What Young People Told Us About Nature, Technology and What Comes Next

Over April and May 2026, NatureVR sat down with more than 110 young people across Spain, Croatia and the Netherlands for eight focus group sessions . We wanted to créate open, honest conversations about their relationship with nature, and what they’d want (and worry about) from a VR nature experience. Here’s what we learned.

Nature already means a lot to them

Across every country, young people described nature in strikingly similar terms: peace, calm, fresh air, connection, a break from everyday pressure. This wasn’t an abstract idea, it showed up in very concrete moments: a walk by the sea, time with friends outdoors, a family trip, the smell of rain. For many, nature is already a quiet source of relief in busy lives.

That matters for NatureVR, because it means we’re not trying to spark an interest that doesn’t exist. It’s already there. Our job is to support it.

The real barrier isn’t distance, it’s time

We expected to hear about access: not enough green space, not enough money, not knowing where to go. And for some (particularly young people living away from home or new to a city) that was part of the picture. But by far the most common barrier, in every single country, was something simpler: not enough time. Busy schedules, studying, working, screen time, everyday life crowding out the space for nature.

What helps most isn’t more green space appearing nearbym it’s someone making it easy. Organised activities, a trip with school, a plan with friends.

VR as a bridge, not a replacement

Here’s the finding we think matters most: young people are genuinely curious about VR, but they were quick to say the same thing across the three countries, in their own words: virtual reality shouldn’t try to replace real nature.

What excites them instead is using VR to reach places they can’t easily get to in real life: rainforests, mountains, coastlines far from home, landscapes from their home country while studying abroad. VR as a window to the wider world, not a substitute for the park down the street.

What happens with all this

These findings  (alongside a parallel survey of 259 youth workers on their own readiness to bring VR into their practice) now feed directly into the next stages of the project: defining what NatureVR should teach and how (Activities 2.4 and 2.5), and shaping the actual design of the VR experience itself (Work Package 3).

In short: young people told us they want a tool that respects real nature, sounds genuinely alive, and never forgets to be comfortable and clear about its purpose. That’s exactly the brief we’re now building from.

A huge thank-you to everyone who took part in a focus group, and to our partners, BACKSLASH (Spain), Udruga Zaželi (Croatia) and Anatta Foundation (Netherlands), for making these conversations happen.

Real emotions, virtual nature: HOPIR’s journey from emotional separation to research design

Hopir arrives on Earth

Hopir had been observing Earth for some time before deciding to land.

From orbit, the data was clear enough: the planet was covered in organized patterns of rock, water, green matter and light. Coordinates were logged. Surface temperatures measured. Spectral readings filed away in the appropriate folders. Everything, in principle, accounted for. And yet.

There was something in the human data that kept generating anomalies. Specifically, humans appeared to travel, sometimes considerable distances, sometimes at significant personal inconvenience, to reach places that offered no obvious functional advantage. No infrastructure. No commercial exchange. No particular efficiency of any kind. Just trees. Or water. Or mountains. Or the particular quality of silence that seems to exist only at altitude, between one gust of wind and the next.

 Hopir decided the only reasonable thing to do was to enter a forest and observe directly. The first few minutes were promising. Green wavelengths: catalogued. Humidity levels: recorded. Irregular surface textures: noted. Bird vocalizations: identified and cross-referenced. Hopir’s instruments were working perfectly. But then something began to happen that the instruments were less prepared for. Humans nearby were changing. Not dramatically, no running, no shouting, no measurable physiological emergency. But they were moving more slowly. Speaking more quietly, when they spoke at all. Some were simply standing still, looking at nothing, with expressions that Hopir could only describe as: no longer anxious.

The forest, it appeared, was doing something. Not just containing information. Doing something to the people inside it. Hopir’s first research question formed itself, a little reluctantly: What, exactly, are humans feeling here?

