Abstract Detail

Education and Outreach

King, Robert J [1], Bergen, Anna T [1], Kakumanu, Siya [2], Shah, Ria B. [3], Welch, Shania [1], Wright, Haley [4], Zhang, Jingbo [5], Howarth, Dianella [6], Srivastav, Mansa [7], Donoghue, Michael [8], Ault, Chris [4], Clement, Wendy [9].

Meaningful Beauty: Designing an art-science exhibition through a cross-disciplinary, student-faculty collaboration.

Students and faculty collaborated on an exciting initiative to synthesize art and science to create an interactive art exhibition, Meaningful Beauty: The Vibrant Vocabulary of Honeysuckles. This exhibition celebrated plant diversity and evolution by focusing on a single plant group, Lonicera or the honeysuckles, while also disseminating results of ongoing research at The College of New Jersey, Yale University, and St. John’s University. The development of the exhibition involved nearly fifty undergraduate students at The College of New Jersey led by faculty from two departments, Biology and Design and Creative Technology. This faculty-student team developed, designed, and created an immersive experience displayed in the TCNJ Art Gallery during part of the Spring 2022 semester and will travel to the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University early summer of 2022. Ranging from botanical illustrations and floral diagrams to laser-cut herbarium specimens and honeysuckle inspired characters, student illustrators, animators, graphic designers, and game designers worked to blend science and art resulting in a multitude of perspectives on plant diversity for visitors to experience. The incorporation of augmented reality (AR) allowed additional content to be included such as 3D honeysuckle models paired with 2D images of floral diagrams. Further, visitors had the opportunity to build their own virtual honeysuckle by selecting various components such as fused or unfused leaves and flower size, and then ‘see’ their plant in a mixed reality garden. Students had the opportunity to engage with the exhibition through a course, summer research, and independent research, or as a course learning assistant, tour guide, or panel member. Here we describe the goals and elements of the exhibition and invite you to interact with the student-designed art. We also describe the student opportunities and learning outcomes generated by this exhibition and outline key elements that supported a successful cross-disciplinary collaborative effort.

1 - The College of New Jersey, Biology Department, 2000 Pennington Rd, Ewing, New Jersey, 08628, United States
2 - The College of New Jersey, Department of Biology, 2000 Pennington Rd, Ewing, New Jersey, 08618, United States
3 - The College of New Jersey, Department of Biology, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing, New Jersey, 08628, United States
4 - The College of New Jersey, Design and Creative Technology, 2000 Pennington Rd, Ewing, New Jersey, 08628, United States
5 - St. John's University, Department of Biological Sciences, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Jamaica, NY, 11439, USA
6 - St. John's University, Department Of Biological Sciences, St. Albert Hall Rm 257, 8000 Utopia Pkwy, Jamiaca, NY, 11439, United States
7 - Yale University, Ecology And Evolutionary Biology, 21 Sachem Street, Room 364 New Haven, CT 06511, Environmental Science Center, Room Number 356, New Haven, CT, 06511, United States
8 - Yale University, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 21 Sachem St., New Haven, CT, 06511, USA
9 - The College Of New Jersey, Biology, 2000 Pennington Road, Department Of Biology, Ewing, NJ, 08628, United States

Keywords:
Lonicera
honeysuckle
art exhibition
Undergraduate Research
Science communication
Outreach
Evolution
plant diversity.

Presentation Type: Poster
Number: PEO009
Abstract ID:927
Candidate for Awards:None