How children represent sustainability in the home

Abstract

This paper describes an exploratory study about children's perspective on sustainability in the house through a drawingtelling method. Here, we describe the methodological framework used for interviewing children about issues related to sustainability using the drawing-telling technique as described by Susan Wright [26]. The participants (children from age 9 to 13) were asked to draw two houses and then describe their drawings in terms of sustainable actions and features. The results show how the participants understand sustainability and how they represent it in the context of a house. This pilot study is an initial step to investigate if there are opportunities to develop eco-visualizations (EVs) for children. The goal of this study is to inform the design of eco-visualizations for children based on their understanding of sustainability and their own visualization of their homes.

Multiple voices in ICT design with children – a nexus analytical enquiry

“…Children should be encouraged to work together to support their motivation, creativity and learning, among others (Giaccardi et al, 2012, Gritschacher and Slany 2012, Guha et al, 2004. Challenges have also been identified in children's collaboration (Guha et al, 2004) one problem being children's tendency to replicate ideas from their peers instead of producing original creations (Kuure et al, 2010;Mazzone et al, 2010;Read et al, 2005;Desjardins and Wakkary, 2011). This tendency was evident also in our studies, although children not only adopted ideas from each other but also from teachers, researchers and from their surrounding life world in general.…”

“…Peer pressure may also affect the design sessions with children. Children have also been reported to adopt ideas from their peers' designs (Kuure et al, 2010;Mazzone et al, 2010;Read, Horton, and Mazzone, 2005;Desjardins and Wakkary, 2011).…”

“…Children's experiences, preconceptions, understandings, associations with familiar real-world experiences, memories, expertise and knowledge affect the data children produce for the researchers (Desjardins and Wakkary, 2011;Frauenberger, Food, and Keay-Bright, 2010;Iivari et al, 2014;Kuure et al, 2010;Price and Falcão, 2009;Read et al, 2004). Hence, there is also a strong tendency among children to borrow and recycle elements from their life world during design.…”

Engaging children in longitudinal behavioral studies through playful technologies

“…Researchers have thus devised a number of solutions to support children's verbalization and engagement in the interview process, ranging from drawing activities [22,4,19] to tangible objects as stimuli for emotional expression [11].…”

Family interaction for responsible natural resource consumption

“…Our research differs from Bartram's work [1] on the fact that our approach is based on the family bonds rather than on the response of individuals, ours is designed for small children and parents, we do not use electronic sensors, and we cover the food wasting problem. Although there is a large number of literature regarding the role that individuals play in sustainability, and the importance of parents to influence children to achieve sustainability at home, little has been devoted to the impact of children influencing their parents and their perspective on the matter [5]. We chose to develop a game, because ludic applications have been proven to support behavioral change [4,8].…”