Hopir’s first discovery: nature is something you feel

It would have been simpler if nature were only a setting. A backdrop. A collection of physical properties that human visual and auditory systems happen to process in one way rather than another. But the evidence suggested otherwise. A forest seems to slow people down, not because the terrain requires it, but because something about the density of green, the filtered light, the ambient sound, produces what researchers describe as restoration: a genuine recovery of attention, a reduction in the cognitive noise that accumulates in rooms, screens, streets and deadlines.

Near water, people become quieter still. In open landscapes, something else happens: a kind of expansion, an awareness of scale that produces feelings that are difficult to name but tend to involve feeling simultaneously very small and very calm. Hopir found this puzzling. Why would smallness be comforting?

And there was more. The same landscape could evoke different things in different people, and sometimes contradictory things in the same person: calm and nostalgia together; awe and a slight edge of fear; fascination and a strange, pleasant melancholy. Nature, it turned out, was not a simple emotional trigger with a predictable output. It was a complex relational experience, shaped by memory, attention, personal history: the felt sense of belonging to something larger than oneself. Hopir logged all this carefully and noted that the instruments were becoming progressively less adequate.

Hopir discovers virtual nature and a new question

Just when Hopir had begun to develop a tentative framework for understanding human-nature interaction, something even stranger came to light. Humans had started building forests inside machines. Not real forests, obviously. But virtual ones: digital landscapes with trees, light, sound, movement, depth. Environments that could be entered through a headset, experienced from the inside, and (this was the strange part) apparently felt in ways that resembled, at least partially, what happened in actual forests. Hopir paused the instruments and considered.

If humans could feel something in real nature, could be restored by it, moved by it, calmed or awed or quietly reconnected by it, what happened when nature became virtual? Was the feeling the same?

This became Hopir’s central research question, and, as it turned out, the central research question behind NatureVR: how much emotional distance is there between real nature and virtual nature?The question is not whether virtual nature can replace real nature, or whether pixels can replicate pine trees. The question is subtler and more interesting: what can virtual nature meaningfully do, under which conditions, and with which limits? And how can research help us understand this responsibly, before we start sending young people into digital forests and claiming it will change their lives?

From awe to methodology

Hopir’s initial hypothesis was, in retrospect, somewhat naive. If virtual trees look realistic enough, Hopir reasoned, humans will feel as if they are in nature. Research, however, has a way of complicating the obvious. Because the question is not really about realism; not primarily, anyway. But, it is about experience. Researchers investigating virtual environments have learned to ask a different set of questions.

What emotions does this environment actually evoke? Does the person feel presence inside the environment, or merely aware of watching it? Does the experience support calm, attention, curiosity, or restoration or does it produce discomfort, confusion, visual overload? Does it feel meaningful, or artificial in a way that creates distance rather than connection?

And then: what happens before the experience, during it, and after it ends? Which design elements support emotional engagement and which quietly undermine it?

These are not questions you can answer by looking at the graphics. They require careful measurement, thoughtful comparison, and the willingness to be surprised by what the data says. This is where Hopir’s story moves from awe to research design.

What previous research tells us

Hopir was relieved to discover that this territory had already been explored, at least partially. Several researchers have been investigating exactly this question for several years. In one study (Chirico & Gaggioli, 2019), participants were exposed either to a real panoramic view of a lake or to an immersive 360° video of the same landscape. Afterwards, their emotional responses and sense of presence were compared across the two conditions. The results were, Hopir noted, interesting. Emotions produced by the virtual and natural conditions were largely comparable. Both environments produced significant increases in awe. Both reduced negative affect. The sense of physical presence and engagement did not differ significantly between conditions. The emotional experience of being in virtual nature was, in many ways, recognizably similar to the experience of being in real nature. And yet the two conditions were not identical: some dimensions of presence differed. And when correlations between emotions and presence were examined, the patterns in the virtual condition appeared richer and more complex, suggesting that in virtual environments, emotions and the sense of being-there may become more interconnected.

A subsequent pilot study (Sarcinella et al., 2023) refined this picture. Using a within-subjects design, the same participants experienced both the real and the virtual environment. The emotional profiles were again largely similar but certain emotional states emerged as distinct. Nostalgia and animation emotions were more intense in real condition. State anxiety, on the other hand, was higher in VR, but significantly correlated with the sense of presence: the more present people felt inside the virtual environment, the less anxious they became.

