What motivates children to play outdoors? Potential applications for interactive digital tools Bronwyn J. Cumbo, Brent C. Jacobs, Anne Marie Kanstrup Tuck W. Leong Aalborg University University of Technology Aalborg, Denmark Ultimo, NSW, Australia [email protected] [bronwyn.cumbo; brent.jacobs; tuckwah.leong]@uts.edu.au

1. ABSTRACT natural areas available, and growing safety concerns Children (8-12 years) in living cities are spending less amongst parents around traffic and strangers is keeping time playing outdoors in local natural places. There is many children indoors during their free time (Louv, potential for place-specific, digital technology to be 2005). Increasingly children are spending their free time designed to motivate children ‘off the couch’ and engaging in sedentary, indoor activities, seeking out outdoors into their local natural places. This paper playful, social interactions through online or digital presents the outcomes of three workshops conducted games, designed to engage children for extended periods with eleven children (8-12 years) in Aalborg, Denmark, (Louv 2005; Malone, 2013). designed to understand key motivators for outdoor play in children. Children were divided into five design Policies and programs are being implemented in cities groups. Fictional inquiry and a series of artifacts and globally to address the loss of independent mobility and triggers were used to communicate the design task to regular play in local nature in children, such as children and inspire a range of relevant designs. The UNICEF’s Child-Friendly Cities Program and recent design outcomes of these workshops, the motivators for research in urban design and human geography (e.g. outdoor play, and potential applications for interactive Malone, 2013; Kullman, 2010). However, the potential digital technology to inspire more regular, outdoor play role of interactive digital technology in supporting these experiences in children will be discussed. initiatives is yet to be thoroughly explored. Author Keywords Mobile and place-specific technologies have been Motivation, outdoor play, children, participatory design, designed to connect children to the physical, natural interactive digital technology. environment, most commonly observed in educational contexts in schools (Rogers and Price, 2009) or citizen ACM Classification Keywords science programs (Han et al, 2011). Games and Design, Human Factors applications that encourage outdoor, social play (e.g., 2. INTRODUCTION Geocaching), or enhance the independent mobility of Regular, child-directed play outdoors in natural areas is children (Williams et al, 2005) further demonstrate the considered an important process in the development of potential for place-specific digital tools to inspire and children during middle childhood (8-12 years) (Chawla, enable child-directed play in local natural places. 1992). Children of this age often find and create ‘special Here, we report the outcomes of three workshops with places’ where they feel safe to play independently with eleven children (8-12 years) conducted as part of a larger siblings and friends, contributing to the child’s sense of research project investigating how digital tools may identity, independence and self-confidence (Hart, 1979). motivate and enable children living in urban Natural places close to home are valuable play places of environments connect with their local nature. The study children, as the variety of structures, textures and loose- aims to identify types of play activities and processes parts they contain affords a diversity of physical, creative that motivate children to play outdoors (rather than the and social play opportunities, (Louv, 2005). barriers to play e.g.: safety concerns of parents). Many children living in cities today do not have regular Outcomes of this study will inform the design of opportunities for child-directed play in local natural interactive, digital tools that may inspire outdoor play. places. Urbanisation has reduced the number of local 3. METHODOLOGY Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for Study site and participants personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are Research was conducted in the city of Aalborg, Denmark not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy (approx. 200.000 inhabitants). Eleven children (8-12 otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, years) from two primary schools, and their requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. accompanying parents took part in a series of research OZCHI '14, Dec 2-5, 2014, Sydney, Australia activities (Cumbo et al, 2014), including those in this Copyright © 2014 ACM xxx-x-xxxx-xxxx-x/xx/xx... $xx.00 1 study. Both schools were selected as they were nearby the children at the beginning of the workshop, using a large natural areas (< 5 mins walk) containing a diversity storyboard to visually convey the story and task. Images of structures, flora and fauna, which Hart (1979) reported of the selected local natural areas were included to as a key motivation for outdoor play in children. embed the design task in this specific outdoor location. Workshop design Children then brainstormed ideas in their groups to Each child took part in one of three, co-design initiate the flow of creativity and collaborative workshops of 2-hours duration that aimed to enable discussion. Parents acted as both facilitator and scribe, children to design and describe the types of experiences, prompting discussions using a series of questions places and social contexts that may motivate them to provided by the researcher, such as “what types of places visit their local natural area. Five collaborative design would you like Anna and Jesper to explore? “What kind groups comprising two or three children of similar age of people would you like to be with them there?” Ideas and/or gender were formed to undertake the co-design discussed in Danish were scribed in English for a non- activity. Danish researcher to interpret. Each group was also Workshops were conducted indoors (ex-situ) in a school provided with a series of playful, creative