Abstract
Our planet is facing critical challenges and systemic changes that demand an urgent attention to educational and technological solutions that empower people to take care and protect our home. But, how can we protect something that we don’t love? Curiously provides resources and support to help caregivers and families with young children (ages 2–6) create playful and engaging learning adventures in nature together, promoting meaningful emotional bonding. It includes a mockup of an app that helps parents and caregivers plan such adventures and, eventually, will include a functionality that allows them to share their ex-presences with other families while developing a community that deepens the engagement with the platform and develops emotional bonding with the natural world. This paper describes in detail the systematic design process that was followed, including design insights from the literature and from user-soaked interactions.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Blake-Westa, J.C., Bers, M.U.: ScratchJr design in practice: low floor, high ceiling. Int. J. Child-Comput. Interact. (2023). ISSN 2212-8689. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2023.100601
Boulton, P., Thomas, A.: How does play in the outdoors afford opportunities for schema development in young children? Int. J. Play 11(2), 184–201 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1080/21594937.2022.2069348
Caribu. Mattel (2022). https://caribu.com/
Chawla, L.: Childhood experiences associated with care for the natural world: a theoretical framework for empirical results. Children Youth Environ. 17(4), 144–170 (2007). https://doi.org/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.17.4.0144
Dasgupta, S., Mako, B.: How “Wide Walls” can increase engagement: evidence from a natural experiment in scratch. In: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2018), Paper 361, pp. 1–11. Association for Computing Machinery, New York (2018). https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173935
Fjortoft, I.: The natural environment as a playground for children: the impact of outdoor play activities in pre-primary school children. Early Childhood Educ. J. 29, 111–117 (2001)
Haines-Young, R., Potschin, M.: The links between biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being. In: Raffaelli, D., Frid, C. (eds.) Ecosystem Ecology: A New Synthesis, Ecological Reviews, pp. 110–139. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2010). doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511750458.007
Heckman, J.J.: Giving Kids A Fair Chance. MIT Press, Cambridge (2013)
Johnstone, A., et al.: Nature-based early childhood education and children’s social, emotional and cognitive development: a mixed-methods systematic review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 19(10), 5967 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19105967
Klopfer, E., Squire, K., Jenkins, H.: Environmental detectives: PDAs as a window into a virtual simulated world. In: Paper Presented at International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile (2002)
Klopfer, E., Squire, K.: Environmental Detectives—the development of an augmented reality platform for environmental simulations. Educ. Tech. Research Dev. 56, 203–228 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-007-9037-6
Technologies in Education, Vaxjo, Sweden
Land, S.M., Smith, B.K., Zimmerman, H.: Mobile technologies as mindtools for augmenting observations and reflections in everyday informal environments. In: Learning, Problem Solving, and Mindtools: Essays in Honor of David H. Jonassen, pp. 214–228. Taylor and Francis (2013). https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203111062
Louv, R.: Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder. Algonquin, Chapel Hill (2005)
Resnick, M.: Designing for wide walls. Design Blog: MIT Scratch Team, MIT Media Lab (2016)
Sandoval, W.: Conjecture mapping: an approach to systematic educational design research. J. Learn. Sci. 23(1), 18–36 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2013.778204
Sobel, D.: Childhood and Nature: Design Principles for Educators. Stenhouse Publishers, Grandview Heights (2008)
Strife, S., Downey, L.: Childhood development and access to nature: a new direction for environmental inequality research. Organ. Environ. 22(1), 99–122 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1177/1086026609333340
Wells, N.M., Lekies, K.: Nature and the life course: pathways from childhood nature experiences to adult environmentalism. Child. Youth Environ. 16, 1–25 (2006)
World Economic Forum. Global Risks (2023). https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risks_Report_2023.pdf
Zimmerman, H.T., Land, S.M.: Facilitating place-based learning in outdoor informal environments with mobile computers. Techtrends Tech Trends 58, 77–83 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-013-0724-3
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Alí Fojaco, C. (2023). Curiously: Supporting Young Children and their Caregivers Create Meaningful Learning Adventures in Nature. In: Zaphiris, P., et al. HCI International 2023 – Late Breaking Papers. HCII 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14060. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48060-7_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48060-7_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-48059-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-48060-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)