This hints at something important: the quality of the virtual experience itself (in other words, how immersive, how well-designed, how emotionally coherent) may shape not only what people feel, but whether they can relax into feeling it at all. This gives NatureVR a meaningful starting point. They tell us what to look for, what to measure, and what to take seriously as we begin to design virtual nature experiences for a specific purpose: supporting young people’s connection to the natural world.

Why this matters for NatureVR

For Hopir, this was the real discovery: virtual nature is not only a question of pixels, trees and soundscapes. It is a question of experience design. NatureVR does not aim to create a virtual environment that is simply beautiful to look at. Its ambition is more specific and more demanding: to develop evidence-informed tools that youth workers can use with young people to support nature connection, well-being, reflection and environmental awareness.

The difference matters. A VR environment that looks like a forest is not, by itself, an educational or therapeutic resource. It becomes one through the choices made in how it is designed, how it is used, what happens before and after the headset goes on, and how the experience is integrated into the broader work of youth practitioners.

This is precisely where research plays its role. The questions being asked by researchers about emotional responses, presence, restoration, attention, aesthetic engagement, and the meaningful differences between real and virtual experience are not just academic curiosities. They are the foundation on which design responsible depends. Without that foundation, “virtual nature” risks becoming a claim rather than a practice: impressive on a screen, unclear in its effects, and potentially misleading in its promises.

What Hopir finally understands

Hopir eventually left the forest. Not because the instruments had finished collecting data, but because something else had become clear. Humans do not love nature only because it is beautiful. They love it, in some cases, because it reminds them that they are alive and temporary and part of something that was here long before them and will continue without them. They love it because it asks nothing of them. Because it restores something that ordinary life depletes. Because it is, in the truest sense of an overused word, restorative.

Virtual nature cannot give someone that. Not fully, in the same way. But if designed with care, built on evidence, and used by people who understand both its possibilities and its limits, it may help some young people approach nature, remember it, imagine it, or reconnect with it. It may lower the distance. Open the door. And that, Hopir concluded, filing away the last of the anomalous data under a new category simply labelled meaning, is not nothing.

We are not simply asking whether virtual nature looks real. We are asking whether it can feel meaningful, and how research can help us design it responsibly.

NatureVR invites youth workers to take part in a needs assessment survey

The NatureVR project has launched a short needs assessment survey for youth workers, educators, trainers and professionals who work directly with young people. The purpose of the survey is to better understand the current skills, knowledge, resources and training needs related to nature-based learning and the use of Virtual Reality tools in youth work.

NatureVR is an Erasmus+ project implemented by partners from Spain, the Netherlands, Croatia and Italy. The project focuses on developing innovative VR tools that can strengthen young people’s connection with nature and support their emotional, cognitive and social well-being.

Today, many young people spend a significant part of their lives in digital environments, while opportunities for meaningful contact with nature are often limited. At the same time, youth workers and educators are looking for new methods that can make learning more engaging, inclusive and connected to the real needs of young people. NatureVR responds to this challenge by exploring how immersive technologies can be used together with nature-based learning approaches to create meaningful educational experiences.

The survey is an important first step in the development of the project. It focuses on the experiences of youth workers and asks about their current practices, confidence, needs and expectations when it comes to using nature, experiential learning and digital or VR tools in their work. The results will help the project partnership design educational materials and VR-based tools that are practical, accessible and relevant for youth work settings across Europe.

The survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete, and all answers are anonymous. Participants may also translate the form into their own language using the browser translation option.

The NatureVR partnership includes Backslash from Spain, Stichting Anatta Foundation from the Netherlands, Udruga Zaželi from Croatia, The Way A.P.S. from Italy and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore from Italy.

We invite all youth workers, educators, trainers and professionals working with young people to complete the survey and contribute to the development of innovative tools that connect nature, technology and youth well-being.

