Summer on a GeoBike: Mapping for recreation with refugee youth

Ekaterina Egorova, Javier Martinez, Kateryna Miller, Louise Francis

Geographic citizen science – public participation in scientific projects with a strong geospatial component – is becoming a common form of knowledge production today. The increasing availability and democratization of geospatial technology allow to collect geo-referenced data at an unprecedented scale. Essentially, anyone with a GPS-enabled smartphone can share a wealth of information on the environment – whether grounded in their perceptions and unique experiences with places (e.g., the perceived attractiveness of places) or measured with sensors (e.g., the level of noise or pollution).

Geographic citizen science empowers communities to raise and solve diverse issues in their local environments, but also brings multifaceted benefits to its participants. Just as citizen science in general, geographic citizen science allows for multiple forms of sociality – meeting like-minded people, sharing what one sees and learns, and building new connections.'[1] It provides opportunities for personal development and learning, whereby participants increase their self-efficacy through new knowledge and skills.[2] Environmental citizen science projects that take place outdoors strengthen connections between people and nature and provide physical and emotional benefits from exposure to the natural environment.[3] Place-based citizen science, where participants closely interact with certain locations, also contributes to place discovery and place attachment, enriching participants’ images of cities with new emotions and meanings.[4]

While the amount of citizen science projects is steadily increasing, citizen science does not engage evenly across all sectors of society, “leaving aside those whose lives could benefit most from the activities”.[5] One group that remains virtually absent from the citizen science landscape is refugee communities.[6] At the same time, documented benefits from participating in citizen science mirror remarkably the needs of refugees in relation to well-being. Indeed, research on support strategies for refugees suggests a close link between their well-being and the presence of therapeutic places and activities – such as public education programs, volunteering, and community gardening – that instill a sense of competence and autonomy, provide opportunities for social interaction and learning, contribute to the development of emotional bonds with the new home environment.[7]

This report presents a citizen science project with refugee children and youth from Ukraine residing in refugee facilities in the Twente region of The Netherlands. The project engaged participants in the active exploration and mapping of public places for sports and recreation. The key objective of this report is to showcase the multifaceted nature of place-based citizen science, which – apart from collecting valuable data on youth’s perception and use of urban spaces [8] – allows participants to gain new knowledge and skills, to restore key basic needs such as autonomy and sociality, to explore and gain first-hand, embodied knowledge of their new home towns, and to deepen and capture this knowledge in an online map, as well as through art and storytelling. The report outlines key project activities including their objective, form, and implementation, followed by the project team’s initial observations and recommendations. Methodologically, it draws on informal discussions with participants, an ex-post survey of participants’ experiences, as well as project leaders’ observations. The rest of the report is organized as follows. Section 2 provides background information on the Map4Rec project, followed by Section 3 that details key project activities grouped into “Introduction”, “Co-creation”, “Fieldwork”, “Project work” and “Closing event”. Section 4 provides initial observations and recommendations, and concludes the report with our thoughts on the future directions within this line of work.

Map4Rec: Mapping Sports and Recreation Opportunities with Refugee Youth

Sports and recreation opportunities are crucial for the well-being of youth, yet there are multiple barriers to equal presence in outdoor activity landscapes, such as accessibility and inclusion. For refugee children and youth, additional barriers can relate to the inability to explore their new environments without the supervision of adults, and to the lack of knowledge of accepted social behaviour and affordances offered by public spaces.[9]

