Learning sufficiency through play: A participatory playground transformation with children in Gothenburg
Publicerad
Författare
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Master's Thesis
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Environmental crises have become a defining
challenge of our time. While technological
efficiency is often the first solution that comes
to mind, sufficiency, the practice of consciously
reducing resource use, is crucial for achieving
true sustainability. Addressing sufficient behavior
is essential for a long-term sustainable future.
Moreover, cultivating this mindset among future
generations, particularly children, can have a
lasting impact. Experiential learning, which
emphasizes direct interaction, experimentation, and
reflection, provides an effective way for children
to internalize sufficiency as a lived practice rather
than abstract knowledge. Play, as a powerful
learning tool for children, makes it a meaningful
approach to engage them in understanding
sufficiency.Thus, This thesis explores how the
transformation of playgrounds can help children
learn sufficiency through experiential learning.
The research investigates how playgrounds
can go beyond recreation to become tools for
teaching sufficiency principles. Through different
play experiences, children can face resource
constraints and learn to make thoughtful decisions
about energy use and material consumption. The
focus is on engaging children with the concept
of sufficiency, emphasizing learning through
experience rather than formal instruction.
To understand how sufficiency is currently
incorporated into public initiatives in Gothenburg,
an interview with the municipality was conducted.
The findings highlighted the importance of focusing
on Gothenburg due to Sweden’s high consumption
rates. While there are plans addressing the technical
aspects of sufficiency, the social dimensions remain
underexplored, making this research both timely and
significant.
Literature studies on sufficiency principles,
experiential learning, and playground design formed
the thesis’s theoretical foundation.
Reference project analysis also contributed to
the data collection. The findings demonstrate
that play-based public spaces can effectively
introduce children to sufficiency principles
through low-tech, interactive features that require
physical engagement and decision-making. The
thesis argues that embedding sufficiency into
playgrounds can complement formal education
by offering hands-on learning environments.
An initial round of participatory workshops with
children was conducted to gather insights into how
children of different ages perceive sufficiency. Collage
techniques and storyboards were used to communicate
with students in the 1st, 3rd, and 5th grades.
To better understand how children engage with
resources and learning, interviews with teachers
were conducted. These confirmed that children
engage more deeply when learning is hands-on,
interactive, and rooted in real-life experiences.
A second workshop was organized to co-design
the playground with the children, allowing
them to take an active role in shaping their play
environment. The goal was to explore how
sufficiency principles could be integrated into
play spaces from the children's perspectives.
Finally, this thesis develops design strategies for
transforming playgrounds through a participatory
design process grounded in sufficiency principles.
It emphasizes how involving children in the
creation of their own play environment becomes
a form of experiential learning. Rather than
offering a fixed design, the outcome is a flexible,
replicable model that allows communities to
adapt and co-create based on local materials and
needs. Ultimately, this project contributes to both
sustainability discourse and participatory design
by showing how sufficiency can be made tangible,
engaging, and transformative through play.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Sustainable future, Sufficency, Children, participatory approach, experiential learning