Fostering children’s ecological imagination with augmented storying

Abstract

In this study we investigated how augmented storying fosters children’s ecological imagination. Augmented storying couples culturally-based nature stories embedded in augmented storytelling technology with children’s own mobile and multimodal storying activities outdoors in local ecologies. The study took place during a four-month, cross-curricular project in a Finnish elementary school and its neighborhood. Results reveal affective, embodied, sensual, cultural-scientific, symbolic, and moral intensities, highlighting the educational possibilities of augmented storying as a way to enhance children’s ecological imagination by becoming entangled with multimodal stories about the places they inhabit.

Keywords:

• ecological imagination
• stories and storytelling
• augmented reality technology
• augmented storying
• environmental education
• children

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Australian Research Council (grant no DP190102067), the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation (grant no 202100303), KONE foundation (grant no 202008316) and Academy of Finland (grant no 339458).