The “Mapping Sports and Recreation Opportunities with Refugee Youth” project (henceforth – Map4Rec) was designed at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation ITC at the University of Twente, The Netherlands. On the one hand, the project aimed at collecting data on the refugee youth’s perception of urban spaces, their recreation patterns and geographies, to inform inclusive urban planning and promote their rights to shape urban environments, as envisioned byUNICEF’s Child-Friendly Cities initiative. Special efforts were directed towards establishing connections with local urban planners and understanding their interests and information needs, with the final goal of making collected data actionable. On the other hand, this outdoor summertime project aimed to create space for recreation, place exploration, and fulfilment of basic needs, helping children and youth to restore self, opportunity (competence and autonomy), sociality, and safety.[10] To support participants’ sense of competence and autonomy, the project approached children as knowledgeable social actors with their own distinctive abilities to understand and interpret their environment. The project can be positioned on the sixth step of the Ladder of Children’s Participation [11] – “Adult-Initiated, Shared Decisions with Children” – since participants had an active role in the decision-making processes. To support the development of competencies, the project included a strong educational component, whereby participants learned about citizen science and the research process, and acquired skills and competencies falling within the Digital and Green Competence Frameworks – DigiComp and GreenComp.[12] Digital competencies were introduced through the prism of geospatial technology – e.g., collecting data through an online application, programming and using sensors, and making maps in QGIS. [13] Green competencies were enhanced through the introduction to design thinking, and through the work on the final project where participants designed an inclusive and sustainable place for recreation. To support the restoration of self and sociality, the project provided space for the active exploration of urban built and green areas, physical activity and play, creativity.

The project was funded through IMPETUS, a large-scale project that supports citizen science initiatives through innovative funding. It engaged refugee children and youth from Ukraine residing in refugee facilities in six cities and towns inTwente: Almelo, Holten, Oldenzaal, Borne, Tubbergen, and Vriezenveen. In total, 74 children and youth of the age group 8 to 14 participated in various stages of the project, working in teams of four to eight participants. Two adults involved in the project closely interacted with children: the PI and the community manager, the first and the third authors on this paper respectively. Several volunteers joined the project to help with the field trips (each field trip had to be chaperoned by two adults, one of them being the PI or the community manager). The project was thus multicultural and multilingual, whereby the PI and the community manager spoke Ukrainian and Russian, while volunteers were local residents and one international student speaking Dutch and English. Participants were encouraged to speak the language they were most comfortable with.

The whole project lasted for six months, and the phase actively involving participants took place between June (information sessions and recruitment) and November 2023 (closing event). The core project activity – fieldwork – took place during summer vacations in August. Each team conducted 20 to 25 hours of fieldwork, collectively mapping 101 places that can be found on the Map4Rec map on the EpiCollect platform. In the following section, we provide a detailed overview of the project activities.

Project Activities

Project activities can be grouped into the five project stages schematically rep- represented in Figure 1 – “Introduction”, “Co-creation”, “Fieldwork”, “Project work” and “Closing event”. Each of the project activities was preceded by an explanatory presentation, which reminded participants of what had already been accomplished, provided an overview of the current project stage, and included details about the process and the expected outcomes.

Introduction

The key goal behind this project stage was to familiarize participants with relevant urban planning concepts and geospatial tools and introduce the project goal and their role in it.

Introduction to citizen science and Map4Rec

Objective: Participants understand the intentions of citizen science in general and the aim of Map4Rec in particular; they are aware of their role and level of engagement, including who made the decisions concerning their involvement and why; they possess a good overview of project activities.

Activity and duration: interactive presentation, 60 minutes

Implementation: The presentation introduced participants to the concept of citizen science, showcasing projects around the world, highlighting their diversity, and focusing specifically on citizen science projects involving children and youth. As a context for Map4Rec, we introduced some of the relevant and easy-to-grasp concepts from urban planning (e.g., 15-minute cities, urban heat islands) and described the idea behind Map4Rec – exploring the quality of places for sports and recreation from the perspective of newly arrived children and youth. To explain their role, we highlighted that as newcomers to the area, they could provide a valuable perspective on urban spaces, and could help urban planners make public spaces more inclusive for future newcomers. It was further foregrounded that participants were full-fledged co-researchers, and had a lot of space for their own choices and decision-making – for example, they would help decide which data would be collected in the following project stage. Finally, for participants to gain a better overview of the project and their role, we also introduced them to the stages of exploratory research, and corresponding project activities. The latter were printed out on cards and used throughout the project to “keep track” of what had been accomplished, and the current project stage.