Complete the survey here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeV7J3UpjqR9nvfPavL7jwCVBqRSHP-auqAt6ZAaErgVPXMOQ/viewform

Listening First: NatureVR Launches Its Research Phase Across Four Countries

Before designing any tool, you need to understand the people it is meant for. That is the principle behind WP2, NatureVR’s research and analysis workpackage, which is now in full swing across Spain, the Netherlands, Croatia, and Italy.

Hearing from young people directly

The first activity of this phase is a series of focus groups bringing together young people aged 18 to 30 from the partner countries. Facilitated by BACKSLASH (Spain), Anatta Foundation (Netherlands), and Udruga Zazeli (Croatia), these sessions are designed to explore a deceptively simple question: what is young people’s relationship with nature today, and what gets in the way of a deeper connection?

Participants are invited to reflect on their own experiences and not just whether they spend time outdoors, but how they feel about nature, what barriers they face, and what they would expect from a digital tool designed to bring them closer to the natural world. Eight focus groups are being conducted in total, with around 120 young people taking part across all countries.

What youth workers have to say

Running in parallel, a structured online survey is reaching youth workers across the consortium countries. This second strand of the research focuses on the professional perspective: what challenges do youth workers encounter when trying to integrate nature-based or digital approaches into their practice? What competencies do they feel they need? What would make a VR tool genuinely useful in their work?

The survey complements the focus groups by capturing the practitioner’s view, the people who will ultimately use NatureVR’s tools with young people on a daily basis.

Why this phase matters

The findings from both activities will feed directly into the design of NatureVR’s VR experiences and training materials. Nothing will be built on assumptions. The consortium is committed to co-creation, and that starts here: with real voices, real contexts, and real needs shaping every decision that follows.

Results are expected by mid-2026. Stay tuned to nature-vr.eu for updates as the research phase progresses.

Can Virtual Nature Actually Be Good for You? What Research (and Three Apps) Are Telling Us

Let’s start with an uncomfortable question: if you can’t get to the mountains, if you live in a grey city, if you struggle with social anxiety or simply don’t have the time – can you still “recharge” through nature? And does it even count?

Surprisingly, the answer is: maybe yes. And research is starting to take that seriously (Figure 1.)

Figure 1. Word cloud, based on 500 keywords, represents the absolute frequency of the most used keywords about nature, virtual reality and youth.

VR and Nature: Not Sci-Fi, Just Well-being

There’s a fairly recent body of research – we’re talking about the post-2019 period, when consumer VR headsets really took off – exploring exactly this: how beneficial can immersion in virtual natural environments actually be, especially for people aged 18 to 30 who face real-world barriers to accessing nature?

The question isn’t just “does it work or doesn’t it?” The more interesting one is: how do you do it ethically and effectively? How do you balance the psychological benefits – less stress, better mood, a stronger sense of connection to the natural world – against very real risks like cybersickness or the disorienting feeling that prolonged headset use can sometimes leave behind (LaViola, 2000)?

This balance matters, especially when we consider that access to natural environments is far from equal. Urban youth, people with mobility limitations, and those living in nature-deprived areas are precisely the groups who might benefit most from virtual alternatives – and the ones most likely to be overlooked in research design (Soga & Gaston, 2016).

The Theoretical Backbone: Why Nature Helps in the First Place

Before diving into the apps, it’s worth pausing on why nature exposure benefits us at all. Two frameworks dominate the literature.

The first is Attention Restoration Theory (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989; Kaplan, 1995), which argues that natural environments restore our capacity for directed attention by engaging what Kaplan calls “soft fascination” – gentle, effortless engagement that lets the mind recover from cognitive fatigue. Think of watching leaves move in the wind. You’re paying attention, but it costs you nothing.

The second is Stress Recovery Theory (Ulrich, 1983), which frames nature exposure as a physiological reset – lower cortisol, reduced heart rate, a nervous system that steps back from high alert. Both theories have decades of empirical support, and more recently, researchers have begun testing whether virtual natural environments can trigger the same responses (Chirico & Gaggioli, 2019; Browning et al., 2020).

The short answer: often, yes – though the mechanisms and the magnitude still vary quite a bit depending on the quality of the immersion.

