Interactive Exhibit Design on Pollinator Ecology
Partner organizations: Oahu Urban Garden Center and Bee Hui
Team members: Athina Theofilou (architectural engineering, ’23), Eri Kim (computer science, ’23), Jacob Gassenheimer (civil engineering ’23), Slater Campbell (electrical & computer engineering ’23)
Watch the team’s final presentation.
Did you know that pollinators, primarily honey bees, are responsible for one in every three bites of food we eat? Can you imagine a world without bees? Despite the importance of pollinators, their populations have been declining around the globe, with more than 40% of insect-pollinator species classified as highly threatened with extinction (Kopec & Burd, 2017). Due to pollinator population declines, the world is facing the loss of ecosystems and biodiversity as well as declines of food crops and resultant pressure on the economy.
Out of all insect pollinators, honey bees are one of the most significant. In Hawai‘i, they pollinate many crops including macadamia nuts, almonds, and pumpkins. However, there has been a decline in bee biodiversity, especially on Hawai‘i Island and Oahu Island due to multiple invasive species and habitat loss. Hawai‘i is also the largest exporter of queen bees in the world; production is currently estimated to be worth around $10 million a year (Hawai‘i Apiary Program Info, 2016). Any decline in bee populations would lead to reduced queen bee production, which would ultimately impact Hawaii’s economy, and would cause cascading effects in markets that purchase queens from Hawai‘i.
There are many reasons for pollinator declines, and human impact is a major cause: land use has caused habitat loss, trade and industry has caused the introduction of invasive species, and climate change has put substantial pressure on honey bee populations. In order to stop or reverse the pollinator biodiversity declines, outreach to the public is crucial, as people can only provide support for an issue they are aware of. To address this, the goal of this Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP) was to develop interactive educational materials for our sponsor, the Oahu Urban Garden Center, to help educate visitors–especially children–on the importance of pollinator ecology in Hawai‘i. In order to engage children, we designed an interactive exhibit–which is a prime example of informal education–that combines hands-on games, educational posters, and take-home activities.
Our first objective in creating the exhibit was to determine content areas to cover.
Figure 1: 3D Rendered Images of Pollinator-Plant Matching Game Disk (left) and Slider Game (right)
Through interviewing pollinator experts and discussing what our sponsors felt was important, we settled on four content areas: the biology and importance of pollination, life cycle of bees, decline in pollinator diversity and its impact, and a call to action. The pollination section was included to explain the role of pollinators and justify their importance. The life cycle of bees section was added to introduce the four stages of growth of a bee, and different types of bees–worker, drone, and the queen–concluding with a description of nectar, honey, wax, and their differences. The section focusing on the decline in pollinator diversity and its impact was added to convey the current stressors that pollinators are facing. These declines provide a motivation for our call to action, which aims to teach visitors how to create and maintain their own pollinator-friendly garden.
We then began the first part of our second objective: brainstorming ways to communicate each topic in an interactive way. Parts of the exhibit that could not be interactive were supplemented by posters and graphics at the exhibit and also on the website we developed. We created 3D models of our initial ideas for interactive components using Fusion 360 to convey them to involved parties as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 2: Woodworking (left) and painting (right)
This process was an iterative one, and we interviewed exhibit designers and teachers to gather feedback and revise our designs at every stage. Our sponsors at the Oahu Urban Garden Center were closely involved to ensure the content was accurate and focused. We then proceeded to our last objective: constructing and installing the exhibit.
After purchasing materials needed to build our designs, we constructed games by woodworking and painting as shown in Figure 2. Simultaneously, we placed orders for the laser-cut components of our designs and coordinated with Dr. Leyla Kaufman at the University of Hawai‘i to 3D print other components of the exhibit.
After constructing our designs, we visited the Oahu Urban Garden Center (OUGC) to install them inside a pre-existing screened structure referred to as the observation house (Figure 3). Using a floor plan we created, we installed the exhibit following the content order we determined in our first objective (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Observation House (left) and Floor Plan (right)
As visitors enter the exhibit, they are greeted by a welcome poster. Then, they can continue through the content areas: Pollination, Bee Life Cycle, Bee Declines, and Call to Action.
Pollination (numbered 1-3 in Figure 3)
1. The pollen throwing game teaches very young kids what pollination is.
2. The sliders illustrate the effects of pollination and why it is important.
3. The matching game (pictured in Figure 4) teaches visitors how some pollinators prefer certain flowers, while others are generalists.
Figure 4: Matching game at station 3
Bee Life Cycle (numbered 4-5 in Figure 3)
4. A panel represents different types of bees (drone, worker, queen) with information on their roles.
5. A panel shows the progression of the lifecycle of bees (egg, larvae, pupae, adult).
Bee Declines (numbered 6 in Figure 3)
6. A poster covers some reasons bee populations and biodiversity are declining, with a QR code to the website with more information.
Call to action (numbered 7 in Figure 3)
7. Brochures with seed packets that can be brought home have instructions on how to start a pollinator friendly garden.
Then, we provided our sponsors with recommendations on what they can do to maintain or add to the exhibit. For example, we recommend that they add a section on the anatomy of honey bees, with an interactive model of their internal organs. We also recommend that they further expand the section on pollinator declines. Finally, they should assess the effectiveness of the exhibit, building off the assessment research we did. For maintenance, we included some extras of components that might need to be replaced, along with files for posters and each piece we 3D-printed or laser-cut. We also included links to all purchased pieces.
We hope that visitors to our exhibit will gain a new appreciation for pollinators’ critical role in our ecosystem, and will be inspired to take action in their own lives to help protect pollinators.