Bird Watch
Marie A. Jarrell, Christine Wendell, Cameron Ogle, William Hendrickson, J. Drew Lanham · 2019
Birdwatching is one of the largest and most profitable outdoor wildlife activities in the world, including much of Northern America. Despite this, birdwatching enthusiasts face many difficulties in recruiting new watchers due to a multitude of limitations. The most common of these include; the unpredictability of finding live specimens in natural environments, lack of access to habitats for many individuals, and heavy reliance on teaching with illustrations and sound files which can make bird study stale or difficult for certain learners, especially members of younger generations. Our program seeks to help alleviate these issues by providing a more reliable, accessible, and entertaining means of bird education through the use of a bird identification video game. Bird Watch is a virtual reality birdwatching simulator which places participants inside a virtual forest populated by ten common North American birds. Through relaxed, repetitive action, participants improve their real world bird identification skills while hopefully gaining greater appreciation for the pastime. Which could lead to increased participation in both birdwatching and wildlife preservation.