Pantry of Destruction and More Twittertalk

January 17, 2023 EID Coaching

It’s time for the last in the series of three posts from the 2022 #InterpDesign twitter platform annual highlights. The previous post dealt with the power of graphics in playful interpretation which helps with serious learning. We also had fun with the effective use of infrastructure and who can’t forget the dog library. Now we delve into satisfying various visitor needs.

If you follow us already then this will be a tweet refresher/reminder with some added bonus expansion on the original limited commentary. If you don’t follow us yet (what are you waiting for!) as our aim is to inspire you with an eclectic range of thought -provoking material that you can apply to boost your visitors’ site experience. If your visitor experience team needs a spark of new perspectives on a specific issue or just general experience enhancement as a kick off to 2023, then get in touch with us at contact@eidcoaching.com A roundtable discussion is only a Zoom meeting away.

Design WITH Children! Take Curiosity Seriously!

How do you go about sparking a “lifelong love of heritage” in the youngster demographic? Perhaps by transforming an heritage property into a first-of-its-kind experience designed for AND with youngsters. What if rooms, in a richly decorated home, best known for its furnishings, became spaces that celebrated the escapades and challenges of childhood across the centuries, especially the realities of life for children who were employed?

Certain spaces in the Children’s Country House Museum run by the National Trust in England have been redone to portray the child’s journey through the ages. Daring young ‘sweeps’ can take on the chimney climb and crawl into the darkness. Others can venture down a Victorian mine tunnel or get involved with activities to see what life was like for children working in domestic service.

Certain spaces in the museum basement have been transformed into interactive historic house interpretation like the World Below and the Pantry of Destruction. In the former, visitors can prepare toy food and make clay models inspired by the house’s plasterwork. In the latter Pantry of Destruction children are engaged in the basics of heritage conservation with an interactive display on heritage hazards such as floods, theft and pests, to counteract elements of ‘destruction’. The portrait photo booth allows visitors to pose for photos using symbolic props that echo the symbols found in historic portraiture associated with 17th century Jacobean interiors.

What about devising & testing ideas aimed at "serving the needs of children with families, not families with children?” The Children’s Country House Museum did just that -following a two-and-a-half-year renovation, by working with 100 ambassadors, up to age 12. They continue to work with children to further develop the Garden and decide what the future should look and feel like.

They claim this is the world’s first stately home entirely reinterpreted for children. The property has removed almost all ropes and barriers, allowing visitors to explore the space freely, with colour coding used to signal which objects can be touched. A rotating mirror allows visitors to pick out details in the paintings and plasterwork that decorate the stairs.

In another twist, the National Trust created a second-hand shop selling children s’ pre-loved items including books, toys and clothing. This exemplifies the reuse principle as opposed to outright consumerism and reinforces a certain value system integral to conservation.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/peak-district-derbyshire/the-childrens-country-house-at-sudbury/creating-the-childrens-country-house

Fostering Connections

“Museums in general are places for community and dialogue, and are uniquely positioned to foster connections among people using art immersion as a stimulating factor.”

This was stated by Lucy Stewart, the Associate Curator of Education at Carnegie Museum of Art, after she led the launch of a Mindful Museum at her institution. Having read the Alliance of American Museums (AAM)’ Creative Aging report, that concluded the over 55 demographic was being ill served by museums, she responded with “a call to action.”

Their market research discovered: “There are more than 20,000 people aged 55+ within walking distance of Carnegie Museum of Art.” How many of you know the numbers of certain age groupings within a close distance of your centre that you could call “neighbours?” A new form of outreach, and forgotten target market, perhaps?

Two main thrusts from the report were apparent: the need for seniors to be able to express themselves and to be active in a safe, comfortable, and stimulating environment. A sense of comfort also meant sitting in chairs in the galleries, during a planned time slot with a reserved space that removed any feeling of being rushed.

Art Paths or tours of the museum’s gallery, were optimized for movement and meditation; art history and drawing classes tapping into art therapy; and in-person chair yoga instruction were offered. For more on this check out https://jingculturecrypto.com/carnegie-museum-of-art-mindful-museum/

Lucy Stewart’s previous quote applies to more than art museums. It has universal appeal among the heritage sector, because if you replace the word museum with park or historic site and the word art with sense of place as in sense of place immersion, it still rings true.

