The Austrian education project (“What’s up?”) used the topic of “mobility” to encourage children to critically deal with their living environment. Five school classes from Vienna’s 21st district are involved to understand “mobility” interdisciplinary in connection with traffic safety, environmental protection, health, traffic psychology, landscape planning and technique. In the framework of the project, an application was developed in order to collect children’s impressions of the urban environment. Children locate positions in public space they like or dislike and specify their observation by using assessments such as “I feel safe here”, “enough space to play”, “trees and flowers missing”. Children also upload a picture from their observation. As a result, an interactive map is created, visualizing children’s perceptions of their transport geographies. The first results indicate that children often reflect on cleanliness of the built environment, crossing aids and their subjective feeling of safety. The app (there is an English version) can be downloaded via the GooglePlay store or the Apple App store.  

You can download a manual here.

The example also shows how digital tools can be used to create an innovative method for children to participate in city and transport planning.

The browser version (German) of the application can be found below.