Flying futures: Engaging the views of children and young people on everyday life and futures with drones

By Anna Jackman, University of Reading

Drones are a growing feature of UK skies. In January 2023, the UK’s aviation regulator – the Civil Aviation Authority – stated that 500,000 drone pilots are registered, 7,000 operational authorisation applications are processed per year, and that the total number of drone pilots and aircraft is 80% larger than the General Aviation and commercial air sector added up. In addition to growing recreational drone use by hobbyists, drones are increasingly deployed in civil and commercial applications, from use in emergency services and infrastructure inspection to the delivery of goods. Drones are associated with a range of benefits, from rapid data gathering and improving safety (e.g. reducing workers at height) to enabling connectivity and access (e.g. delivery to remote areas). Praised as tools carrying out tasks ‘faster, cheaper and with less impact on the environment than traditional methods’, the UK Government’s ambition statement for commercial drones envisions that ‘by 2030 commercial drones will be commonplace in the UK in a way that safely benefits the economy and wider society’.

There remain, however, a number of risks and challenges associated with the use of drones. Research into the public perception of drones highlights concerns around privacy, safety and security, and disruption to visual and sound landscapes. While indicating levels of public support for drones used for risky jobs and emergency services, members of the public expressed anxieties around the potential for collisions in the air and risks to people and property below, the privacy implications of drones accessing and recording people’s personal space, the potential for drone misuse and criminal activity, and the visual and noise disruption of drones flying overhead, both potentially duplicating existing disruption in already busy environments and spoiling tranquility in otherwise peaceful green space.

Yet while attention to the public’s perception of and readiness for future flight technologies such as drones has been identified as a priority area for social science research, research remains focused on adults. Despite their position as stakeholders key in the unfolding use and futures of such technologies, little attention has been paid to the views of children and young people on drones.

We are turning to the classroom to learn more about how children and young people understand and view drones, and their thoughts on how we might use and live with these technologies in the future. Working in collaboration with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), we are launching the Everyday Drone Stories project, one featuring resources and interactive activities on drones and drone use, designed for pupils at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 5, and inviting participating schools to share pupil responses.

© Royal Geographical Society, Everyday Drone Stories webpage

The guided resources introduce pupils to what drones are and what they do, as well as how they are regulated in the UK, situating learnings in relation to national curriculum specifications. The interactive activities offer opportunities for children and young people to share their views on drones and how they anticipate we might use and live with them in the future. Children at Key Stage 3 are invited to develop their own drone map. Selecting a place familiar to them, they are invited to mark out where they think drones are currently, or could in the future be used, what the drones are or could be used for, and encouraged to reflect on who or what this drone use might impact. In a more scenario-based activity, young people at Key Stage 5 are invited to share their views on examples of current and future-orientated drone applications, and encouraged to reflect on the potential benefits, risks and implications associated with these, for people, wildlife and environments alike.

In exploring children and young people’s visual and textual stories and accounts of everyday life with drones and their imaginations of drone futures, the project finds much inspiration in existing geographical work. This has shone a light on how pervasive technologies are in the everyday lives of children and young people, argued for attention to their voices and agencies as technology users, and their recognition as co-producers of knowledge. It has also demonstrated both that imaginations about the future are ‘central in how people relate to, understand and feel’ about robotic technologies, and that young people articulate and compose ‘complicated visions of the future’. Taking inspiration from such work and from the Stay Home Stories project, led by Professor Alison Blunt in which children and young people created maps recording their experiences of home during COVID-19, this unfolding research project seeks to engage, better understand, and share the diverse views and perceptions of children and young people as emerging drone technologies enter our everyday lives and spaces.

If you are a head teacher or teacher at a UK school and are interested in taking part in the Everyday Drone Stories project, please visit the project webpage to access all project materials. The resources and activities will remain accessible, and the opportunity to share pupil responses in contribution to the research project is open until 29 March 2024. The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) will be disseminating further information about the project to its network of schools, but if you have any questions, please contact Dr Anna Jackman.

About the author: Dr Anna Jackman is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Reading. The Everyday Drone Stories research project is a collaboration with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), forms part of Dr Jackman’s Diversifying Drone Stories project (ES/W001977/1) and was supported by the University of Reading’s Global Development Division RETF fund.