However, while fostering connections only among people is a worthwhile goal, at this juncture in our earth’s demise, fostering connections with the earth must take precedence. A recent book called Earthwalks an alternative nature experience by Steve Van Matre and Associates addresses this connection outcome up front, with structure and purpose. Earthwalks are not simply another outdoor leisure pursuit. Their focus is on generating feelings of joy, kinship, reverence and love with the earth. Heritage sites need to be sponsoring these Earthwalks developed by The Institute for Earth Education (www.ieetree.org). EID can help you set up a training session for your staff so they can regularly lead this outdoor experience. See our blog post for more details https://eidcoaching.com/blog-main/2020/4/24/earthwalks-using-our-senses-to-deepen-our-feelings-for-the-earth

Palette and Palate

While on the artistic flair bent, the Art Tea event is a feast for the eyes & stomach at Dublin hotel, the Merrion where hanging masterpieces inspired chefs to create pastries as mini art collection edibles. At the special event, visitors would get to consume them while contemplating the miniature artwork prints that accompanied the edibles so you knew what or who you were eating. Then you might be intrigued to see the real thing in the gallery. Have you encouraged any of your curated collections or natural heritage specimens to inspire your café menu? Any high- end pastry chef/restaurant partnerships coming to mind with waterfowl carvings perhaps?

While attending a Salmon Arm, British Columbia Art Show featuring Indigenous artists we were treated to tea and cookies at the end of the opening that blew me away because it was so apropos to the gathering and the earth relationship being expressed in the artworks. Just wanted to illustrate that it doesn’t have to be fancy just connected to the essence of the story and playing a reinforcing role

What’s your Narrative?

The Fort Worth Zoo in Texas wanted to inject their digital presence with a contemporary, playful look and feel that would reinforce the zoo as a destination for fun and excitement, while simultaneously presenting the animals in their charge with dignity, through captivating imagery and language that promotes exceptional care. Their commitment to species survival, conservation, animal welfare, and education is placed at the forefront of the digital guest experience. Here is the image that appears as part of their twitter handle:

What is presently at the forefront of your guest experience and does it match to what you want it to be? In maximizing this narrative, the Fort Worth Zoo reports that new website is already driving donations, animal adoption, and other forms of vital support and giving. They are empowering visitors to join a movement toward wildlife and habitat protection by engaging in events, where donations are solicited for their vital projects and causes.

While reading this, I could not help but wonder how our national and state/provincial parks could benefit from a visitor building lesson, by reimagining their web presence to empower visitors effectively to join a movement toward wildlife and habitat protection. Visitors pay their admission but beyond that they are never (in my experience) ever asked to contribute towards any research or wildlife monitoring or conservation work in the park. Budgets are not overflowing for this type of work so why don’t we give visitors the chance to participate financially and provide them the feeling of benefiting their parks-their wild spaces. A dream worth pursuing…

Hopefully this 3-part twitter highlights that rambled down diverse pathways has provided you with some new approaches and perspectives. We at EID want to share what we have learned along the way as well as the ongoing flurry of innovative and engaging approaches we constantly search for. However, a solid plan tried to an outcome-driven mission is paramount. Having interpretive passion without direction is like being an octopus on roller skates. You can be sure there will be plenty of movement but you won't know where you are headed, making it difficult to measure success.

If you have problems or just need a boost of energy - we have ways to help you solve them or provide revitalization. Get in touch with us for a coaching session.

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Tales from the Twittersphere

December 6, 2022 EID Coaching

Time for the second installment of the 2022 annual highlights from our #InterpDesign twitter platform. If you follow us already then this will be a refresher/reminder with some added bonus expansion on the original limited commentary. If you don’t follow us yet (what are you waiting for!) then this will be a tremendous treasure trove of titillating twitterings. Totally! We aim to inspire by exposing you to an eclectic range of source material that is thought provoking and will contribute to visitor experience enhancement.

Playful Interpretation

Among all the tweets, deciding what to start with was a challenge. It was decided by an avian visitor. Outside my window, on a snow laden branch, looking quite plump and happy in the minus 22C temperature was a robin. He seemed to be egging me on saying, “Just put on your down jacket, lined pants and join me -it’s balmy out here. The chokecherry berries have just the right bite of ice fermented tang to them.” Normally, the robin performs an uplifting sign of warmth and of new life’s explosion soon to come – both welcoming signs after a long, cold season, however this chap was heralding the opposite.

With this human to wildlife projection prelude, Rosemary Mosco’s spring robin comic strip came to mind.

