Design Opportunities to Enhance Children's Engagement with Nature in Bhutan: A Working Field Theory

Abstract

Bhutan is known to the world for its rich natural biodiversity. However, with urbanization, children living in urban areas are increasingly spending their time indoors. There is potential to understand how children engage with nature and explore the design of suitable technologies to motivate children to be outdoors. We conducted an exploratory study with 11 parents and 12 children (7-8 years old) living in urban Bhutan to understand how children with their family engage with nature. We found that children experience nature physically with adults’ presence and design elements such as fantasy, sensory, curiosity, and game play with friends and siblings can enhance nature engagement. Concurrently, we found that technologies can be disruptive when children are outdoors with their friends. The contribution of this paper is a deeper understanding of how children experience nature, which is visualized through a working field theory, and a discussion of design opportunities to enhance nature interactions.