- Author: Edie Warkentine
The Demonstration Native Plant Garden at the Eastern Sierra Visitors Center (ESVC) has grown into the 21st century! Thanks to the excellent work of Master Gardeners Ariel Bohr and Katie Rodriguez, we now have QR[1] codes, linking plants to the California Native Plant Society website, posted in the garden.
Although our goal is permanent signs with QR codes attached, as an interim measure, Ariel and Katie have added QR codes to existing signs. Visitors to the garden can now use their smart phones (using the camera feature) to learn all about each identified plant.
Ariel and Katie first began this project with an eye to finalizing a brochure for the garden – a project that was begun by others several years ago. However, we quickly realized that a combination of limited resources and a desire to keep paper waste to a minimum made a physical brochure an undesirable option at this time. Technology provided a better option!
Katie and Ariel carefully went on their own plant identification search through the garden to see what has survived from past identification efforts and what has been introduced. They decided to add QR codes only to an individual specimen, even if there were others in the garden. In the future, they hope to develop an interpretative game for children who visit the garden, asking them to find all of a particular kind of plant, based on the one that has already been identified for them.
With the installation of the QR codes, and all the spring blooms, the garden is now ready for visitors!
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[1] Wikipedia defines a QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) as a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese automotive company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that contains information about the item to which it is attached.