Cool Food Planet, a science-based educational website that engages children aged 6–12 years old in nutrition, food safety & physical activity.

Abstract

EUFIC launched an educational and entertaining website to help children learn about nutrition, food safety, and physical activity. How children experience educational websites lies at the intersection of various disciplines. An intensive scientific review of educational websites for children revealed that they are playful, engaging, animated and include parental guidance sections. Research showed that features of successful websites for children should: 1. Encourage curiosity and challenge them to progress through the website 2. Contain accurate content and demonstrate sound instructional design 3. Address navigation, stability, usability and motivational factors that concern representation, visual imagery, performance, and narrative factors. 4. Provide ‘participatory prompts’ with characters that children will actively seek out as similar to themselves. 5. Employ text, graphics, sound and animation to improve learning opportunities. Animation can decrease the abstract nature of information and create constancy within the image, reducing cognitive load. 6. Be character-driven due to attachment encountered in the media known as a parasocial relationship. 7. Provide activities that allow them to create and share. Based on this research, EUFIC designed a new website http://www.coolfoodplanet.org . It delivers children’s educational needs in a fun and engaging way, employing a combination of text, graphics, avatars, sound and animation, in line with the results above. It provides information for parents and teachers to help them support children’s learning in the classroom and at home. All content was developed with science, nutrition and teaching professionals to ensure it is reliable and relevant. Currently in English and French.