Using Smartphone Technology in Environmental Sustainability Education: The case of the Maasai Mara region in Kenya
ABSTRACT
This study engaged key stakeholders in an economically and environmentally fragile regionin Kenya in a unique, interdisciplinary, and integrative approach to explore the extent to which the use of smartphone technology helps access the environmental values and sustainability perspectives of the people of the Maasai land. The results of the study indicate that the participants’ environmental values and sustainability perspectives, exposed through photovoices, pertain mainly to issues regarding livestock grazing, deforestation, soil erosion, wildlife and human co-habitation, waste management, afforestation, and the conservation of the natural vegetation. A common theme permeating the participants’ photovoices was their awareness of the intertwining effects of these major environmental issues on the environment. The results also suggest a strong understanding of ecological compositions and connections in the environment by the participants.
Keywords: Smartphone, Environmental Perception, Sustainability, Photovoice, Kenya, Mara
INTRODUCTION
Environmental concerns are attracting increasing attention in the educational and scientific communities worldwide. While climate change is at the forefront of these concerns, other environmental issues such as urban air and water pollution, soil erosion, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and natural hazards are gaining significant attention from researchers in recent years,especially in developing and transition economies where the impacts of these problems are severe, particularly on the poor in society. While efforts are being made to address these problems, they often fail to engage the local communitiesin meaningful and authentic ways, includinglearning from and with themin order to achieve long-term resolutions of these environmental problems. In this study, we employed smartphone technology to engage teachers and local community leaders in an environmentally fragile region of Kenya to understand environmental sustainability perspectives of the indigenes in the Maasai Mara land. Our aim is to share these understandings with the local groups so as to generate a locally constructed meaning of environmental conservation and sustainability among the communities in the Massai Mara region and the adjoining pastoral ranches.
The Narok district, which contains some of the world renowned natural resources such asthe Mau forest and Maasai Mara National Reserve,faces severe environmental problems.The extant literature reports that more than one million acres of the vegetation have been destroyed in the Mau forest and Maasai Mara National Reserve for land development, farming practices, and livestock grazing (Glasson, Evans, & Phiri, 2008).This deforestation practice has destroyed crucial watersheds, ecosystems, and wildlife as well as sacred lands of the Maasai people (Glasson, Mhango, Phiri & Lanier, 2010). Although the government has attempted to address this problem by limiting the land that pastoral communities such as the Maasai people can utilize for animal grazing, these land use regulations do not attend to the ways of pastoral living by the Maasai (Davis, 1993). This lack of attention to local ways of living created a dis-engagement towards sustainability and environmental sustainability education.
In order to re-engage the community on these issues, we employed the photovoice methodology, a technique of recording and sharing photographs and text to reflect community concerns (Wang & Burris, 1994), to understand the environmental perspectives of the people in the Maasai land. We modified the photovoice approach to include the use of mobile technology, and positioned the participants as researchers. Specifically, we explored the extent to which use of mobile technology engages the local communities to generate a locally constructed meaning of what constitute their environment, and their perspectives on environmental sustainability. We chose to use mobile phone technology in this study because of its proliferation in many economies in recent years, especially in developing economies where over 90% of adult citizens are mobile-phone users (International Telecommunication Union, 2012). Additionally, the mobile technology was suitable for this study because of its portability, which allows users to carry devices everywhere they go, and to collect data whenever they are struck by a thought, emotion, or opportunity.
Contemporary Use of Mobile Phones
Wireless communication diffused faster than any other communication technology in history. Within 10 years, mobile phones moved from being a technology of the privileged few to a mainstream technology (Castells, 2007). In 2010, the ITU reported that there were 5.3 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide, including 3.8 billion in developing countries. It was also estimated that, access to a mobile network was available to 90% of the world’s population, including 80% of the population living in rural areas (International Telecommunication Union, 2010). The explosive growth in the use of this technology in the developing nations has opened up opportunities for improving the quality of lives of users. At the basic level, many people use mobile phones to communicate with friends and families, send or receive text messages, listen to radio, or take pictures(Goodman, 2005; Molony, 2008).With the new world of smartphones (which offer computer-like functions), mobile technology applications are becoming boundless as they are equipped with a rich set of embedded tools such as accelerometers, digital compasses, gyroscopes, global positioning system (GPS), internet capabilities(Lane et al., 2010) etc., thus enabling uses across a wide variety of fields, such as healthcare, agriculture, commerce, transportation, and education.