Wild Journey: Meditating in the Forest (Without Leaving Home)

The first app worth looking at is Wild Journey, and the concept is as simple as it is compelling: it guides you through immersive, nature-themed meditations. There’s a narrator (you can choose a male or female voice) who blends mindfulness techniques with nature storytelling, guided breathing exercises, high-quality nature soundscapes for free listening, and even multi-day journeys – like a “7-day forest retreat” – designed to build a lasting habit of connection with the natural world.

The underlying idea is that through this kind of practice, the boundary between self and nature begins to dissolve. This isn’t just relaxation: it’s training in what researchers call environmental sensitivity – the ability to genuinely perceive and internalize one’s surroundings (Nisbet, Zelenski & Murphy, 2009). You’re not just unwinding; you’re rewiring how you pay attention to the living world.

The Nature Quotient framework (WWF, 2013), which the app implicitly draws on, measures this through two dimensions in particular: Spirit (a felt sense of oneness with nature) and Emotion (affective resonance with natural environments). Wild Journey targets both.

Seek by iNaturalist: The Birdwatcher Inside You (With Achievement Badges)

Then there’s Seek, which works in a completely different way but is just as interesting. Think of it as a real-world Pokédex: you go outside, point your camera at plants and animals, and the app identifies and classifies them. You earn badges for the species you observe, there are monthly challenges, and – almost without noticing – you start becoming genuinely more aware of the biodiversity around you.

What’s clever about Seek is how it uses gamification to do something serious: turn curiosity into real environmental literacy. It’s not just telling you “that’s a blackbird.” It’s teaching you to look at the world differently, to understand ecosystems, and to connect with a community of people who share those interests.

From a theoretical standpoint, this aligns well with research on citizen science and conservation behaviour (Bonney et al., 2014): when people actively participate in observing and documenting nature, their sense of environmental responsibility tends to grow meaningfully. The app targets two Nature Quotient dimensions – Cognition (stimulating curiosity and deeper ecosystem understanding) and Action (fostering active engagement and socialising through shared conservation goals).

Natural Atlas: The Field Guide of the Future

The third app, Natural Atlas, plays on yet another dimension: place attachment. It’s a GPS-powered naturalist guide that adapts to exactly where you’re standing. Original, richly detailed maps, hike tracking, field notes, and a personal profile that accumulates all your outdoor memories over time.

The theoretical lens here comes from Participatory Mapping (PPGIS – Public Participation Geographic Information Systems), a framework developed to understand how people build emotional and cognitive relationships with specific landscapes (Brown & Kyttä, 2014). By actively documenting the places you visit and the things you discover there, you’re not just recording data – you’re constructing what Scannell & Gifford (2010) call Place Identity: the way your self-concept is shaped by, and attached to, the natural places you inhabit.

Natural Atlas targets the same two Nature Quotient dimensions as Seek – Curiosity (cognition) and Action – but through a more personal, reflective lens. Less gamified, more journal-like.

So, Does It Actually Work?

The honest answer is: it depends on how you do it. Slapping on a headset and expecting miracles won’t cut it. VR platforms need to be carefully designed – high-quality content, multiplatform adaptability (the same experiences should ideally run on VR, desktop, and web to reach more users, including teachers in classroom settings), and genuine attention to physiological risks.

But what’s emerging from the research is that digital nature – done right – isn’t a lazy shortcut. It can be a genuine access point to well-being for people who would otherwise be excluded. And, in the best-case scenario, it can even become a first step towards a deeper, more conscious relationship with the real natural world.

Not bad for something that runs on a phone or a headset.

Are you exploring VR nature tools for education or well-being? We’d love to hear about your experience.

References

Bonney, R., Shirk, J. L., Phillips, T. B., Wiggins, A., Ballard, H. L., Miller-Rushing, A. J., & Parrish, J. K. (2014). Next steps for citizen science. Science, 343(6178), 1436–1437.

Brown, G., & Kyttä, M. (2014). Key issues and research priorities for public participation GIS (PPGIS): A synthesis based on empirical research. Applied Geography, 46, 122–136.

