Playscape aims to address the growing disconnect between children and nature by providing a fun and educational platform that encourages outdoor exploration and species literacy. The project was undertaken as part of my Master’s capstone at UC Berkeley and culminated in receiving the Dr. James R. Chen Award for Outstanding Master’s Capstone Project.
Children now spend 35% less time engaging in outdoor play compared to their parents
Children over the age of 8 are substantially better at identifying Pokémon species (80% accuracy) than real species (less than 50% accuracy)
Roughly 1 million species are at risk of extinction; children are expected to see thousands of species disappear in their lifetime
This disconnection is alarming because nature connectedness has been shown to enhance children’s overall well-being, including more positive affect, vitality, and life satisfaction.
Thus, our goal is to create opportunities for children to engage with nature, in order to increase their connectedness with it.
Motivation: “Being outside on its own is not gonna do it. [My child] needs the allure of an activity to be motivated to play outside” (P5)
A need for nature-based learning: “My ideal would be a little more real outdoorsy stuff, right? You can do that in the Bay Area...but in Toronto, we don’t have as much of that.” (P3)
Content: Focusing on biodiversity, and specifically, local species can be a starting point for improving nature connectedness
Approach: Common current practices on nature education include observation and scavenger hunts
Based on the research findings, we asked ourselves:
Our competitive analysis revealed a significant gap between engaging outdoor exploration apps and educational nature platforms. While apps like Pokémon Go offer exciting gamified experiences, they lack educational value. Conversely, educational platforms like Nat Geo Kids are informative but not engaging.
Promote physical exploration through gamified outdoor experiences
Incentives through rewards and levels
Strong nostalgia factor keeps users engaged
Reliable, factual, and comprehensive educational content
Visually appealing with high-quality images and videos
Predominantly fictional, offering little real-world educational value
Safety concerns due to random spawning of the tasks
Static presentation with limited interactive features
Text-heavy, passive consumption of information
Images primarily feature adult stages of species
Drawing from expert interviews, Playscape aimed to focus on introducing children to local species as a starting point in fostering nature connectedness
Insights from parents reveal that some areas have limited access to nature. Playscape aimed to highlight and celebrate local green spaces, finding beauty in everyday surroundings.
Combine digital interactions with real-world exploration, integrate learning and playing to provide a comprehensive and engaging experience
Incorporate features that promote ongoing engagement, such as points and rewards systems to keep children interested and engaged
Deliver content in manageable, bite-sized manner with visually appealing elements and easy-to-use navigation
To address the gap, we ideated two major flows for the Playscape app: species learning and outdoor exploration. The app starts with an empty habitat. In the species learning flow, children take interactive quizzes on local biodiversity, allowing them to "grow" virtual animals and visualize their lifecycle. The outdoor exploration flow involves treasure hunts in local green spaces to discover digital treasures. These discoveries and new species populate their virtual habitat into a vibrant ecosystem.
We presented our Playscape app to an audience of over 100 attendees as the culmination of our MIMS capstone at UC Berkeley, receiving highly positive feedback for its engaging design and educational value. We were thrilled to be one of the two winning projects out of 14 final presentations. Judges praised the project, noting, "The idea of creating an outdoor interactive installation is clever, and even with just a few screenshots of the digital app, the design stood out as innovative and child-friendly."