Several contemporary initiatives describe ways in which mobile phone applications can improve lives (Donner, 2008) and provide new opportunities for users. Prominent among them is mobile learning whichdescribes ways in which mobile technology can be employed to promote education (Dahlman, Chege, & Coombs, 2010; Murray & Coulby, 2011; Norman & Pearce, 2007).Thus, educational researchers have been exploring how phone-based applications could be used to help students learn math, science, reading, distribute educational materials to students, teachers and parents, or to streamline educational administration by improving communication between schools and parents (Vosloo, 2012).
Some other sectors positively impacted by mobile technology in recent years are agriculture, banking, the social media and healthcare. Among other initiatives, Groupe Spéciale Mobile Association (GSMA, 2011) recently announced its MFarmer Initiative Fund to encourage mobilecommunications service providers to partner with agriculture organizations to use mobile communications to provide information andadvisory services to small scale farmers in developing countries. Similarly, there is a considerable upsurge in the use of mobile technology for electronic banking (e.g. Donner & Tellez, 2008; Ivatury & Pickens, 2006), m-health (e.g. Seo, Su, Erlinger & Ozcan, 2008, Chang et al., 2012), and in social platforms to bring about societal change through collective actions (Rheingold, 2003).
Mobile Technology in Africa
Africa is one of the fastest growing continents in the use of mobile technology in recent years, with some reports indicating that mobile phones are being used even in the remotest and poorest communities in the continent (Jones & Marsden, 2006). The ITU reported that in countries such as Botswana, Gabon and Namibia, there are more mobile phone subscriptions than inhabitants(ITU, 2012).Even for those who cannot afford to purchase a handset in Africa, it is not uncommon for them to own an active SIM card which they can use in a friend’s phone to communicate with relatives or to complete business transactions (GSMA, 2011). One of the key drivers of growth in mobile usage in Africa is the availability of low cost pre-paid phone services which offer consumers the flexibility to purchase mobile credits only when they need and can afford it, without making oneor two year contract commitments that require regular monthly payments (GSMA, 2011) as is the case in many industrialized nations.
Vosloo (2012) described some promising mobile initiatives in Africa, includingYoza Cellphone Stories, which offer downloadable stories and novels for young African readers. This initiative has been reported to have yielded impressive results in the increased number of youths reading stories and novels. A similar project called Worldreader is currently publishing books via a mobile phone-based e-reader for students in countries such as Nigeria, Ethiopia and Ghana. There is also Dr. Mathsvia MXit (a mobile social network in South Africa) that is helping school-aged children with mathematics problems by connecting them with mathematics tutors for live tutoring (Botha & Butgereit, 2012; Vosloo, 2012).
Mobile technology is also emerging as an important tool in improving the delivery of healthcare across Africa. Community health workers in Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya have access to m-learning modules on their mobile phones through which they can download information on reproductive health from a central database to their phones (WHO, 2010).In Rwanda for example, MTN Group, Voxiva and GSMA have deployed a system to enable healthcare workers in the field to use mobile phones to collect data on outbreaks of contagious disease, numbers of patients, and drug stocks (GSMA, 2011). This use of mobile technology makes healthcare information readily available and makes it possible for health workers to act upon health issues in real time, rather than relying on only traditional paper-based systems which have more potential for error, inefficiency or unnecessary delays.
Additionally, mobile technology is changing the mode of financial transactions in many African countries. In Kenya for example, there is a mobile phone application called M-PESA that is helping to turn many Kenyans’ mobile devices into mobile banks by allowing millions of Kenyans to deposit money, withdraw cash, transfer money to family members or business counterparts, and pay rent and utility bills through the use of their cell phones without the need to maintain a bank account or visit the bank. Similar mobile money services are being used in several other African countries such as Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda. The increasing penetration of mobile technology in Africa has also led to a rise in other SMS-based information dissemination services such as the weather, and market conditions, among others,that empower farmers.For examplein Kenya, where 70% of the population is employed in the agriculture sector, the Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange (KACE) utilizes an SMS-based informationservice called SokoniSMS, to provide information to farmers on market prices (KACE, 2011).The GSMA Development Fund also uses a mobile helpline that provides information and advice to farmers onefficient farming practices, plant and animal diseases and treatments, agriculture-specific weather forecasts, and market price information.
Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are accessed primarily or only through mobile phones by the majority of Africans (Vosloo, 2012), as many individuals or families do not have the financial resources to acquire a personal computer, iPad or similar technological device. Thus Africa, and in particular, Kenya’s high mobile phone penetration is an indication that this technology is a promising tool for empowering its citizens, especially those in the rural areas where other technological resources are limited. It is this wealth of opportunities of mobile phone usage in Africa that invigorated us to explore the extent to which it can help access the environmental perspectives of the Maasais in Kenya.