Her great nature- based comical images illustrate what playful interpretation can mean. We periodically retweet her graphic strips on our tweet platform. Interpretive excellence is about viewing behaviour, creating images and stating language in relatable terms – why not in cartoon terms?

The Power of Cartoons

As you can see, Rosemary has a light- hearted, quirky way of communicating. The following snippet from her Bird and Moon comics, exemplifies a different form of informative “teaching”:

Human: "I would do anything for my kids! I'd protect them with my life!"

Canada Goose: "I would do anything for my kids! I'd protect them with my life!"

Human (while strolling through the middle of a goose family on a park lawn): "Why is that goose being such an aggro jerk.”

This made me think that a graphic approach may be a better tool to use when it comes to raising awareness of inappropriate and dangerous human behaviour. I would wager that in many cases, this slant of humour, using anthropomorphism based on biological behaviour would be a far more effective warning for certain audiences in order to communicate why to avoid human wildlife interactions.

We might try using this graphic approach more often as a way of delivering our messages and accomplishing our head and heart outcomes. Rosemary Mosco’s work demonstrates another way of building a connection with nature through better empathy, understanding, and a more inclusive planetary ego.

Canvases Worth Pursuing & Igniting

Graphics like innovative street art design often provokes my little brain cells to utter comments of… why don’t our parks and heritage sites spend time ensuring that their service infrastructure performs to its best ability and play a role in non-personal interpretation?

Upon seeing this stairway adorned with fish it spawned all sorts of ideas. An interpretive adornment does not have to be onsite. Maybe search for a local venue in your neighbouring community and investigate a partnership as a part of outreach work that performs 24/7 and has constant reinforcement.

For example, what if a village situated near a river adorned a staircase with native fish to remind residents about caring for their watershed & thinking twice about what they flush from their home into other beings' homes. A wonderful message so germane to many natural area visitor centres and definitely worth hinting at to their visitors. What about your staircase? What would work for your site? What image would be worth replicating in a prominent spot that would remind visitors about developing a more caring relationship with whatever subject matter was chosen to support your mission and outcomes?

Double Duty Infrastructure

Resources for interpretive programming, self-guided trails and specific media are constantly being squeezed yet visitor service Infrastructure is a given. It not only has the capacity to be doing double duty, it NEEDS to be doing double duty both from a functional viewpoint and from a mission -related, message-reinforcing viewpoint (see our previous mini-blog post Double Duty Design Dream Dec 2018).

There are so many public canvases capable of sparking the flame of inspiration. A staircase is just one “avenue” of possibility. Another would be a sidewalk doing double duty as a giant “What am I ?” artifact display - conversation piece, acting as multiple mini-gateways to past worlds.

Do your walkways liven up the visitor experience? Do they play a role in drawing you in and engaging your senses?

Sit Up and Listen

On the subject of Infrastructure there was a great tweet from Copenhagen, Denmark which aimed to draw attention to climate change. This was not just an attempt at a fun selfie, like the giant Adirondack chairs at tourist resorts but it also acted as a message carrier.

Thought-provoking clever design, in this case a bench built a metre higher than the normal sidewalk rest bench, was situated at a practical height due to the projected raise in sea level by the year 2100. By avoiding facts and figures, infrastructure can play a very significant and impactful role bringing the abstract into the concrete. This is a powerful illustration of how ignoring a behaviour can have dramatic outcomes.

Created as part of TV 2’s “Our Earth – our Responsibility” campaign, it certainly strikes a chord with pedestrians. Any working on a non-exhibit like this to drive home the point of Our Earth- Our Responsibility? Any partners you could approach?

Emphasis on Fun

Sometimes EID finds street art design examples worth sharing that combine subtle humour with an image that could have relevance to an heritage institution. The example chosen below blends this relevance with a humourous infrastructure example that gets infrastructure to pull its interpretive weight. Our sites need to look for opportunities to add a little fun to help put a smile on the visitor’s face.

Not only the pipe but also the grate was screaming for some creative treatment and the artist combined both. This cartoony image would work well for a zoo in keeping with the nature of the site but there are numerous images and styles adaptable to fit whatever your subject matter is whether botanical garden, aquarium, historic site, or nature centre. We all possess these, shall I say ugly corners, that are underperforming. Let’s pay more attention to what we already have and get them working for us. Get out there and inventory those areas that need a makeover. In this case we asked on our tweet: Do you have a pipe you want to spruce up for your visitor’s experience?

