Empowering children to explore their world

Challenge

New York City has a rich ecology of native plants and wildflowers. There are 778 native species in the city, but unfortunately their presence in our parks and public spaces has diminished as a result of construction, invasive species and pollution. The best way to save these species is to create an emotional connection between individuals and nature.

With a focus on children, I decided to develop an interactive concept for a public spaces installation that would encourage active exploration of the native plant life that inhabits local parks.

Design Constraint: Don't Make an App

Creativity has constraints. I decided to challenge myself to develop a solution that did not involve an iPhone app and to take advantage of the public space in my design choices. With the opportunity to enhance a park experience, I thought that an app might limit the interactions a child could have.

Make it Tangible
Children learn best when given the opportunity to indulge in tangibles experiences that help them make meaning of their world. It's important that their learning engage all the senses, so I sketched out ways that I could accomplish this. My first concepts centered around virtual experiences and card collecting, but I soon came to the conclusion that while collectibility would encourage kids to learn about their environments, I felt that this solution was missing an emotional layer and a real connection to the public space were the plants lived.

The Final Concept
Wild City is a park installation for children that encourages active exploration of the native plant life that inhabits their local parks but from the perspective of insects. Using styuvesant cove park as the public space for this project, children can learn about plants alongside bees, butterflies and ladybugs. The Wild City experience has three components that it make it work. First, micro video cameras are placed around the park and connected to nearby booths equipped with a joystick control. While in the booth, a child can move around the environment using joystick controls and also switch views between cameras. An augmented reality layer is placed on top of the video that gives detailed description about what the child sees as she explores.

View Experience Demo

Right-Click to Play

>

Created in Fall 2009 for Public Interfaces. Taught by Jake Barton and Ian Curry