METHODS
Participants and Data Collection Instrument
The participants of this study were selected across Narok County and the Maasai Mara region. Specifically, we recruited a purposeful sample of participants from the Maasai community members, teachers from three Primary Schools, and faculty from two tertiary institutions across Narok County and the Maasai Mara region. A total of 38 participants - 22 females and 16 males - participated in the study. These participants engaged in data collection about their environment, with particular attention to their perceptions on nature, sustainability, conservation, and preservation and reported their data through photo images and written narratives on the meaning of the images over a period of six months.
The data collection instrument used by the participants was a Samsung Intrepid smartphone equipped with digital camera and email capabilities. The Samsung Intrepid was selected mainly because of its 3.2-megapixel auto-focus lens (camera) and a sharp picture quality. The Intrepid also operates on both CDMA and international GSM technologies, and is relatively low in price compared to other smartphones of similar applications. The Intrepid runs on Windows 6.5 Mobile Professional and operates multiple email accounts that get updated in real-time. It browses the Internet with 3G speeds and supports the use of Wi-Fi. In addition, the Intrepid comes with a microphone for recording audio and voice notes, and supports an innovative feature called TellMe, that allows users to compose text messages just by speaking into it. Figure 1 shows some of the basic features of the Samsung Intrepid.
Figure 1:Samsung Intrepid Smartphone
Insert Figure 1 Here
The Workshop
We conducted workshops to acquaint participants with the basic features of the smartphone (e.g., how to turn on the phone, make a call, and receive a call) and on some relatively advanced functions (e.g., how to compose a text message, take pictures, and send pictures through email) that are of particular importance to this study. We also discussed the overall purpose of the study with the participants during this workshop. Four workshops occurred over two weeks during which we met with four different sub-groups of the participants in the study. Prior to conducting the workshop, we checked and programed the Samsung Intrepid phones to ensure that they are compatible with the mobile network service providers in Kenya (i.e., Safaricom and Orange). We also determined how much airtime or credit we need to purchase for each participant’s smartphone for the duration of the study.
At the beginning of the workshop, we collected basic personal information from each participant and used it to create gmail accounts for each of them. This was necessary because only 5 out of the 38 participants had active email accounts, or had used emails prior to the time of the study. In addition, we want to facilitate the research by providing each participant with a generic email that they could use for the project. Furthermore, since the majority of the participants were first time users of emails, we wanted to maintain the passwords in case of the need for recovery. We also created an email account for the project database to access the photovoice sent by the participants, and to provide feedback to the participants.
We experimented with voice recording but realized that the audio quality was very faint and difficult to transcribe. We provided time for the participants to practice taking pictures, writing narratives about their pictures and emailing the information to the database. Afterwards, we viewed the pictures and narratives as a group and discussed the relevance of the practiced data to the project.
Data Collection and Analysis
Following the workshop, participants engaged in data collection, capturing images that represent the key terms in this project (nature, sustainability, environment, conservation, and preservation) writing narratives describing the meaning of the images, and emailing them to the information database over several months. Each participant was asked to email 1 or 2 photovoices a week for six months. This engagement resulted in over 300 photovoices collected by the end of the data collection period. The researchers examined the photovoices using constant comparison (Goetz & LeCompte, 1981; Merriam, 1988) and open viewing in team analysis (Collier, 2001) for themes. Merriam (1988) defines constant comparison as a technique that involves comparing one segment of data with another to determine similarities and differences. Goetz and LeCompte (1981) state that as events are constantly compared with previous events, new topological dimensions, as well as new relationships, may be discovered. These dimensions become categories and are given names, with an overriding objective to locate patterns in the data and arrange them in relationship to each other.
Using these methods, each team member examined the photovoices individually with respect to their uniqueness and similarities in depicting the environment and environmental sustainability, and created an initial list of themes from their analysis. Following this, the group met to compare and discuss the initial themes, refined and merged some of the categories, and established boundaries for classifying the photovoices into the refined themes. Each team member subsequently coded the entire photovoices individually using the agreed upon themes. Finally, the researchers met to discuss the themes, and deliberated on instances where differences existed in coding and came to a consensus on all the categorizations.
RESULTS
This study engaged participants from the Maasai land through the use of mobile phones to generate a locally constructed meaning of their environment and environmentalsustainability. In the following pages, we report the findings from the study in terms of: a) the participants’ documentation of environmental perceptions and sustainability in the region, b) the extent to which the mobile technology helped access the indigenous knowledge of environmental sustainability, and c) the challenges encountered as a result of using this innovative approachto learn about the environment in the Maasai Mara region.