DJI app that can be installed on iOS or Android, you can view, in real-time, what the camera is looking at when it’s 300 feet in the sky. The app also allows you to tinker with camera’s settings including the field-of-view, as well as the quality of the video and still modes.

A quick overview of the Phantom 2 during our test flight at school:

I found the drone to be relatively easy to fly, but I did need the help of someone else to control the camera, which was done on an iPad via a WiFi connection. I was impressed with the fact that the drone self-stabilises. If you take your hands off the controls it’ll simply hover in its current position. There was also several moments where I lost sight of the drone, but thanks to the built-in GPS, the Phantom 2 automatically flies back to where it took off from. That being said, during the initial flight we found that the trees above were interfering with the GPS signal, the drone crashed and we needed to find a more open space. As a cautionary note, I would say that with safety in mind, this drone needs to be closely supervised by someone who has plenty of experience flying it. The Phantom 2 in particular, is also very noisy (a bit like a hornets nest) and this should be kept in mind if other lessons are going on nearby.

All of that said, after I’d seen the videos that the drone had taken, and I’d had time to reflect on its usefulness as an educational tool, I can say that there are several benefits to this technology. For one thing, it can get definitely get students excited about robotics and the possibilities such technologies provide. This could also promote discussion about some important issues surrounding privacy. The most important benefit in my opinion, however, is the aerial photo and video footage itself. By providing multiple birds-eye vantage points of the school community, this technology gives students a new visual perspective of their local area. An aerial photo of the school car park for example, could give 1st graders a basic data handling exercise (recording information about the colours of cars). For older students, aerial photos provide a range of opportunities for map work and geography related projects. At roughly $1,000, this is no small investment. As long as this technology is well-supervised and used appropriately though, the Phantom 2 has the potential to enhance lessons and improve learning outcomes.