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Launch at BIOTOPIA Lab: New wilderness app "Forest"

12 May 2023

On May 10, Bavaria's Environment Minister Thorsten Glauber and Bavaria's Digital Minister Judith Gerlach were guests at the BIOTOPIA Lab to present a new app that children and young people can use to track down the forest and its secrets.

The Wilderness Augmented Reality (AR) app combines the real environment with virtual content. In this way, (not only) children and young people can use their smartphone or tablet to explore things during a walk in the forest that normally remain hidden: the breeding cavity of a woodpecker, a hawk owl that stretches its wings up to 1.25 meters, or a mushroom mycelium that branches out under the ground. The app inspires with high-quality augmentations, 3-D animations, an X-ray view function, film elements and audio contributions. It introduces its users to the full diversity of nature so that they can better understand - and thus protect - the value of the forest ecosystem and its inhabitants.

"An app cannot replace the real forest experience, but it can impart knowledge in a playful way and arouse curiosity for things that are not apparent at first glance. The Wilderness AR app has what it takes to draw young people into the countryside and get them excited about this wonderful ecosystem," says Prof. Dr. Michael John Gorman, founding director of Naturkundemuseum Bayern. "We are very pleased that we were able to set a stage for the presentation of such a high-quality experience app in the BIOTOPIA Lab."

The Wilderness AR app was produced by renowned documentary filmmaker Lisa Eder and her team - funded by the Bavarian Digital Ministry through the XR funding program of the Bavarian FilmFernsehFonds, the Bavarian Ministry of the Environment, the Bavarian Savings Bank Foundation, the Bavarian Nature Conservation Fund and the Leir Foundation.

The app can and should also be used in school lessons. Extensive didactic accompanying material is available for this purpose.

The AR app "Wald" is available for download free of charge from the Apple and Android app stores. Once the download of the app is completed, the app works offline.

(Image source: STMUV)

Naturkundemuseum Bayern
Botanisches Institut
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80638 München, Germany

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