Design and Deploying Tools to ‘Actively Engaging Nature’: The My Naturewatch Project as an Agent for Engagement

‘Shifting Baseline Syndrome’ is highly apparent in the context of generational shifts in work and life patterns that reduce interaction with and knowledge of the natural world, and therefore expectations of it. This is exacerbated by changes in the natural world itself due to climate change, biodiversity decline and a range of anthropogenic factors. Distributed and accessible technologies, and grass roots approaches provide fresh opportunities for interactions, which enable active engagement in ecological scenarios. The My NatureWatch project uses digital devices to collect visual content about UK wildlife, promoting ‘active engagements with nature’. The project embodies Inclusive Design in the Digital Age, as the activity; engages a wide demographic community, can be used by all, provided user led agency and produced methodological design lessons. The article frames My Naturewatch as an agent for active designed engagements with nature. The research objective is to comprehend ‘how to design tools for positive nature engagement’ holding value for; (1) academic communities as validated methodologies (2) the public through access to enabling technologies, content and knowledge (3) industry in the form of new; experiences, engagements and commerce. The approach is specifically designed to yield insights from a multitude of engagements, through the deployment of accessible, lowcost products. Project reporting documents the benefits, pitfalls and opportunities in the aforementioned engagement uncovered through design-led approaches. Insights are gathered from public/community facing workshops, wildlife experts, ecologists, economists, educators and wildlife NGO’s. The engagement methodologies are compared highlighting which initiative yielded ‘Active Engagement with Nature’

Fostering natural world engagements: Design lessons & issues from, the My Naturewatch training programme

Nature's welfare is inter-twinned with humankinds’, requiring mass citizen-led action. Wildlife advocate Attenborough says, ‘we share responsibility for the future of life on earth, [we all have] the power to change’. The My Naturewatch project (NW) follows research through design approaches: deploying DIY devices, supporting new engagement methods between nature, technology and humans. The NW cameras assist participants in capturing images of ‘back garden’ wildlife. Authors position NW cameras as agent(s), enabling ‘designed engagement(s)’ establishing; agency, serendipity and impact. The article recounts a ‘Training Scheme’, providing nature organisation(s) methods to foster public engagement through DIY, accessible digital technologies. The scheme encouraged appropriation; suiting contextual, environmental and organisational requirements. Authors unpick experiences and issues, realised (through practice) by fourteen nationally acclaimed wildlife and conservation organisations, independently running workshops with NW tools. Findings report on issues and opportunities of; designed community engagement(s) for practitioners engaged with defining more sustainable practices

Engaging design: Empowering beyond ‘participation’ for active engagement

Design’s approach to complexity; often employs tactics aimed at engaging the public, provoking awareness, seeking transitional behaviour(s) and provoking changes in culture. Engaging Design (ED) initiates active involvement (as a new paradigm for embedding provocative design propositions) within communities and society. ED is an empowering practice (traversing beyond participation) energising communities, providing agency and facilitating; ‘self-authored’ and ‘community authored’ responsible change. Distributed tools, capabilities and access to knowledge has transformed ‘authorship’ to be socially, environmentally and contextually led. ED examples respond to environmental concerns; presenting opportunities to achieve sustainable and responsible goals. The work focuses on ‘authorship and responsibility’ as material and engagement ‘mis-use’ remains unregulated. This presents design’s responsibility toward embodying sustainable behaviour in all its means. We analyse two case study research projects that foster independence, authorship, as a means to engender engagement; 1) My Naturewatch, engages DIY technologies to create digital trail cameras, empowering people to create and author ‘accessible nature’, through ‘homecooked’ environment exploration. 2) Grangemead, is a facilitated, community-led response, enabling participants to design their own garden within a local-authority carehome. Authors unpick design practice examples, presenting Engaging Design methods for; impactful, responsible, co-authored, sustainable and resilient design interactions

Factors associated with nature connectedness in school-aged children

Open Access articleIncreasing people's sense of connectedness to nature has the potential to be a powerful tool in driving pro-conservation behaviours, as well as improving physical and mental health. Multi-age cross-sectional studies have shown that nature connectedness significantly dips after early childhood before recovering in adulthood. However, the precise pattern of this age-related decline is not well-described or understood. We conducted a questionnaire survey of children living on the island of Jersey, Channel Islands, using the Nature Connection Index (NCI) to identify biological, behavioural and social factors associated with nature connectedness levels. Using an information-theoretic approach, we analysed data from 17% of all Jersey's children aged between 7-18 years (N=1872) to investigate the effects of age, gender, school location and funding type. NCI levels were consistently higher in girls than in boys, and declined with age in both sexes into the early teens. Children attending schools in urban areas, particularly at primary level, had a lower mean NCI than those in rural locations. In adolescents (11-18 years), self-reported daily screen time was negatively correlated with NCI scores. Most students reported that their home was the place they preferred to relax, but the majority chose a natural environment as their favourite place. Our results confirm the marked decline in nature connectedness after early childhood but also point to interventions that may help reduce this deterioration, with associated wellbeing and behaviour change benefits

Geoinformatics in Citizen Science

The book features contributions that report original research in the theoretical, technological, and social aspects of geoinformation methods, as applied to supporting citizen science. Specifically, the book focuses on the technological aspects of the field and their application toward the recruitment of volunteers and the collection, management, and analysis of geotagged information to support volunteer involvement in scientific projects. Internationally renowned research groups share research in three areas: First, the key methods of geoinformatics within citizen science initiatives to support scientists in discovering new knowledge in specific application domains or in performing relevant activities, such as reliable geodata filtering, management, analysis, synthesis, sharing, and visualization; second, the critical aspects of citizen science initiatives that call for emerging or novel approaches of geoinformatics to acquire and handle geoinformation; and third, novel geoinformatics research that could serve in support of citizen science