Using Mobile Technology to Engage Children With Nature

The efficacy of a mobile application to increase connectedness to nature and impart flora/fauna/ecological knowledge was assessed in 747 children in three separate and distinctive parks: a wetland, a prairie grassland, and an indoor tropical garden. The mobile application was developed with place-based education in mind. At each park, children were randomly assigned to one of three groups. One group of children toured the park using an application on a mobile device with their chaperones, another group toured the park with an environmental educator and their chaperones, and a third group toured the parks with a paper map and their chaperones. Results showed that the mobile application was just as effective at connecting children to nature as more traditional ways of non-formal environmental education, but the mobile application offered additional benefits such as higher ratings of fun.