A Nebraska One Health research and design concept
The Nebraska Forager is a concept extension program designed to educate and excite people about the wonders of nature, with a focus on foraging, gardening, and other methods of safely living off the land. While the program is designed to be appealing and useful to all ages, the primary age group and application is hands on exploratory field trips. The program would have seasonal topics and would provide parents and teachers resources to organize an outing. Things like event space, printable materials, and instructor education would all be provided via the Forager website.
For this project specifically, I have worked to provide an example seasonal topic which focuses on educating about mushrooms and how to forage for them. The event is called Fungi-Finder. Organizers will have access to printable cards of all of the seasonal mushrooms that can be found right here in Nebraska. Cards will provide a clear image on the front, with some glancable information right below, things like how easily it can be found and its scientific name. On the back is a brief bit of critical information, saying what to look for, what lookalikes might look like and how to avoid them, seasonal timing, and so on. Each card can then be found on students phones, iPads, or other connected devices and would provide further information and interactive activities, such as a matching game that has students learn which mushroom is the safe one and which one is a dangerous lookalike.