Satisfy the Playful Urge

Sometimes there can be the image-based tweets that trigger a deeper dive. In the case of the dog library, it sparked more than just light-hearted, canine compassionate humour. “Take a stick leave a stick” is a play on words for the concept of a free neighbourhood lawn mini-library where cupboards on posts beside sidewalks cajole strollers to open them and “Take a book leave a book.”

Pets are frequent companions with visitors to our sites and courtesies are often offered to them in the form of water bowls, treats and shady spots to rest providing the basic of Maslow’s needs. Play for a dog takes it up a level as reading does for humans. Do we need to satisfy the playful urge in humans before we jump into interpretive messaging or can we combine them?

This also got me thinking down another pathway – be on your guard. This outpouring of care and compassion for our pets says something about our need for companionship and relationship. We seem to understand that all living creatures require the same basic needs. We go the extra mile when it comes to providing the life needs of feeding wild birds and animals along with offering them some nesting shelter assistance. Are we compensating for feeling guilty because we have wiped out their home habitat? Is this not another form of creating a dependency on us rather than designing and “developing” human communities where we strive to live harmoniously and interdependently together with wildlife? Our natural heritage sites can do a better job of demonstrating this lopsided lifestyle, and question the kind of relationship being set up. Our urban parks can raise the awareness bar among visitors so they advocate for city, building and landscape planning that reflects more than human needs. Designing with nature in mind has to be the way going forward.

Play is Serious Learning

Getting back to the concept of play, is this particularly apt quote that popped up on Twitter that EID subsequently shared. Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers Neighbourhood TV series understood children and we SHOULD remember his point that play is the work of childhood and involves serious learning. Although I might venture to say that play applies to all human ages. Playful interpretation is what we at EID always advocate for.

Lavatory Laboratory

November 16, 2022 EID Coaching

Upon reviewing our tweets and retweets from the past year it was decided there were enough to fill two blog posts as well as spotlight one topic in a third (this one). The topic of lavatories was flushed out from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) member survey tweet, about the best museum bathrooms, based on over 200 responses. Laboratory because we feel there needs to be more playful experimentation in their presentation along with more purposeful use as an integral part of a site mission.

The AAM survey received an interesting proposal as part of the entries – pointing towards the consideration of a new position - a curator of bathrooms. This would place bathrooms as a key element of the guest experience reflecting their strategic welcoming importance. This may have been tongue-in-cheek (how apropos) butt it does deserve some deliberation.

We were bowled over by the diverse design examples supplied. Best Criteria seemed fairly loose if non-existent – in the eyes of the beholder kind of thing. Get prepared because urine for a wide range of entries – all with a different angle (I promise from now on no more droppings of silly scatological puns in the text).

Before we launch into a few select AAM entries, I must confess I am a bathroom design junkie with quite a collection of what I consider best practices. Yours truly cannot always avoid getting in the picture as the first image attests to. Right off the bat, walls have the opportunity to reinforce a sense of place or culture as this iconographic tile design illustrates. This was used in the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre, in Whistler, British Columbia. Hand in hand with a creative interior is the creative treatment of the rest room directional signage that presents an opportunity to avoid the generic cold institutional feel. Instead, you can have some fun and pick images that relate back to the site messaging as the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre did.

Washrooms can often be among the first impressions that visitors get from your site. The majority of visitors will visit them at least once during their experience. For this reason, they can play a critical role in atmosphere building and reinforcing your mission yet they are often neglected. They provide way more potential than simply catering to people’s basic needs. In the following case of an outdoor facility the colourful facade clearly presents a fun, well maintained and clean exterior – giving the impression of a well-cared for interior- something outdoor washrooms don’t universally demonstrate. Additionally, the image reinforces the heritage of sternwheelers on the nearby lake as well as sand castle beach frivolity. What sort of impression do your restrooms project?

AAM blog post author Joseph O’Neill set the stage with this statement: “From the visitor perspective, bathrooms can be all-important, revealing just how carefully the designers of a public space considered their comfort and needs…for some people—including those who care for young children, who are transgender or gender-nonconforming, or who have disabilities—this importance can be heightened, and even a barrier to visiting a place altogether.” This summer I experienced my first-ever gender-neutral facility, featuring floor-to-ceiling stalls and a communal sink area at a local historical park. It felt strange initially then wonderful because of the feeling of equity rather than separateness.

