Format: On Campus
Number of Students: 5
Duration of Project: 1 – 14 July
Project Supervisor: Dr. Miray Boğa
Research Areas: Bio-inspired design, Ecological awareness and environmental education, Participatory design, Fictional character design, Narrative construction
Daily Supervisor: Res. Asst. Ayşe Yılmazaslan
Application Deadline: 13 June 2025
Project Description: This research project aims to raise awareness of ecology, especially among young people, through interactive media as educational material. The project’s outcome is expected to be the design of game characters, surroundings, and narratives. As the users of this design project, the players are expected to create their game characters through bio-inspiration, which both the game and nature mechanics will instruct. This practice will encourage young people to engage more with nature via an interactive, creative, and fun action.
In the data collection and user research phase, younger people are invited to participate in game-playing sessions to give feedback on the existing games focusing on ecology, environment, and biodiversity. They will also contribute to the idea generation and development phases by practicing the design of fictional characters and ecosystems through bio-inspiration techniques.
This internship program will have three stages: game-playing sessions, nature documentary watching, and researching and designing bio-inspired fictional characters within a narrative as idea generation and participatory design development. The total duration is two weeks, and in-person participation is a must.
About the Project: With the rise of technology and urbanization, our connection with nature gradually weakens, leading to various physical and cognitive challenges. Given the close relationship between younger generations and technology, strengthening their ties to the natural environment has become increasingly important. As a result, research on methods for nature education and fostering environmental awareness among young people is gaining momentum. In this context, educational tools and effective communication strategies resonating with children's creativity need to be developed by leveraging advancing.
The rapid growth of the gaming industry and its profound influence on younger generations highlight the potential of games as educational tools. While technology, screens, and gaming are often criticized for distancing children from nature and tangible experiences, a growing body of work explores how to harness this profound interest in technology and games to foster nature engagement. This project aims to integrate gaming and nature to raise awareness about ecology, the natural environment, and biodiversity, particularly among younger audiences.
Nevertheless, bio-inspired design—a field requiring deep research and understanding of nature—offers a framework that aligns with natural processes and supports a holistic approach. Bio-inspired design, used here as an inclusive term for the methods stemming from natural analogy studies and mostly known as biomimicry, is rooted in developing solutions for nature by consulting nature herself. On the other hand, games play a significant role in achieving educational objectives such as problem-solving, understanding, and being empowered learners through active participation. Employing gamers as participatory designers is related to acquiring systems thinking, reflective practice, understanding environmental phenomena, and related human actions.
In this sense, bridging bio-inspired design with gaming experience and a participatory design approach provides a playground for enabling young people to engage with nature to raise awareness for environmental issues via an implicit yet effective media instead of a didactic approach.
Project Objectives: This study searches for the motivations and challenges of younger people regarding the experience of ecological-oriented gaming. It assesses their competency to employ bio-inspired principles and convenience in participatory design practice. In this sense, the research process consists of three phases.
The first stage will focus on understanding how existing games related to nature and ecology impact participants' gaming motivation. The key goals are:
To derive the motivations and frustrations about the gaming experience of an ecology-themed game
To familiarize participants with the ecology-themed gaming experience
The second stage will emphasize drawing design inspiration from nature documentaries. The key goals are:
To identify and discuss points of inspiration that participants can derive from nature to game design.
To encourage participants to conceptualize ecological relations as game narratives
In the final stage, participants will be expected to conduct research using ecology databases, design game characters inspired by nature, and create a segment of a game narrative. The key goals are:
To enable participants to develop ideas based on scientific data for the game characters and narratives they will design.
To foster an understanding of the cause-and-effect relations within an ecosystem reflecting on a game narrative.
To develop empathy/sympathy while exploring the subject through bio-inspired design principles, thereby fostering ecological awareness implicitly and contributing to environmental education.
Project Tasks: Each student will be asked to complete an informed consent form, such as the declaration of a volunteer act, and a Participant Profile Form, which introduces their perspectives on nature, games, and related intellectual topics.
The students will be invited to play a game focusing on ornithology in the first stage. At the end of this session, participants will be given the Game Evaluation Form to complete, and semi-structured in-depth interviews will be conducted individually.
In the second stage, students will watch nature documentaries and receive copies of the Character Attributes Form. They will also be asked to note the traits of organisms they find inspiring as potential game characters. At the end of this session, each participant will attend a semi-structured in-depth interview individually.
In the final stage, the principles of bio-inspired design and the premises of research on biological databases will be introduced to the students. The participants will research the databases and resources based on their character attribute notes. Then, the participants will design a fictional character inspired by natural organisms and create a narrative that illustrates the character’s environment and interactions with other organisms. Participants will be expected to visualize their characters and narratives in a storyboard. At this stage, they will utilize AI-based visualization tools and programs to generate different visuals that resonate with the fictional world they imagined. At the end of this session, each participant will attend a semi-structured in-depth interview individually and be asked questions about their research and design experiences to unfold the impacts of the whole process on their approach to ecology and environmental issues and being a part of a nature-oriented game.
Deliverables: Evaluation of gaming experience, bio-inspired fictional character design, a storyboard demonstrating a narrative about the character and their environment, generated by manual and digital tools
Benefits for the Student: Being involved and contributing to research focusing on ecological awareness of their generation, gaining experience in participatory design and design research, and observing the potential of bridging gaming and environmental education.
Requirements: A basic level of knowledge of biology.
You can apply this project from THIS LINK!