Woop app gets more kids out in nature

The Danish Scout Council is an association of more than 37,000 scout groups in Denmark. Each scout group is a self-governing association with their own boards and management. One of the core values of the Danish Scout Council is to make nature accessible for everyone, which, according to the council, is partly achieved by giving children and young people knowledge about using and preserving nature.

The Woop app was originally launched in 2012 and is one of the oldest Danish apps still in operation.

The original idea of the app was to evoke a feeling of excitement in the user while being in nature by giving the user the ability to go on digital treasure hunts combined with being outside. The app was intended to make the outdoor experience fun and educational to fill a need for spending more time outside.

When the Danish Scout Council came to us, only 26% of Danish students between the ages of 11 to 15 met the recommendations for physical activity set by the Danish Health Authority. However, the problem wasn’t a lack of interest in being outside, as this had increased during the Covid situation. Instead, there was a need for a fun way for children and young people to spend time outside. As one of the oldest apps in Denmark, Woop being improved and brought up to date to meet this challenge made the most sense.

It took great effort for the scout council to keep the Woop app alive for eight years, and the complex coding language originally used was outdated. This meant that it was a big challenge to make updates, leaving the app without any major changes over its lifespan. After the eight years on the market, it was clear to the scout council that the first version of the app was outdated and unstable, experiencing frequent crashes and other UX hardships. This would be a problem for any app but given that the user group for Woop had expanded beyond just scouts to include schoolteachers, parents, cross fitters, rowing clubs, Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts, and more, the dated functionality proved to be an important problem to fix.

With the support of 2.8 million DKK from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Valtech designed and developed the app in collaboration with the Danish Scout Council. With the transformation of Woop, the app now supports the school, the family, and the council, and is a part of the solution to get more people outside, giving children and young people more outdoor experiences.

In addition to the scout council making task sets in the activities on the app, it has several partners, such as The Danish Society for Nature Conservation and the Danish Outdoor Council, who contribute to the content of the app. In this way, the app has become a universe of different task sets that the users can take and use without having to invent new hunts themselves. Another difference is that users can now create task sets at home from the couch opposed to needing to go for a walk to set up records. This makes planning for teachers, scout leaders and sports coaches both easier and less time consuming. The app is also optimized so that it does not drain the user's battery and with a more accurate GPS.

The intention of the app was to get more children and young people outside, and within the first three weeks after the relaunch, the app had been downloaded almost 19,000 times, and more than 27,000 children had explored nature in Denmark through the Woop hunt experience. Since the relaunch, the app has been downloaded 145,000 times, and more than 10,000 task sets and 16,000 treasure hunts have been created; 70,000 games have been started, and the average usage time is 25 minutes and nine seconds.

During its lifetime, the app has been a great catalyst for getting children and young people out and experiencing nature, and in this way, it fulfils DDS 'desire to create a plan B for families who want to create a stronger connection to nature, create less time on social media. Additionally, because Woop is suitable for children to use on their own, it’s become more than just a teaching tool for adults to use, it’s also a safe, fun space for kids to create their own outdoor experiences. The Woop app has been praised for linking the digital with the physical and creating learning opportunities for children and young people.

Even as the app’s userbase has extended, Woop is still very relevant for the original intended audience: Danish Scouts. For various scout corps, Woop is used for activities and events such as Sankt Hans as well as in everyday life. Using the app, scout leaders can create activities for members that previously required far more preparation and oversight. The update of the app has benefitted the public, making it easier and more fun for children and young people to go outside. Schools use the app for outdoor math classes, birthday parties are being celebrated outside, and the combination of the digital and the physical brings nature closer to us while simultaneous preparing everyone for our phygital connected future.

“Together with the Valtech team, we made Woops digital treasure hunt a better and more creative tool for scout leaders and teachers, and an even more exciting game for kids in Denmark.” – Trine Hansen, Digital Consultant, The Danish Scout Council