or outdoor classroom to allow children to imagine and create their images to further trigger the flow of ideas if required. ideal outdoor play experience without physical or Children were introduced to the design materials that climatic restrictions. Each workshop was divided into were placed upon a shared table in the center of the three stages: i) an initial introduction of the design task room. Malleable and abstract materials were selected for and brainstorm in groups (15 mins); ii) a group co-design this workshop to support children to create the ideas they task (75 mins); and iii) final discussion of design envisaged, including Lego (blocks, characters and outcomes with researchers and other participants (30 artifacts), magic boxes (containing shapes, characters mins). A series of artifacts and triggers were and unidentifiable artifacts), play dough (eight colours), incorporated into these sessions to maximize natural materials (leaves, sticks and cones from trees), communication and engagement of children in the task, and stationary (colouring pencils/crayons, paper, glue, which will be discussed in the next section. scissors) (Fig 1). Materials with specific or literal An English-Danish translator was present at each of the functions were limited as they may have constrained the sessions to facilitate communication between children creative freedom of children (Chawla, 1992). and the primary researcher. Parents also acted as translators, scribing the ideas of children during the brainstorm session, and translating dialogue during the design session, and the final design discussion. Parents were instructed to convey the ideas of their children accurately, minimizing their influence or interpretation. Artifacts and triggers of co-design Artifacts and triggers were designed to engage children in the co-design task (Morgensen and Trigg, 1992) and inspire design outcomes that may provide realistic indications of their motivations for outdoor play. Earlier investigations with these children found they were generally motivated by opportunities for social collaboration, creativity, imaginary role-play, learning, and problem solving (Cumbo et al, 2014). These Figure 1: Design materials available to child designers elements were intentionally incorporated into workshop Each group was provided with a large piece of paper activities to maximize child engagement. As children (A1) and spent 75 minutes designing a world for Anna were designing in an ex-situ setting - indoors in a school and Jesper. During this design process the researcher classroom rather than outdoors - artifacts were designed observed the interactions between the children, asked to stimulate the imaginations of children outdoors into them questions about the thinking behind their designs, their local nature. and encouraged them to use the variety of design materials available. A fictional inquiry narrative (Dindler and Iverson, 2007) was used to introduce children to the design task. The The final thirty minutes of the workshop was spent narrative ‘Wild play’ describes two virtual children, presenting and discussing the ideas of each group. Anna and Jesper who left their virtual world Futura and During this process the researcher asked a series of travelled to Aalborg to play in the physical, natural questions to capture and interpret the meaning of the world. Life in Futura had not equipped Anna and Jesper design elements. with the skills they needed to create their own physical, Data collection and analysis outdoor experiences, so the children were asked to Data was collected from video and audio recordings of design a range of activities, places and people they the three workshops and the initial brainstorm outcomes would like Anna and Jesper to experience in their local, natural area. A native Danish speaker told the story to 2 scribed by the parents. Audio and video files were characters, or children. Children of this age are often translated and transcribed. motivated by opportunities to design and direct their own experiences without the influence of adults in places they The Person-Place-Process (PPP) framework (Scannell feel safe and secure (Chawla, 1992). Providing children and Gifford, 2010) was used to organize motivational with more opportunities to design and direct their own themes. This framework has been developed to experiences outdoors may be a powerful tool for understand the relationships between people and place, connecting them with nature more regularly. and has been previously applied in the field of environmental psychology. Design outcomes were Imaginative and creative play divided into three main categories: 1) Person – All groups injected elements of fantasy or ‘magic’ into individual motivations that influence the child’s their designs through the inclusion of imaginary relationship with their natural place; 2) Place – being the characters, places or activities for Anna and Jesper to physical and social place characteristics of appeal; and 3) experience. The degree and type of fantasy varied Process - the affect, cognition and behaviour triggered in between groups, with some groups using imaginary this natural place This analysis assumes that the designs narrative as the core foundation of their designs, while children created for Anna and Jesper reflect the types of others developed designs incorporating hints or more places, activities and experiences they would like to have realistic fantasy elements. in their local nature themselves. Place: Physical place characteristics 4. RESEARCH OUTCOMES: Connect with other living creatures MOTIVATORS A keen motivation to connect with other living creatures Person: Intrinsic motivators of children was conveyed by incorporating animal or animal-like characters into designs. These animals were often Exploration and adventure Motivation to engage in exploration and adventure was anthropomorphized or given special powers that enabled depicted in all five group designs and scenarios. For Anna and Jesper to communicate with them. Some of the example, one group with three 11 to 12-year-old girls children demonstrated a deep respect