FunNature: Android Application for Environmental Learning

The development of FunNature Android application is to provide an interactive learning aid for the preschoolers to learn about the environment that focus on flora and fauna. The objective is to demonstrate a minimum 10% improvement in object recognition through image, text and sound among the preschool children. In addition, the approach proposed by the author is mainly to assist the children during the learning process of environment by using the concept of game in an application. The idea of this project arose from an assessment of the current method used by the Malaysia preschools which is using reading materials or Microsoft Power Point slides. The author believes that by using reading materials, it fails to grab the children‟s attention which later becomes a problem for the kindergarten teacher. By using FunNature application, children and teacher can enjoy the learning process together especially if they play the games together. In order to develop such application, the author had conducted research on the following domains: (1) preschool syllabus by Ministry of Education to ensure that the game‟s content abide the syllabus and (2) environment domain focusing on flora and fauna in Malaysia context. For the research methodology, this study focuses on qualitative research acquired from the feedback of children on their experience in using the existing system and their opinions on the new interactive application. Parents and teachers also cooperated to give their feedback on the prototype of this application. Using a Rapid Application Development model, the author successfully developed an application that is user friendly and cost effective using Android platform. The final prototype of FunNature Android application is developed using Adobe Flash Creative Suite 5.5.