Introduction to geospatial data collection

Objective: Participants learn about qualitative and quantitative types of geospatial data, and possess a basic understanding of different ways of collecting geospatial data. They gain hands-on experience in programming sensors, taking measurements using sensors, and entering geo-referenced data into an online platform (EpiCollect).

Activity and duration: workshop, 120 minutes

Implementation: The workshop started with an introduction to types of geospatial data (qualitative vs quantitative), and ways of collecting such data (e.g., through in situ observations, stationary and mobile sensors, satellite technology). We further zoomed in into sensors and environmental variables that can be measured using the SenseBox, developed for educational and citizen science projects by re:edu – a company affiliated with the University of Münster (Germany).Participants also took time to explore the affiliated platform, OpenSense Map, that shows real-time sensor-based data from around the world. Afterward, participants gained hands-on experience with programming sensors from the SenseBox, working in pairs and following the flow outlined in a printed tutorial. The latter was translated and adapted from the re:edu materials, with the permission of the re:edu team, who are committed to the idea of Open Educational Resources. In the final step, participants were introduced to the EpiCollect application, and learned to use it for entering data.

Co-Creation

The key goal behind this project stage was to involve participants in the decision- making on data to be collected (which properties of recreation places are relevant for them?), and on the project activities more general (what is important for them in this project? how can we make the project more interesting and fun?). During this stage, we also engaged with local municipalities with the aim of understanding how insights gained through the project can be made actionable for them.

Co-creating data collection protocols

Objective: Participants share their vision of what constitutes a good (or, for that matter, a bad) place for recreation, define relevant variables and identify ways for collecting corresponding data.

Activity and duration: indoor/outdoor hybrid activity, 120 minutes

Implementation: As a warm-up, participants engaged in a stamp-collecting outdoor activity aimed at refreshing their knowledge of sensors and providing them with an experience of using them outdoors. Split into small teams, participants moved around improvised stations, receiving stamps on a team card for fulfilling tasks – assembling and taking measurements with diverse sensors. Following a short break, participants proceeded to work on the selection of relevant variables to be embedded into the data collection protocols. This task was facilitated through paper collages – using provided materials (old journals, stickers, drawing materials, photographs), participants created collages of an “ideal recreation place”, and presented their vision to each other. Variables mentioned by teams during their presentations were noted down by the workshop facilitator, and the activity concluded with a joint brainstorming and choice of important social and environmental qualities of recreation places. The output of this activity represented a list of relevant variables (e.g., “presence/absence of litter”, “presence/absence of other people”, “presence/absence of excessive noise”) to observe (or measure) during fieldwork, that was embedded into the final data collection protocol.

Co-creating project elements

Objective: Participants share their vision and ideas on what is important for them in this project, brainstorm, and agree on ways of achieving that.

Activity and duration: workshop (60 minutes)

Description: This workshop took place after the first fieldwork trip, when participants had acquired a good overview of the project activities, and have gained the first-hand experience of working as a team. As the first step, we elicited aspects that were important for participants. Following the workshop facilitator’s example (“To me, it is important that we are all safe and sound, and that you learn something new during the project”), participants shared their own ideas, including having time top lay, communicating with other teams, preventing mis behaviour within the team. Repetitive ideas were grouped, and all ideas were transformed into questions for the “How might we?” brainstorming session – e.g., “How might we make the project more fun?”, “How might we get to know other teams?”. For brainstorming, we used the Round Robin technique – participants would note down their suggestions on a piece of paper and pass it over to the next participant, who would elaborate on the idea. All ideas were put on separate cards, followed by public (raising hands) or anonymous (taking turns to put sticky dots on cards) voting. Participants’ ideas were further embedded into the project. For example, a full-day joint trip to a national park was organized for all teams, so that they could meet each other.

Fieldwork: Maps, Bikes, Sensors, and So Much More!

Fieldwork trips

Objective: Participants actively explore their cities, gaining first-hand, embodied experience of areas of recreation through play and data collection.

