Cultural probes for environmental education: Designing learning materials to engage children and teenagers with local biodiversity

roles, such as note-taking, transportation of the canvas bag, transport, and mobile phone use, while it was explained that the posing of question prompts was a group task. At this point, we also presented the canvas bag and its contents. It is important to note that adult volunteers contributed alongside the research team in the form of structured notetaking, involving: (1) sensory impressions, (2) observations regarding interaction and communication, and (3) any additional notes. For the sensory impressions cat- egory, we looked for data relating to participants’ mood in each station (excitement, boredom, etc.). For the interaction and communication category, our focus was on the interaction between participants in each group. For example, how did participants delegate tasks and share resources? Was there a good synergy between group members? Was anyone left out? For the additional notes category, we asked volunteers and participating team members to record extracts of sentences or conversations uttered between participants. Data analysis. We transcribed data collected during the trail walk and the post-trail activ- ity using Microsoft Excel software to synthesize and categorize data. A thematic analysis of the data was necessary to define the categories of the indicators (type of approach to the task of questioning, focus of the motives to return to the trail, dominant theme of the final responses; and degree of the evaluative judgements of the final responses). Themes were developed a pos-

teriori, without a pre-existing categorization system. This inductive process included all responses collected over the two visits. We expand on the operationalizations of the different categories in the Findings section. To ensure the interpretation and validity of the results, we used several quality processes, namely: 1. Triangulation: two researchers with different academic backgrounds (one with an MS in Biology and one with a PhD in Psychology) performed the analysis. 2. Intercoder reliability test: a Cohen’s kappa coefficient was calculated in a random sample of 35 of the 237 units of meaning, categorized independently by four judges, and re-calculated after redefining categories to solve disagreements and until we reached a near-perfect agree- ment result (0.98). 3. Iterative data processing: performed to include all relevant information from participants as well as accommodate new refinements of the classification system for the only category that resulted in an initial poor agreement kappa coefficient (0.20; "type of approach in the task of questioning" category). Table 4. Field Guide cultural probe toolkit, according to the categories and functions described by Thoring et al. [22]. Item Category Function Station signs Maps Inspire, Instruct Cotton canvas bag Wrapping Practical Activity sheets Frameworks Inspire, Instruct, Motivate Question sheets Frameworks Document Content-free question tokens Frameworks Instruct, Visionary Mobile phone Photo/ Video Documentation Document Drawing board, three pencils, pencil sharpener, and eraser

Supporting Material Document Cord, trash bag Supporting Material Practical, Motivational https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262853.t004 PLOS ONE Cultural probes for environmental education PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262853 February 10, 2022 14 / 30