Direct contact with nature is paramount in deepening children’s and teenagers’ interest in biodiversity. Learning materials chosen to convey information and engage participants during outings in nature-rich environments are varied and can support rich learning experiences. For this purpose, learning materials can be acquired "off-the-shelf" or developed for site-specific locations or projects. However, there is...
Here we present Field Guide, a mobile application (app) designed to connect communities to nature-rich environments, which play a crucial role in nature conservation efforts. The app aligns to a mode of science communication that seeks to establish direct contact between publics and specialised scientific communities, most commonly known as the ’ask a scientist’ approach. Field Guide uses a geolocation position...
Crowdsourcing in urban environments, geospatial annotation, social curation, and engaging citizens through social media applications and community-aware, place-based computing systems are at the forefront of pervasive urban technologies aimed at improving satisfaction, strengthening communities, and empowering citizens as stakeholders. This paper reports on the user-centered design of a holistic community engag...