Activities and their duration: 4 fieldwork trips (240 minutes each)

Description: Fieldwork trips were made on bicycles, in small teams of four to seven participants, chaperoned by two adults. Fieldwork equipment included a SenseBox to measure environmental variables (e.g., temperature, humidity), a smartphone for entering data into the EpiCollect app, individual research journals, a mobile photo printer, play equipment (e.g., a ball, badminton set), and comfort- and safety-related equipment (e.g., first aid kit, bicycle repair kit). The fieldwork schedule was created based on the number of volunteers and their availability, whereby each team was allocated 4 field trips, each lasting for 4 hours. Teams were deciding on which places to attend themselves, with some of the teams’ members being eager to show places they already knew (which were often unknown to other team members). Teams often chose to visit places that were rather far from the shelters (e.g., a lake 20-25 min bike ride away). Upon arriving at a place, participants would usually first explore the place, engaging in afforded activities (e.g., play a ball, collect berries, have a picnic). The “fun” part would be followed by the “science” part, where participants would first fill in their research journals, noting their observations on various aspects. Second, they would work in a team, taking measurements with sensors, entering sensor readings into the EpiCollect, but also filling in other text inputs, taking images of key salient elements of the place, and making a video tour of the place. At the end of each trip, each team member filled in a well-being-related questionnaire and printed out one most memorable picture from the trip using an instant printer.

The map of 101 places can be found on the EpiCollect platform in the Map4Rec project dataset.

Data Analysis, Project Work

This stage of the project aimed at the analysis of data and a critical reflection on the results and inclusive urban spaces in general through the design of a place for recreation.

Making maps: seeing patterns

Objective: Participants learn the basics of making maps in QGIS, and create their first map – the map of visited locations – for the closing event.

Activities: 1 tutorial-based workshop (90 minutes)

Implementation: Following a warm-up activity on the role and types of maps, participants were invited to create their first map, to represent their key findings at the closing event. Participants worked in pairs, using a pre-processed dataset with data points from fieldwork, and following a step-by-step paper- based tutorial with clear instructions and screenshots. Individual assistance and guidance were provided in case of questions and difficulties. The resulting maps depicted visited places, types of afforded activities, and attractiveness and safety ratings. The same maps were printed out for the closing event.

Design thinking: learning to empathize

Objective: Participants encourage a critical reflection on urban spaces and inclusivity, to strengthen sustainability competencies as outlined through the GreenComp framework,[14] and support the final challenge-based project – designing an inclusive and ecologically healthy place for recreation.

Activities and their duration: 1 interactive presentation (60 minutes), 2 sessions of independent work (120 minutes each)

Implementation: During the interactive presentation, participants learned about the design thinking process through a storytelling approach involving an imaginary case of a child designing a toy for their friend. Having familiarized themselves with the five stages of the design thinking process, they engaged in the practical exercise of defining and empathizing with the target group for their final project, but also with nature as one of the key stakeholders. Two teams decided to work on “real life” scenarios involving recreation infrastructure on the premises of the refugee facilities and expressed willingness to conduct surveys on related sentiments among its inhabitants, receiving assistance in the development of the surveys from the project team. During the other two sessions, participants went through the rest of the design thinking stages, finishing with building a prototype using rented LEGO or do-it-yourself materials (wood, clay, etc.).

Results Dissemination

Preparation for the closing event, and the closing event

Objective: to introduce participants to science communication techniques, ranging from conventional presentations to art installations and storytelling

Activities and their duration: 1 session on science communication and presentation preparation (60 minutes), 2 sessions on the art project (120 minutes each), 1 closing event (120 minutes)

