This VR experience—created by Penn State and the National Science Foundation—drops you into a young forest to find wood-warblers. Explore the landscape as you find and identify wood-warblers, which are small, colorful songbirds. Then immerse yourself in a 360° view of how scientists safely catch and study birds in the wild. Finally, head to the molecular lab for a close-up look at how the Toews Lab at Penn State processes DNA to understand the genetics of golden-winged (Vermivora chrysoptera) and blue-winged warblers (V. cyanoptera).

The experience is free to download to a Meta Quest 3 via SideQuest: https://sidequestvr.com/app/44760/vrmivora

Funding:
Funding provided from the National Science Foundation CAREER grant, DEB-2337828.
DPLT was supported by Pennsylvania State University, as well as funds from the Eberly College of Science and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.
The creators also acknowledge the Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (RRID:SCR_025154) and the expertise provided through the RISE Core Facility (RRID:SCR_026426).

Credits:
Project Conceptualization: David Toews, Lisa Wang, Patrick Dudas
Project Management: David Toews, Patrick Dudas, Chad Bahrmann, Jessica Menold
VR Modelling: Alex Fatemi
VR Environments: Bart Masters
Audio narration: David Toews
360 videos: David Toews, Lisa Wang, Cati Besch, Antara Kulkarni