The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) will create a unified, mission-aligned professional development experience that strengthens both core museum and library competencies and emerging artificial intelligence (AI)–ready practices for NYBG staff. The project will generate flexible, in-person, and virtual sessions paired with self-paced recordings and job aids, with the goal of building essential skills in AI literacy, knowledge stewardship, communication, and operational effectiveness.

Lotusland will develop a virtual learning management system to improve and expand its volunteer training program by developing an online onboarding curriculum with educational materials. The virtual learning management system will include educational modules, videos, and interactive tools that volunteers can access anytime.

Staff will share project outcomes through conferences, contributing to sector‑wide learning on digital training and volunteer engagement.

Idaho Botanical Garden (IBG) will implement its interpretive master plan by conducting a comprehensive site and collections assessment to inventory existing signage, wayfinding, accessibility conditions, and plant labeling across the developed 15-acre site and identifying priority locations for new interpretive elements. IBG will strengthen its collections infrastructure, finalize interpretive themes with input from Tribal and historical partners, fabricate and install new signage in key areas, and train staff and volunteers to ensure consistent interpretation. Primary beneficiaries include IBG’s approximately 140,000 annual visitors, most of whom engage through self-guided visits. Additional beneficiaries include K-12 students participating in field trips and fourth-grade students, through a new standards-aligned curriculum. Project results include a cohesive interpretive experience and increased understanding of plant collections. Success will be measured through completion of planned activities, analysis of visitor satisfaction surveys and attendance data, tracking participation in education and volunteer programs, and assessment of data collection accuracy.

The North Carolina Botanical Garden at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will implement a comprehensive wayfinding and interpretive signage system to transform the visitor experience. Guided by a comprehensive interpretive plan developed through a previous IMLS grant award, the project will address longstanding gaps in site navigation and interpretation. Six staff members will serve on the core project team through a structured series of activities, including prototyping wayfinding signage, testing its effectiveness, and developing interpretive content. The garden will engage several consultants and a professional sign design and fabrication service to fabricate and install new signs that are visually effective and durable for long-term outdoor installation. The project team will evaluate the project’s success in helping visitors navigate the site, deepening their understanding of southeastern plants and ecosystems.

Bok Tower Gardens will improve the preservation environment of El Retiro, the historic house museum at Bok Tower Gardens, by installing custom UV-filtering inserts on windows and UV-filtering film on doors throughout the house. A 2020 Collections Assessment for Preservation report identified significant conservation risks, including unfiltered sunlight, fluctuating temperature and humidity, and pest intrusion caused by aging original windows and doors. These conditions threaten the museum’s 1,721 collection of objects that are highly sensitive to ultraviolet exposure and environmental instability. By stabilizing the interior environment and reducing light and pest exposure, this project will slow deterioration and strengthen preventive conservation practices. These improvements will protect El Retiro’s historic collections while ensuring continued public access for the thousands of visitors who tour the house each year.

The Santa Fe Botanical Garden will improve the accessibility of its herbarium by digitizing nearly 4,000 preserved plant specimens from northern New Mexico. The museum will recruit, hire, and train an herbarium collections and data coordinator, who will assist staff in implementing project activities with the support of expert and experienced volunteers and an external advisor. Key activities will include the review and assessment of specimens and associated records, creating high-quality images, mapping collection locations, and linking herbarium specimens to living plants in the garden. By providing digital images online through global biodiversity networks, the project will enable scientists to study regional plant diversity, help land managers make conservation decisions, and provide educators with teaching resources.

In response to a community need for expanded access to nature-based early learning experiences, the San Diego Zoo will launch a new school program for transitional kindergarten and kindergarten students. Wild Beginnings will engage teachers and community partners in co-designing a two-part learning model that includes an in-school program and a field trip to the zoo. The program will be offered at no cost to classes throughout San Diego County along with transportation support, and the zoo will work in partnership with an advisory committee of classroom teachers to develop the program content and reduce barriers to participation. Consultants will provide staff training to ensure the project aligns with best practices in community-centered inclusive program design. The program will reach over 3,000 students and the zoo will share evaluation findings with peer institutions across the zoo and aquarium field.

The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden will conduct research to improve safety and efficiency of cryopreserving exceptional plant collections, with a focus on oak species. The project will address the challenges of preserving exceptional plant species – those species which cannot be banked using conventional seed banking methods.

The Atlanta Botanical Garden will create a program that connects local and national efforts in wildlife planning to prevent the loss of and restore plant diversity. The Atlanta Botanical Garden, which coordinates the Southeastern Plant Conservation Alliance, will partner with botanical gardens, state wildlife agencies, and conservation organizations to take a model developed across 15 southeastern states to the national level.

Denver Botanic Gardens will develop new open-source data management tools that will enable natural history collections to link specimen records with external datasets. Although large-scale digitization efforts have made tens of millions of specimens accessible, much of the rich, multidimensional data associated with these specimens remains fragmented across disconnected databases. This new platform will link a core physical specimen with a network of associated digital resources, including images, genomic data, functional traits, ecological observations, and downstream analytical outputs.

The Chicago Botanic Garden will partner with other botanic gardens to develop a scalable framework for the active coordination of plant management across institutions’ living plant collections. The project will first focus on orchids held in various institution collections as a means of establishing data collection and work processes.