Posted: September 1, 2020

Center faculty members and Insect Biodiversity Fellow Codey Mathis created an app on pollinators

Is your family interested in outdoor learning about pollinators, such as bees and butterflies? The Augmented and Mobile Learning Lab, part of Penn State's College of Education, is looking for study participants to help us test an educational app for iPhones and iPads.

All research activities can be conducted from your home and an outdoor area of choice, including your backyard. No face-to-face contact with the research team is necessary. The full study time is less than one hour. Using the app will take approximately 10-20 minutes. Participating families will also complete short Zoom interviews with researchers before and after testing the app. Once all research activities are completed, your family will receive a $20 electronic Amazon gift card by email.

To be eligible for the research, families must meet the following criteria:

  • Participating adults are parents/legal guardians of all children participating
  • At least one child participating is between 5-12 years old
  • Family has access to an iPad and/or iPhone with working camera and microphone as well as Internet at home
  • The participating family members are willing to participate in two short interviews
  • An adult is comfortable downloading the test app from a secure website (training provided)
  • An adult is comfortable using the iPhone/iPad screen recording feature while the app is being tested (training provided)
  • An adult is comfortable uploading their families' screen recording video into a secure Box at Penn State link (training provided)

If your family would like to participate in our research, please contact our lab manager, , for more information. We are seeking families to participate in September.

Depending on conditions, we may be testing another outdoor learning app related to Pennsylvania's geological history at the Arboretum this fall. If you are interested, please also reach out to .