We have to reassess our building facade and the service facilities within our sites to gauge whether they provide a sense of inclusion and belonging for all visitors. During the most recent EID participatory webinar we introduced this concept when discussing how comfortable we are all with the welcoming design aspect (or lack of) within our sites. Email us to let us know if you missed that session and would like to have us offer it again. If several staff members from your site and even neighbouring sites would like to book a digital session over zoom, Mike and I would love to accommodate.

Let’s get to the examples chosen from the AAM article for this blog post. From the standpoint of a bathroom-exclusive exhibition, the Mariners’ Museum and Park had great panels in its stalls that explained bathroom elements on ships and using the bathroom at sea. A Head of Its Time: A Brief History of Going at Sea, discussed topics like why the facilities—or lack thereof—were called the head; “as well as the wisdom of keeping tabs on wind direction and how sailors improvised before toilet paper.”

Located at the site of a former psychiatric hospital, the Glore Psychiatric Museum keeps its bathrooms strikingly on theme, again through wall and stall panels, using them as an opportunity to teach about topics like optical illusions and phobias.

The walls of the bathrooms at Planet Word in Washington, DC feature euphemisms for going to the restroom (e.g. ‘seeing a man about a horse’) and wordplays on famous quotations (e.g. I stink, therefore I am.)

Beyond the 2- dimensional use of walls how about the Charleston Museum in South Carolina that created a wall mounted exhibit case featuring a chamber pot display.

chamber pot display courtesy AAM blogpost

At this juncture I need to insert a really novel “exhibit” example I discovered at a regional heritage site in Creston, British Columbia. A two- door closed cabinet was situated in the washroom with the label Do not peek Unmentionables for Ladies on the outside doors. The word “not” had a line strike through it egging you on to open them. Lo and behold -undergarments and period advertisements are on display. I am not sure what was in the ladies’ washroom – a parallel unmentionables for men??

Certainly, in the category of memorable washrooms is the Denver Museum of Art where, “The sinks sing ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ as you wash your hands. A visitor called Melody commented that “You can get the sinks to sing in canon if you time it right.” This singing sink idea was created by Denver artist and designer Jim Green, who is also known for a Laughing Escalator at the Colorado Convention Center. This may be technologically too much for your budget, so if you desire to lighten your visitor’s mood try using images of smiles as To be more on pointthat can be very effective. Another option would be installing a motion detector or pressure sensor that triggers a sound track of laughter when they enter (maybe not before you enter the restroom but before you enter your site’s main door).

Although the singing sinks is very catchy, it seems more appropriate as a mission driven experience for a children’s museum or the birthplace of a composer, songwriter or lyricist rather than an art museum. To be more on point, you could produce an audible track that has a connection to your mission and that changes over time depending on the season, temporary display, or exhibit.

What does an art gallery do with its restrooms? It uses them as a canvas! Commission artists to design the whole restroom as a functional piece of art. Not only that but why not partner with the Kohler Trust for Arts and Education and Kohler Company, who manufactures bathroom fixtures? That’s exactly what the Smith College Museum of Art, in Massachusetts did when they instructed two artists to sink their teeth into projects that would tap their creativity to “blur the boundaries between form and function.” The result: glass panels that were “translucent optical windows or doors into the watery world beyond the architecture, along with water drop imagery continued in the sinks and other fixtures. The second restroom has tiles with narrative images of transformation and creation myths interspersed with drawings of large, tear-like droplets that enclose tiny human forms, a reference to a creation theme.

Guess what? There is a John Michael Kohler Arts Center, in Wisconsin, with six spectacular artist-designed bathrooms. These were produced through the centre’s artist-in-residence program that allows participants to experiment with the Kohler company’s manufacturing technologies and materials. Check out on Instagram to see their stunning ceramic masterpieces. If there was a beauty competition they would win “hands down” or should we say “pants down”.

If you want to explore more of the restroom entry images, then the source website is: https://www.aam-us.org/2022/07/29/the-best-museum-bathrooms-according-to-museum-people/

You don’t have to go overboard in a design sense but some thought should be given to spice up the industrial look and continue your connections to mission and outcomes, as these previous places demonstrate.

