Berglind Karlsdóttir
How can technology encourage families to be more active in nature?
Abstract
On the 1st of October 2019, LuLa the alien arrived in twenty-three Forestry England forests. Families across the country headed to these sites, armed with an augmented reality app, to take the ‘Glow Trail’ and assist Shaun the Sheep in the quest of returning LuLa safely back to space. The app, developed in a partnership between Forestry England, Sport England and Aardman Studios, aimed to encourage less active families (primarily with children between the ages 6-12) to be physically active in the forest.
The benefits of physical activity in nature are numerous and widely reported. They include improved physical health, reduction of stress and trait anxiety, and improvement of mood, attention capacity and even self-esteem. Outdoor activities are often targeted at young people, a group which is increasingly inactive and prone to poor mental health and loneliness. However, encouraging increased engagement with such activities remains a challenge.
Forest Research evaluated the immediate outcomes of the Glow Trail using face-to-face questionnaires and through qualitative data collected from participating families and their children as they finished the trail.
The app with the Shaun the Sheep theme was successful in encouraging participation and engaging the children. Results show a range of benefits, most of which related to nature and physical activity (being outside in nature; walking or running in the forest). Children especially enjoyed the cognitive aspects of the trail, such as looking for clues, and described it as an “adventure”. Interestingly, self-reported physical activity levels of adults participating in the Glow Trail were approximately half that of the UK average, while children’s physical activity levels were considerably higher than the UK average.
We discuss whether app-based trails such as the Shaun the Sheep Glow Trail can be used as a tool to encourage young people to undertake social physical activity in nature.
Biography
Berglind is a Social Scientist with Forest Research where she currently studies management practices relating to tree pests and diseases. In this work, she engages with practitioners to understand policy incentives, risk perceptions and decision-making processes. Other projects include reviewing evaluations of the impact of forest research on practice, and evaluation of Forestry England activity trails. Berglind has an MSc in Conservation Science from Imperial College London and has previously worked in amphibian conservation, partly during an internship at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. Berglind also has a keen interest in connectedness to nature and behaviour change interventions.