Implementation: At the beginning of these activities, participants were again reminded of the current stage of the research process (results dissemination). During the session on science communication, participants learned about ways of results dissemination, both “conventional” and targeted at the research com- munity (e.g., conference presentations), as well as those targeted at the broader public (e.g., storytelling and art). We encouraged them to try out both techniques for the closing event, and the session ended with a practical exercise of making a PowerPoint presentation of the key findings. During the other two sessions, participants were encouraged to represent their findings, or the project as a whole through some artistic means. As the first step, they engaged in the free listing activity, naming associations with the project, followed by a brainstorming activity of how those can be represented artistically. The final ideas were chosen based on voting, and the project team assisted with their implementation. Participants showcased remarkable creativity, their art projects including a clock-based map of the area (referring to the concept of a 15-minute city) with newly discovered places, a model depicting overnight camping in nature, an installation depicting Geographic Information Systems (a 3D model of the area, mobile sensors, a monitor depicting QGIS), to name some examples. While working on the art installations, participants were also encouraged to compose Elfchens (the small poems capturing associations with the project). The closing event took place on November 15that the DesignLab of the University of Twente and was led by the participants themselves. It was attended by their parents, a UNICEF representative, refugee facilities managers, Tubantia (newspaper), and researchers active in the area of Child-FriendlyCities and citizen science. Following the presentations and lunch, willing participants gave interviews to the journalists from a local newspaper Tubantia, while others joined two excursions - a tour of the DesignLab, and a sustainability walk around the University of Twente.

Discussion and Conclusion

Participants visibly enjoyed project activities, and according to the team’s initial observations, several factors contributed to the success of the project.

First, we observed the importance of including interactive components and relatable examples in educational materials and presentations. Thus, during the introduction to Map4Rec, we included examples of previous projects with children and youth, and participants were visibly interested to see what children of their age have achieved in other campaigns. During the introduction to citizen science, we asked participants to name themes they were interested in (examples of the named themes are“ stars”, and “bugs”) and searched for and explored thematically relevant projects on the SciStartertogether with children. During the introduction to sensors, we invited participants to explore the OpenSenseMap platform and noted their enthusiasm in seeing that a lot of data points were located in Ukraine, often in their hometowns.

Second, given the relative complexity of the project design, the diversity of involved educational materials, and the duration of the project, we found it important to iterate and re-introduce some of the key concepts and ideas. Thus, having introduced participants to the stages of exploratory research during the introduction to the project, we printed out a set of cards with images representing each stage. Before each new stage (e.g., fieldwork, or data analysis), we asked participants to sort the cards chronologically and choose the relevant stage. The same principle applied to the introduction to design thinking.

Third, we noted the importance of encouraging participants to join STEM15 activities of the project (programming sensors, map making). We could observe reluctance from the side of some participants, who shared that they were “not so good with computers”. We encouraged them to give it a try, highlighting that they could withdraw from the activity at any point. Given the detailed, clear instructions within both micro-modules, and individual assistance, all participants finished the tasks, and the micro modules received very positive feedback. Participants who were originally reluctant to join the STEM activities shared that it was easier than they had expected, and showed interest in similar activities in the future.

Fourth, we observed a high level of enthusiasm towards the co-creation activities, which appeared to contribute to the feeling of project ownership among children. Participants visibly enjoyed co-creation sessions – expressing their opinions and voting on the matters, whereby anonymous voting with sticky dots was particularly favoured. The project team found it very important to support participants in all their ideas – thus, to address the teams’ interest in meeting each other, we organized a joint trip to the Sallandse Heuvelrug National Park. We found it equally important to provide space for autonomy and independence in smaller matters – thus, participants chose places to visit during fieldwork, and set up their way of working (in some teams, team members “specialized” in tasks, in others – took turns to fulfil tasks). Finally, we found it important to support children in their creativity while working on prototyping recreational places and art projects, assisting them to bring their ideas to life, and securing the necessary materials.

To sum up, Map4Rec provided space for education, play, and exploration through its diverse activities. It contributed to the development of digital competencies through the engagement with geospatial data collection and analysis tools. It contributed to green competencies through the introduction to the re- search process and design thinking, where we practiced empathy, and learned to think of nature as one of the key stakeholders in our cities today. Importantly, through the exploration and mapping of urban spaces of recreation, the project also led to a close interaction with the new home environments, where participants not only discovered new places where they had never been before but also gained embodied knowledge of these places and their affordances through play and observation.