For your first enhancement, taking a foray down into an esoteric dream world is not our recommendation but choosing some more mission-driven practical approach would be. We have all seen the use of stalls for posting notices and ads over urinals in men’s bathrooms (not sure what happens in the women’s bathrooms) which are often hand written scrawls. However, I have also seen an effective and professional use of washrooms as a locus of information and marketing channel. Here is one example posted on the lower right corner of the washroom mirror at my local Valley Zoo. They are raising awareness about their fundraising project for four new “child’s eye view” immersive landscapes: Above, Between, On, and Under. To me, this works as an appropriate clean and clear information extension to be read when washing your hands and singing the popular song “going to the zoo, zoo, zoo…how about you, you, you…”

Stay tuned for the next post involving more Tales from the Twittersphere.

Sharing Great Ways to Greet the “Guests”

August 19, 2022 EID Coaching

What Is Your Site’s Welcome Like?

So maybe you’ve been thinking – “Our site approach, arrival and front desk needs a makeover! How can we improve the welcome and increase the comfort level for guests to our site?”

Please join us on Tuesday, September 27, 2022, via Zoom for this free interactive session with Bill Reynolds and Mike Mayer of Experiential Interpretive Design (EID). The webinar will begin at 9am (PDT)/10am(MDT)/11am(CDT)/Noon(EDT)/4pm(GMT) and last about 60 minutes.

The session will focus on the Welcome that takes place during the Arrival Sequence: entrance (gate, lobby, plaza), parking lot, and admission/front desk. You will get a chance to share what kind of Welcome you use and in addition hear some…

· new ideas to solve existing arrival issues

· practical ways to improve your site’s initial visitor experience

· techniques to decrease “threshold fear,” stress, and anxiety in your guests

· ways to “lay down a welcome mat”

To register for this free session please send an email to contact@eidcoaching.com by Thursday, September 22 to receive the Zoom link. Please share this information with others you think may be interested in attending.

If you are interested in highlighting your site as a “mini-case study” for this webinar, please email Mike at mike.mayer@eidcoaching.com . All we would need from you is:

· some pictures of your site’s Arrival Sequence

· be prepared to share what you feel you do well, and

· indicate where you would like some constructive input on your Welcome area(s)

For more information on EID visit our website at www.eidcoaching.com .

Doin’ Design Right: Right Memories, Right People, Right Invitation

August 12, 2022 EID Coaching

There was a time period during the 2000 decade that I was reading Landscape Architecture magazines to enhance my design concept of the visitor experience and better understand their professional mindset. Certain articles I kept, that spoke to me for different reasons, and I have chosen two examples from 2007 that continue to provide inspiration. The third item snuck in- what can I say.

Right Memories

The first article by Lisa Owens Viani was titled The Feel of a Watershed, yet even more provocative was her subtitle, The Cedar River Watershed Education Center teaches by sensory experience. Should it do more? Triple whammy of intrigue here!

Firstly, one does not normally plan to get visitors to feel a watershed- so I was immediately interested in HOW this was going to be accomplished as feeling type outcomes have always been an underpinning of our EID practice that we encourage sites to include when planning. Secondly, a center managed by a utility that had heavily incorporated exterior sensory experience rather than just interior traditional exhibits was also unexpected, yet something to be applauded. Thirdly, the “should it do more” question was abit of a cliffhanger that set me to wondering about this outcome challenge coming from a landscape architect – whether they should play a more direct interpretive role- but what did that mean exactly? Was an interpretive specialist involved as part of the design team? Probably not if they were posing this type of question. Read on.

watershed rain drums Courtesy Cedar River Watershed Center web site

Author Viani states that the design purpose was to educate Greater Seattle residents about the source of their drinking water. In addition, the architect was aiming for visitors to develop a new awareness of how to shape their own environments and behaviour in ways that could lead to healthier watersheds.

Evaluating Educational Effectiveness

A welcoming courtyard incorporated an artist installed sound- of- rain -falling -onto- drums recirculating irrigation system, computer programmed to the rhythms of different world cultures. They reported that visitors have a 3-stage reaction: they are “surprised, enchanted and inspired.” WOW. Imagine if you could design in and accomplish this level of staging for all your interpretive programs and exhibits? Guess what more visitors remembered most about the site? Read on.

What the architects were going for was a place-based experience “that creates a mental vessel to put information into.” Rain drums and the stream that circulated under the building and beside the pathway brought water awareness to the forefront. They evaluated the educational effectiveness of their design by asking the following questions over a year and a half:

· Are there features that helped foster new appreciation of water? Or a new awareness?

· What do you think the designers were trying to say with the way the buildings and landscape were designed?

· From your experience here, what is your impression of the watershed?

· What stands out in your memory that you’ll take from this place?