for other living and boys created a survival-style scenario, where Anna creatures, and a desire to teach Anna and Jesper about and Jesper could collaborate with other children to the value of conserving and protecting other living survive in the forest, making their own huts, hunting and creatures. For example, one group of two 9-year-old girls gathering their own food, and cooking it on a bonfire designed ‘dream horse’ characters that collect and share they had prepared (Fig 2). Two of the groups designed the dreams of children in the forest. These horses, along quests that involved Anna and Jesper overcoming a with all other life in the forest were kept alive by a ‘super series of challenges to reach an end-goal, usually flower’ – a central life force. The girls explained that if ‘treasure’. Discussion around these designs revealed that this ‘super flower’ was destroyed, all the horses would these children are excited and motivated by adventurous die, along with the dreams of the children they had outdoor experiences as they provide them with an heard. opportunity to learn, and a sense of accomplishment and Older children (>11 years) demonstrated a desire to independence. interact with ‘realistic’, often less noticeable parts of nature they appreciate. For example, one group of 12- year-olds included a variety of detailed natural elements in their designs - small spider webs, birds and their nests, flowers and particular types of trees, and communicated - their wish for Anna and Jesper to experience the elements in nature that may be easily overlooked. Find or create ‘special places’ in local nature All the groups incorporated a shelter, den or home into their designs, describing them as a place where they can go to relax or play (eg: Fig 2). One group designed a ‘kid’s house’ where all the children in the forest would go and stay together. Around this house children would play hide-and-seek, or tag, cook food together and sit around the bonfire. This is reflective of the research into Figure 2: One design by a group of three 11 and 12-year- special places of children (Hart, 1979) that emphasises olds conveying a motivation for adventure and physical the creation of places where they feel safe to experiment challenges, such as climbing trees, swimming, making a and role play with friends. shelter and fishing. Physical challenges and risk-taking Child-designed and -directed play All children described a strong motivation to experience Adults and adult characters were absent from the group physical and at times challenging interactions within designs. The people and characters designed for Anna nature - swimming in lakes or rivers, fishing, climbing and Jesper to interact with were animals, animal-like 3 trees, running through meadows and picking flowers. There is potential for interactive digital tools to be Both groups of boys (aged 9-10 and 12 years) designed designed to inspire tangible, place-based interactions these physical activities to challenge or extend their with nature by triggering these motivators for play in personal physical capacities (Fig 2). For example, one children. For example, children are motivated by social group designed a triathlon-style course for Jesper to take experiences with other children, so digital tools may be part in. Another designed a large river for Anna and used to build communities of local families and children Jesper to swim in that contained a river monster that may around their local natural place. To enhance the ‘magic’ attack them if they swam too slowly. Another group and opportunities for adventure in local nature, digital designed a ‘winter area’ for Anna and Jesper to visit that narratives may be embedded within the physical place contained a snow monster that would frighten children for children to create, share, or expand upon. that visited the forest during the winter months. Individual motivators of children are likely to vary with Functional affordances available in nature age, gender and place characteristics. To cater to these Designs presented by the groups demonstrated a differences, digital tools should be flexible in their familiarity with materials in their local nature, and the designs, so children may create their own play diversity of ‘affordances’ they contained. Affordances experiences in space. To encourage tangible, physical are described by Gibson (1979) as the appropriation of a interactions, digital narratives may present children with material for a purpose for which it was not intended, a series of creative, cognitive or physical activities to such as using a stick as a broom or a sword. For undertake in their local natural place. example, three of the groups intended Anna and Jesper to use sticks from the forest for three different purposes: a It is important to acknowledge that this research was sword in imaginary battle game, material to make a conducted indoors (ex-situ) rather than outdoors. Future shelter, or as the seat of a tree swing. research will be conducted with children to verify and expand upon the motivators for outdoor play in nature. Process Researchers will then work with communities of children Positive affective experiences and parents to co-design, test and evaluate digital The affective influence of nature was a positive prototypes that aim to motivate and enable children to motivator that four of the five groups conveyed through play outdoors in their local nature. their designs. For example, two 9-year-old girls 5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS described the forest as a ‘happy place’ and wanted Anna Thank you to the children and parents that took part in and Jesper feel happy when they were there. A 12-year- this research, Jeni Paay and Jesper Kjeldskov, Andy old girl conveyed the less tangible affective experiences Bauer, Pernille Andersen, Sinem Arslan, and Aalborg in nature in part of her discussion about her design when University Design Lab. she said, “I like to hear the birds and see the flowers in the sunlight. It makes me happy to… be with other living 6. REFERENCES things. 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