One of the overarching problems of the world today is that too many people see themselves as dominating other groups of people, and dominating nature. That is a root problem. And thus part of a core solution builds from Kohlberg’s commitment to a universal moral orientation, though extended to include not only all people but the more-than-human world: animals, trees, plants, species, ecosystems, and the land itself. In this article, Peter Kahn makes a case for this form of ethical extensionism, and then present psychological evidence for it in both children and adults, including studies with inner-city Black youth and their parents. Then he builds on Piaget’s, Kohlberg’s, and Turiel’s emphasis that interaction with the physical and social world is a critical mechanism for development. His corollary is this: that to reverse the incredibly fast human-caused destruction of nature—the wellsprings of human existence—we need to deepen and extend people’s interactions with nature, and with its relatively wild forms, even in urban environments. Toward this end, Dr. Kahn discusses his current body of research and framework for urban design based on what are referred to as interaction patterns.
Figure 1: Screens of the NatureCollection app 1: Onboarding “What are your interests?” 2: Homepage 3: My Collections 4: Classification 5: Challenges
We investigated the experiences of 15 parents and their tween children (ages 8-12, n=23) during nature explorations using the NatureCollections app, a mobile application that connects children with nature. Drawing on parent interviews and in-app audio recordings from a 2-week deployment study, we found that tweens’ experiences with the NatureCollections app were influenced by tensions surrounding how parents and tweens negotiate technology use more broadly. Despite these tensions, the app succeeded in engaging tweens in outdoor nature explorations, and parents valued the shared family experiences around nature. Parents desired the app to support family bonding and inform them about how their tween used the app. This work shows how applications intended to support enriching youth experiences are experienced in the context of screen time tensions between parents and tween during a transitional period of child development. We offer recommendations for designing digital experiences to support family needs and reduce screen time tensions.