Abstract:

We are now crossing a period in which we are facing both the increase of the high medical costs and the impact of diseases on the whole population. Although the slogan “it’s cheaper to prevent than to treat” may sound unfashionable, we strongly believe it’s true than ever. It’s necessary to educate for health and to promote health in Romania in deep accordance with international standards, especially those of the European Union. The active involvement of the young people is essential mostly to encourage them in adopting a healthy living style based on the regular practice of physical exercises, this being the best way of keeping fit and of body self-defense, the reduction of stress symptoms and the prevention of the appearance of heart and of circulatory diseases, of diabetes problems, overweight and osteoporosis.

On the other hand, the transdisciplinary approach of education for health, within the international project ESTABLISH (Environmental Sensing to Act for a better quality of Life: Smart Health) motivates the involved students. ESTABLISH will enable to go from monitoring the indoor and outdoor environment and traffic to managing the environmental conditions on a personal level and thus improving the quality of life, reducing health costs and supporting vulnerable groups such as the elderly or patient.

The involved students discover the influence of the parameters of air quality and of the weather to maintain health and they learn how to monitor these parameters with the help of sensors. By using sensors, devices can collect data from the environment, connect to each other, exchange data obtained and corroborated information thus reach the user, it can make decisions and control how devices work. The teachers explain the functioning principles, then to join the technical team for their usage. The physiological and behavior parameters are monitored with special bracelets which record the heartbeat, the jogging pace and the distance. Students learn how to correlate these bracelets with mobile phones then they analyze these recorded data.

Keywords:

Education, health, sensors.