Myco-kit: Towards a design for interspecies creative learning

Abstract

This paper explores the design of tools and pedagogies for bio-design understood as a space for children to create and challenge the nature-culture dualism that underpins the environmental crisis. By blurring the boundaries between the learning practices of making and growing, bio-design allows learners to imagine what it means to produce artifacts at the frontier of natural and artificial. We propose the concept of interspecies creative learning to advance in the understanding of learning experiences that engage humans and other living systems in a joint space of creative discovery. Using design-based research, we share the work-in-progress design of Myco-kit, a bio-design toolkit to support interspecies creative learning and advance in the understanding of this concept and its implications for ecologically conscious education.