TCNJ

8 The College of New Jersey Magazine F A L L 2 0 2 2 PRAIRIE It's alive! TCNJ's science, art, and media students bring you an interactive experience about honeysuckles. TCNJ talent was on display in an immersive experience called Meaningful Beauty: The Vibrant Vocabulary of Honeysuckles. First featured in the college's art gallery, the exhibit traveled to Harvard University to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Arnold Arboretum. Meaningful Beauty blends art gallery visuals with science museum wisdom and is part of biology professor Wendy Clement's National Science Foundation collaboration grant for undergraduate training. Clement brought in interactive multimedia professor Christopher Ault and more than 50 students from across the Schools of Science and Arts and Communication to complete the project. The team looked at honeysuckles to understand plant evolution and how characteristics such as color and leaf arrangement communicate different messages to insects and animals. The exhibit drew on animated media, digital fabrication, and augmented reality technology to bring those concepts to life for non-scientists. "Science should be accessible to all," says biology major Anna Bergen '23. We recreate some of the work, including codes for augmented reality, in these pages. Visitors to the gallery exhibition received additional information through augmented reality. You can do the same here, using your cell phone. Scan the symbol to the right and allow access to your camera. Keeping your phone's browser open, scan this and the other black and white symbols throughout the story.

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