How can mobile media help children reconnect with nature?
Shared by BRONWIN PATRICKSON
How can mobile media help children reconnect with nature? Challenging the assumption that media disconnects children from nature my research explores how portable digital technologies can help to build connections by enabling enhanced (e.g. GPS enabled), playful (e.g. hunting virtual creatures), sensitive (e.g. location-based triggers) personalized (e.g. tracked journey data), quiet (e.g. offline maps), data rich (e.g. species recognition) and connected (e.g. social stories) relationships with nature. Initial research studies show that such enhancements can support the sense of ongoing emotional attachment so important for nature connectivity (Lumber, Richardson and Shefield, 2017).
For example, it may be possible that using GPS enabled devices to hide and seek physical containers known as ‘geocaches’ containing curious facts, or items relevant to a location becomes an experiential way of thinking through a space that can completely transform knowledge of that natural environment (Rivers 2016).
What do you think mobile applications might offer for reconnection efforts?
References
Lumber, R., Richardson, M., & Sheffield, D. (2017). Beyond knowing nature: Contact, emotion, compassion, meaning, and beauty are pathways to nature connection. PLoS One, 12(5).
Rivers, N.A., 2016. Geocomposition in public rhetoric and writing pedagogy. College Composition and Communication, 67(4), p.576.
