Last summer, the Arboretum and Botanical Garden at Cal State Fullerton launched a collaborative new internship opportunity that allows students to create highly detailed images of plants to promote plant conservation and enhance visitors’ experiences.
As part of the florilegium project, CSUF art students create highly detailed and precise images of plants located in the Arboretum and Botanical Garden. Ultimately, the internships will be extended to biology students to create narratives that focus on a particular plant, explaining why they are threatened and how they can be conserved. Computer science students will also be involved to create an online platform and develop a web tour, so visitors can use their phones to locate the plants featured in the florilegium project and learn more about them.
“Each semester, students are eligible to be selected by faculty advisers from the College of the Arts, College of Natural Science and Mathematics, and College of Engineering and Computer Science, to participate in an internship where they are engaged in this project,” said Greg Pongetti, living collections curator, who developed this project.
“The goal is to create a website and database of the threatened plants that include not only photos but botanical illustrations of each plant. We are excited to be developing this program to benefit the Arboretum and Botanical Garden as well as collaborating with three different colleges on campus. It will provide meaningful experiential learning opportunities for students over the course of many semesters,” said Pongetti.