This DOI ORDA-Sponsored session offers a case study for how TLEF participants can leverage emerging technologies to support their mission and drive impact. It features an exhibition of “Benthos 360”, the award-winning Virtual Reality (VR) 360° documentary experience about conserving the most-endangered group of animals in the United States: freshwater mussels. With a restoration biologist from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as your underwater guide, you’ll dive beneath Appalachia’s Clinch River -- the most biodiverse and threatened mussel habitat in the country -- to explore the vibrant yet vulnerable aquatic world known as the "Benthic Zone”. Come explore nature and conservation in a whole new light, and learn how you might use similar technologies for your own initiatives. (Exhibition includes both VR headset and iPad options.)
*Please note that the video clip from the Benthos 360 project was removed from tis recording so that the project could continue to be eligible for film festivals.
