Anders Szczepanski

Effects of an outdoor education intervention on the mental health of schoolchildren

This study aimed at examining the effects of an outdoor educational intervention on the mental health of schoolchildren. Two elementary schools participated (N = 230); one experimental school where the intervention was implemented, and the other a reference school. Demographic questions and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire were completed by the parents. An outdoor educational intervention was implemented at the experimental school, and the data collection was repeated after one year. The results point towards a small but non-significant improvement in mental health at the experimental school while adjusting for demographics. However, this effect was significantly moderated by gender: boys generally fared better than girls at the intervention school, relative to the reference school. The results indicate that it may be important to address gender issues when educational programmes are implemented in schools.

Exploring place and direction: mobile augmented reality in the Astrid Lindgren landscape

This paper describes the design process and user evaluation of an outdoor educational mobile augmented reality application. The main goal was to enhance and augment the experience of a visit to a culturally significant place, the childhood home of the childrens book author Astrid Lindgren. Visiting sites of historical significance is not limited to the cultural experience itself, but can be seen as an opportunity for learning and exploring a place as it is now and as it has been in past times. By investigating the two design dimensions place and time, our application was conceived as a treasure hunt, where users activate content by moving between places and pointing the mobile device in different directions or at different markers. The application was field tested with mixed groups of children and adults. The evaluation indicates that the prototype did encourage both learning and exploring, which also was the design objective.