Browning, M. H. E. M., Mimnaugh, K. J., van Riper, C. J., Laurent, H. K., & LaValle, S. M. (2020). Can simulated nature support mental health? Comparing short, single-doses of 360-degree nature videos in virtual reality with the outdoors. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 3124.

Chirico, A., & Gaggioli, A. (2019). When virtual feels real: Comparing emotional responses and presence in virtual nature and urban environments. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 22(12), 763–771.

Kaplan, R., & Kaplan, S. (1989). The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective. Cambridge University Press.

Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15(3), 169–182.

LaViola, J. J. (2000). A discussion of cybersickness in virtual environments. ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, 32(1), 47–56.

Nisbet, E. K., Zelenski, J. M., & Murphy, S. A. (2009). The nature relatedness scale: Linking individuals’ connection with nature to environmental concern and behavior. Environment and Behavior, 41(5), 715–740.

Scannell, L., & Gifford, R. (2010). Defining place attachment: A tripartite organizing framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30(1), 1–10.

Soga, M., & Gaston, K. J. (2016). Extinction of experience: The loss of human–nature interactions. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 14(2), 94–101.

Ulrich, R. S. (1983). Aesthetic and affective response to natural environment. In I. Altman & J. F. Wohlwill (Eds.), Behavior and the Natural Environment (pp. 85–125). Plenum Press.

WWF (2013). Reconnecting children with nature: A framework for developing the Nature Quotient. WWF-UK.

NatureVR: Bridging Youth and Nature Through Virtual Reality

Young people across Europe are spending more time in digital environments while reporting rising levels of stress, anxiety, and disconnection from the natural world. Conventional environmental education often struggles to reach a generation growing up in urban settings, where forests, rivers, and open landscapes are not part of daily life. NatureVR an Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership in Youth (KA220-YOU) was designed to address exactly this gap.

Running from January 2026 to June 2028, the project brings together five partner organisations from four countries: Stichting Anatta Foundation (Netherlands) as coordinator, BACKSLASH (Spain), Udruga Zazeli (Croatia), The Way A.P.S. (Italy), and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy). The consortium combines hands-on experience in youth work with expertise in environmental psychology, digital pedagogy, and academic research.

What NatureVR delivers

At the core of the project is the Nature Intelligence (NQ) model a framework that links the emotional, cognitive, spiritual, and physical dimensions of how people relate to nature. The premise is straightforward: a deeper connection with nature supports young people’s mental well-being and encourages sustainable behaviour. NatureVR translates this framework into practical tools that youth workers can integrate into their everyday practice.

The project is co-developing immersive VR experiences grounded in the NQ model, available in two formats one for professional VR headsets and one for printable cardboard viewers that any organisation can assemble at low cost. This dual approach ensures that the tools remain accessible to youth organisations regardless of their technology budgets, and to young people with fewer opportunities.

Alongside the VR tools, the consortium is producing e-learning modules for youth workers, an intensive four-day Training of Trainers programme in Spain, and policy advocacy materials targeting regional, national, and EU-level decision-makers.

The numbers behind the project

Over 30 months of implementation, NatureVR will train more than 50 youth workers as multipliers, directly engage over 150 young people in testing and using the tools, and reach more than 30,000 stakeholders through its awareness campaign. Every project output; VR tools, learning materials, methodologies will be freely available under an open licence for at least five years after the project ends.

Values guiding the work

NatureVR rests on four principles: evidence-based design through collaboration with researchers in environmental psychology and cognitive science; inclusion by default through multilingual content, subtitles, audio descriptions, and a focus on youth with fewer opportunities; co-creation with youth workers and young people at every development stage; and openness and sustainability of results well beyond the project’s lifetime.

What comes next

In the coming months, the consortium is conducting needs assessments with young people and youth workers across the four partner countries the foundation on which the VR tools will be co-developed. Follow the project’s progress on nature-vr.eu and join us on the journey of using technology to bring young people back into meaningful contact with the natural world.