Child-to-Child Public Health Messaging through a Portable Craft Tech Interactive in Rural South Africa

Abstract

Museums play an increasingly important role in public health. In-house makerspaces, fab labs and other contexts fostering 21st century skills could expand children's participation in these initiatives. This could open up new opportunities for children to learn through technology design and enable museums to enhance cultural relevance of health education materials for children. Here we report on a participatory action research study exploring child-to-child public health messaging through a portable craft tech interactive in a rural community museum. The interactive was a floor-based learning game using milk-carton foot switches connected to wireless sensor network hardware programmed with Scratch. The study was run during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, when non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) such as face masks and physical distancing were the principal means for slowing the spread of the virus. Five primary school children worked in a multigenerational team to design an interactive reinforcing COVID-19 NPI messaging. The interactive was presented in four primary schools and a day care centre, where it was used by 747 learners. A mixed methods approach was used to collect data on children's participation in the design process and peer responses to the interactive in the presentations. Results suggest that portable craft tech interactives are a promising new medium for engaging children in public health messaging for children. Designers can make significant contributions to source, message and channel variables, which enhance the fit of education materials with target group culture and provide context and meaning for health messages. 92,9% of the 707 users who completed a post-use survey indicated they would use an interactive again if they had the chance; 88,8% indicated they would like to design an interactive with friends; and 59,4% chose a craft tech interactive game to teach a friend about the coronavirus – over a school textbook, colourful poster, TV advertisement, and radio programme.

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