Map4Rec demonstrates the potential of place-based citizen science to empower youth, promote environmental stewardship, and foster community integration. Moving forward, initiatives like Map4Rec should be scaled up and replicated to amplify their impact on youth well-being and social cohesion, ultimately contributing to more inclusive and sustainable cities.

Acknowledgements

We thank all project participants and volunteers for their enthusiasm and support. The project was supported by IMPETUS. IMPETUS is funded by the Euro- pean Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement number 101058677. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA).Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Notes

1. Hilary Geoghegan et al., “Understanding motivations for citizen science,” Final report on behalf of UKEOF, University of Reading, Stockholm Environment Institute (University of York) and University of the West of England, 2016,

2. Finn Danielsen, Neil D Burgess, and Andrew Balmford, “Monitoring matters: Examining the potential of locally-based approaches,” Biodiversity & Conservation 14, no. 11 (2005): 2507–2542; Barbara Kieslinger et al., “Evaluating citizen science-towards an open framework” (JSTOR, 2018).

3. Karen E Makuch and Miriam R Aczel, “Eco-citizen science for social good: Promoting child well-being, environmental justice, and inclusion,” Research on Social Work Practice 30, no. 2 (2020): 219–232; Karen Purcell, Cecilia Garibay, and Janis L Dickinson, “A Gate way to Science for All: Celebrate Urban Birds,” in Citizen Science (Cornell University Press, 2012), 191–200.

4. Ekaterina Egorova and Crystal Bae, “The image of the city by temporarily displaced children: how place-based citizen science contributes to place discovery,” in 4th International Symposium on Platial Information Science, PLATIAL 2023 (2023), 29–38; Benjamin K Haywood, Julia K Parrish, and Yurong He, “Shapeshifting attachment: Exploring multi- dimensional people–place bonds in place-based citizen science,” People and Nature 3, no. 1 (2021): 51–65.

5. Taru Peltola and Isabelle Arpin, “Science for everybody? Bridging the socio-economic gap in urban biodiversity monitoring,” in Citizen Science: Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy (UCL Press, 2018), 369–380.

6. Petra Benyei et al., “Challenges, strategies, and impacts of doing citizen science with marginalised and indigenous communities: reflections from project coordinators.,” 2023,

7. Thomas Albers et al., “The role of place attachment in promoting refugees’ well-being and resettlement: A literature review,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 21 (2021): 11021; Andreas Fejes and Magnus Dahlstedt, “A place called home: The meaning(s) of popular education for newly arrived refugees,” Studies in Continuing Education 44, no. 1 (2022): 1–13; Robyn Sampson and Sandra M Gifford, “Place-making, settlement and well-being: The therapeutic landscapes of recently arrived youth with refugee backgrounds,” Health & place 16, no. 1 (2010): 116–131.

8. Sven Teurlincx et al., “Capturing elements of the Nature Futures Framework through in situ place descriptions: an empirical study in urban blue locations,” in 4rd International Symposium on Platial Information Science, PLATIAL 2023 (2023), 5–13.

9. Clare Rishbeth, Dominika Blachnicka-Ciacek, and Jonathan Darling, “Participation and wellbeing in urban green space: ‘curating sociability’ for refugees and asylum seekers,” Geoforum 106 (2019): 125–134.

10. Sampson and Gifford, “Place-making, settlement and well-being: The therapeutic landscapes of recently arrived youth with refugee backgrounds.”

11. Roger A Hart et al., Children’s participation: From tokenism to citizenship, technical report (1992).

12. Riina Vuorikari Rina, Stefano Kluzer, and Yves Punie, DigComp 2.2: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens-With new examples of knowledge, skills and attitudes, technical report (Joint Research Centre (Seville site), 2022); Guia Bianchi, Ulrike Pisiotis, and Marcelino Cabrera Giraldez, GreenComp The European sustainability competence framework, technical report (Joint Research Centre (Seville site), 2022).

13. QGIS is a free and open-source geographic information system (GIS).

14. Bianchi, Pisiotis, and Cabrera Giraldez, GreenComp The European sustainability com-petence framework.

15. STEM is an approach to learning and development that integrates the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.