Students release ‘smart’ pebbles to track climate change impacts

Primary and second-level students are this week placing 300 specially adapted RFID-enabled pebbles at Killiney Beach in Dublin and Raghly Beach in Sligo in a project to track coastal erosion. The project aims to strengthen coastal communities’ ability to deal with the impacts of climate change using digital technologies.

Led by Dr Chiara Cocco and Dr Francesco Pilla, researchers with software research centre Lero based in UCD and Dr Iulia Anton from Atlantic Technological University Sligo, the ‘smart’ pebbles initiative is part of the €10 million Europe-wide project Score funded by the European Commission.

“This project is really exciting because we are collaborating with people of all ages – primary school students, transition year students and a local Tidy Towns group – and using innovative technologies to examine the impacts of climate change on their coastal communities. The students will play a key role in releasing and monitoring 300 adapted Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) enabled pebbles over the coming months. Each ‘smart’ pebble, painted yellow and typically about 10cm in size, has a RFID transponder cemented into drilled holes, enabling us to trace the impacts of erosion and their movements over the coming months,” explained Dr Cocco, assistant professor at UCD.

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