· What home practices might you be willing to undertake after your visit today?

Remember the design purpose was to educate Greater Seattle residents about the source of their drinking water and how they impact a healthy watershed. Would these have been the questions you would have asked?

Follow a water drop Courtesy Cedar River Watershed Educational Center web site

Learning Assessment

Can you really assess new learnings without getting a sense, before the visit, of the base level of awareness of individual visitors? There is even a quote in the article from project co-manager, Nancy Rottle, stating, “Whenever you have a visitor, what they take away always depends on what they bring with them.” I rest my case. Remember this when you are involved with setting up a program/exhibit/trail evaluation.

Betcha landscape architects were most interested in the answers to question #2 and were happy to know that more than half of interviewees said the built design felt like it belonged and fit in with nature? If visitors were helped to reflect on how their own living and working spaces did or did not do the same, that would bring relevance back home.

More than 50% of those surveyed gave a high likelihood of creating habitat with native plantings, conserving water, designing buildings differently and using environmentally sustainable materials at home due to exhibit design. A third indicated they would collect and reuse rainwater or detain stormwater. In cases where concepts were not seemingly grasped it was felt that direct interpretation was “not compelling” enough or that call out features for visitors were missing, as in the green rooves -metal rooves situation.

Visitors were expected to make the connections between the water holding green rooves metaphor for healthy watersheds, and contrast that with the water shedding metal rooves metaphor for unhealthy watersheds, replicating the impervious urban streetscape. This did not happen as the features were not directly pointed out or commented on. With an absence of interpretive signage, the bioswale and the role of infiltration basins to prevent erosion by detaining water were similarly absent from visitors’ commentary. Also absent from commentary seen as a missed interpretive opportunity, was the daylighted creek that had been in a pipe before the project had been started (something close to home for urbanites) .

Courtesy Cedar River Watershed Educational Center web site

The design was summarized as doing the right thing in many ways:

· Respected nature and cultural site aspects

· Educated and delighted through interactive opportunities

· Provided take-home ideas for visitors to use

· Told the story of water beautifully through aesthetic design

This latter point is driven home by the following descriptor: “The elegant S curve of the runnel meander, languidly sighs ‘liquid’ in a captivating way. A veritable illustration of Hogarth’s * serpentine line of beauty.” How is that for landscapese? What this translates as, is the designer chose to use with cast iron grates that are perforated with lilting curves to reinforce the water theme.

*Trivia Note: Hogarth, William was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic -strip like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects." Not sure if the reference was apt – seems like she was referring to another painter by the name of William; in this case the English landscape painter-Mr.Turner. Anyone out there have an opinion? Am I off base?

Under Interpretation

Author Viani wonders towards the end of the article whether it is possible to under interpret something by avoiding being too didactic, as the project manager was concerned about. Manager Nancy Rottle cautioned that you want to avoid “hitting [people] over the head with information.” Was that a shot at poor interpretation?? That hammer approach should never happen, however many professionals still have that view of interpretation. At the same time subtle interpretive cues can solve the sole dependence on design that people walk by and do not “see.” The pendulum can swing both ways, so I would agree that conceptual osmosis does not work for many intended outcomes if design is left to its own devices. You could easily under interpret if architects and interpretive specialists are not integrated into a team interpretive effort as the evaluative research indicates.

What stood out in visitor memories? A third of interviewees stated it would be the multisensory rain drums. As Nancy Rottle, project co-manager says, ”memory is more about feeling than cognition. You have to be moved before something sticks with you.” Right on. It is not clear how they capitalized on this emotional draw however to accomplish their overall educational purpose driving home water’s preciousness, its value of being present and visible/audible, along with the visitors’ role in its conservation.

The majority of respondents overwhelmingly (author’s word not mine) felt the facility helped them understand the concept of watershed. It was not clear whether this was tested somehow and they really did understand or they just simply responded that way. The author pointed out that understanding where Seattle’s water comes from was accomplished, however what wasn’t clear was whether downtown Seattleites understood that they lived in the watershed also and could have a direct impact on its health. If they had been asked to draw a picture starting and ending with clouds of where their tap water came from and drain water went to -and they were correct- OK mission accomplished.

This is especially important as the dying of Puget Sound is being attributed to urban runoff from Seattle. The author felt a more encompassing view of the total watershed would ramp up the motivation for visitors to change behaviour to benefit water quality. Author Lisa Viani suggested that the topographic model of the watershed could be expanded to include urban Seattle or a separate model be placed “downstream” of the upper watershed model.

