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

activity allowed me to get to know nature more closely and to know how to better appreciate my surroundings”), or favorable implicit evaluations (e.g., ‘‘birds, life, love, peace”, and ‘‘This activity made me look at nature differently and that we must preserve our surroundings”). Results show that responses did not reflect negative evaluative judgments. More than two- thirds of participants (71%; n = 24) expressed ‘positive’ or ‘very positive’ evaluative judgments, with the older ones always positively appreciating the trail walk (Fig 12; χ2(2) = 11,051; p = .004). In the positive or very positive comments, we did not find significant differences within domi- nant themes–the activities and the experience of the natural context (χ2(1) = 0,341; p = .559). To understand participants’ satisfaction levels, we analyzed the similarity of the semantic field for both ’positive’ and ’very positive comments. The resulting maximum tree (Fig 13) shows a very expressive cluster (orange group) where the pleasantness of nature’s aesthetics predominates ("beautiful"; "beautiful landscapes"; "delight"; etc.). Blue and dark orange clus- ters, on the other hand, reveal a respective focus on the experience of nature ("sounds of birds"; "experience fresh air"; "peace"; etc.) and the natural context itself ("nature"; "laurissilva"; "silence"; etc.), involve multiple senses and sensations. The pink cluster also reveals a focus on the natural context, but with more attention to the specific elements perceived. In the remain-

ing three clusters, participant satisfaction was focused on the trail walk itself, its qualities ("fun"; "creative activity"; etc.) and outputs ("nature observation"; "expanded thinking"; change of perspectives about nature"; "promoted the sense of nature preservation"; etc.). The willingness to return to the trail also constitutes an indirect indicator of participant sat- isfaction when exploring the nature-rich environment. Apart from three of the 36 participants who were absent from the post-trial activity, all remaining participants expressed a willingness to return to the trail. From an inductive analysis of the 35 valid self-reported motivations to return to the trail (Fig 14), we identified three primary motivations: the activities, the nature, and the trail of Mis- te´rios Negros itself. Some participants expressed arguments that focus on their enjoyment of the trail walk and its activities (e.g., ‘‘Because I liked the experience.”; ‘‘It was fun”), others focus on the experience of being in the outdoors (e.g., ‘‘Because I love hiking, exploring and nature”), while still others focus on certain characteristics of the trail itself (e.g., ‘‘Because it is an interesting trail”). Fig 12. Distribution of participants (n = 34), according to age groups, by the degree of the evaluative judgements expressed in their responses to the final free, open- ended activity. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262853.g012 PLOS ONE Cultural probes for environmental education PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262853 February 10, 2022 22 / 30