Fernanda Dobal

Circular Species is a toy that combines bio materials and digital technology in order to teach children aged eight to 11 about the carbon cycle. It comes with three components; a digital app, a physical woolly mammoth toy, and a seed package. 

When the user is ready, they can bury the toy in their backyard alongside the seeds. Over the course of a few weeks, the external shell of the mammoth biodegrades and the seeds sprout. The accompanying app has learning content and uses augmented reality to show the user the movement of carbon and other biological systems that are happening at all stages of the toy. The app prompts the user to excavate the skeleton when enough time has passed for biodegradation of the mammoth’s outer shell to occur, at which point the child using it gets to be a paleontologist and excavate the mammoth.