New Perspectives in Science Education

This research was a part of action research to explore the potential of adults' ecotourism as a vehicle for scientific inquiry and well-being. The citizen science action started with the premise that participants enjoyed nature and operated participation as a tool to enrich their lives rather than merely exploring the local environment. Through the previous study, it was confirmed that recognizing the changes in the object of observation affects continuous observation and leads to more sophisticated forms of observation, naturally leading to scientific inquiry activities. Although well-known mobile apps are convenient, they are vulnerable to personal information leakage, and cumbersome management is required to determine whether or not to disclose posts. So a new citizen science platform, a social network service app for Android, "Meta-Garden" was developed based on the requirements of the citizen science platform identified in previous studies. The “Meta-Garden" has been tested for over a year. Participants positively evaluated the function of forming a community composed of people interested in living (mainly plants) without revealing personal information. Several technical errors, such as stable loading speed and search accuracy, were pointed out, and management issues also arose, such as continuous error improvement and data storage and user management. This study could shed light on how mobile apps contribute to sustaining, re-engaging, and reshaping participants' experiences as part of their enjoyment of the local natural environment.