Psychological Research
World Issues
UN sustainable development goals
The aim of the project was to apply psychology to a UN goal of our choice creating a practical solution. The UN goals as are presented below:
Choosing a goal
Originally our group worked on several different UN goals, (see appendices’ 1-5), to see which we liked the most. Through this, some general themes emerged, and the idea of sustainability and how children view and interact with the natural world spearheaded us in the direction of our project. This is seen below in our brainstorming of ideas.
The UN sustainable goal we chose to focus on was Quality Education but applied to the underlying issues of connection to nature and how we can improve children’s interaction with their natural surroundings by incorporating the things that mostly separates them from this, technology.
Research illustrates a problem with children’s disconnection from nature. Children are increasingly spending less time in their natural surroundings (RSPBS, 2013a).
Researchers have identified time and scheduling constraints as barriers to children’s opportunities to connect with nature. Furthermore, schools also present challenges, with school work occupying a large portion the child’s time (Skar et al., 2016).
A study conducted by Bingimlas (2009) identified that teachers lack the resources and confidence to facilitate the use of technology in teaching engaging outdoor education lessons.
Key identified problems
1.
Connecting to nature
School work and scheduling as barriers to children’s opportunities to connect with nature.
2.
Education lacks resources for effective teaching
Teachers lack the resources and confidence that facilitate the use of technology in teaching and engaging in outdoor education lessons.
Problem statement
1.
How
How could we provide a simple technological based solution to solve the two main problems identified?
2.
For who?
Identified user groups of students, teachers and parents
3.
Why?
So the students can be reconnected with nature, in a modern and educational way.
The Solution
Schools can incorporate outdoor education into the curriculum to address this issue.
A recent study introduced a program of biodiversity focused activities to an institution which took place for a year on school grounds. Such research showed how building engagement with nature into the school curriculum is an effective way of increasing the child’s connectedness to nature while improving their psychological wellbeing (Harvey et al., 2020).
Literature indicates the benefits of technology use with regard to students learning skills and affording them freedom to work in their spare time (Kraalingen, 2022). Furthermore, technology that includes strong visualisation elements have been found to be helpful resources for teachers in helping students understand concepts while creating a learning experience that is interactive and interesting. This can enhance the child’s participation in the classroom (Raja & Nagasubramani, 2018).
We believe that our solution could help teachers to leap over of some of these barriers experienced in the modern classroom as well as getting children engaged and interested in nature.
