The Interactive Prairie is an museum exhibit that utilizes an 8-foot LED globe in the sustainability center in the Peggy Notebaert Museum in Chicago, Illinois. Users interact with an external touch screen that displays Rain, Biodiversity and Controlled Burns. Users get to experience the great resilience of the prairie when given less than stellar conditions as well as enjoy beautiful art and scenery in an underutilized space at the museum. This project connects two previously very separate exhibits. The sphere is located right next to the an exhibit that defines the three types of environments native to Illinois, and the sustainability center. Our project aims to help young students understand the resilience of the Illinois prairie, as well as highlight the beauty of the prairie. Illinois has lost most of our natural prairies, but with the help of our project we hope to highlight the importance of the prairies to our natural environment.  Our team is interested in bringing the beauty and science behind the resilience of the prairie to a young audience. Our project seeks to unite technology and art in a way that is interactive and easy to understand by a young audience. A large question we are working with is how to make this information digestible and easily understood on a large screen. 

All of the Art for the Interactive prairie was hand painted with watercolour and gouache by both myself, and my wonderful assistant Kel Luxton who worked as the technical artist for this project, bridging the gap between art and technology seamlessly. Server set-up, major coding, and problem solver extraordinaire by Pradyumna Tallapragada.