This is something she shares with Erin Frost, a member of the Friends of the Cedar River Watershed as they have observed a major disconnect with the holistic understanding of the Puget Sound as the final resting place. Specific streams have friends groups but they lack the big picture understanding she said. This begs the question if there was a discussion with stakeholder groups prior to setting the purpose of the centre?

A thorough analysis of the post-occupancy evaluation is included in the 2005 Proceedings of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture.

Right People

Stakeholder group discussions are so vital and they act as the segue to the second article. According to my estimation, this is the first (and perhaps the last) example of this interpretive landscape project. Another west coast facility situated in Ashland, Oregon this time, the Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory were in need of an anti-attack buffer. But not any old anti-attack buffer – one that would be designed as an appealing garden that told the story of the unusual lab operations.

This article was authored by Michael and Laura Murphy, and titled CSI: Wildlife with the subheading: A most unusual federal laboratory calls on students to help design an interpretive landscape. It was a classic case of Fish and Wildlife partnership between their project engineer, their landscape architect, and their interpretive specialist, mixed in with a University class of landscape architecture students. Happens all the time, right. Wrong! Yet why don’t these alliances come to pass more often. Probably because they don’t all have a Professor Helphand involved- I kid you not that is his actual name. Actually, because it takes co-ordination and requires more time. And in the case with students, you need a partner who realizes the beneficial enthusiasm that can be unearthed at a university. The collaborative process undertaken and described next is instructive.

The F&W trio from regional HQ travelled to Ashland to pitch the idea to the city planning officials and the forensic lab professionals. Having the concept supported upfront by involving stakeholders upfront is key. Then the trio plus the lab director travelled to the University to pitch the need for a people-friendly yet vehicular- free secure garden involving hillocks, seat walls, berms, reinforced interpretive bollards, etc.

A comprehensive visit to the lab and a dozen international science garden case studies, were supplied to the students, for conceptual design approach ideas, including the Garden of Cosmic Speculation in Scotland (guaranteed to be a rabbit hole for those curious sorts out there). This culminated at the end of term with a rare lab open house for the community of Ashland including many children and the garden club.

Ideas included a spiral path addressed issues of species extinction, another used typical forensic puzzle pieces as wayfinders, and another used a whale skeleton rib structure as a defining pathway feature. The winning overall design used the three symmetrically intersecting circles of forensic science as the garden layout basis. The suspect, the victim, and the crime scene link together forming the triangular intersection being the solution(s)-a recurring diagrammatic structure found in many disciplines.

Right Invitation

Caught among these landscape architecture articles was a single piece of paper that fluttered to the floor garnering my sideways glance. From an old Parks Canada Fundy National Park publication (sorry, couldn’t find a date-probably 30ish years ago), I was struck by a simple yet arresting image of a park naturalist standing with an outstretched hand in front of the visitor centre. The accompanying article by Superintendent Jackie Olsen was titled, “We’re Glad You’re Here” and it invited you to spend some time there, watch a video and observe some marine life in the aquaria. WOW again. When does that happen anymore – receiving a “welcoming booklet” and being greeted in front of the visitor centre with such an expression along with a detailed invitation.

Aside: I visited one of our provincial parks this month and you would never had known there was an existing visitor centre because the one insignificant street like sign directing you there was all that we encountered car-wise and bike-wise as we travelled around the park for 4 days. Yes it was indicated on park maps and it was a small font size similar to the beach changehouse, laundry spot and campground registration booth. I sure hope your visitor centre commands more real estate, markets itself to the visiting public, and invites them to come on in and receive assistance in planning their visit.

Then I was hit with a follow up quotation from James Harkin, former Commissioner of National Parks from 1911-1936. It encapsulated the hoped- for visitor rejuvenation all staff desire. It is true now as it was back in the early 20th century:

“National parks are maintained for all the people – for the ill that they may be restored; for the well that they may be fortified and inspired by the sunshine, the fresh air, the beauty, and all the other healing, ennobling agencies of Nature. They exist in order that every citizen of Canada may satisfy his craving for Nature and Nature’s Beauty; that he may absorb the poise and restfulness of the forest; that he may fill his soul with the brilliance of the wildflowers and the sublimity of the mountain peaks; that he may develop the buoyancy, the joy, and the activity he sees in the wild animals; that he may stock his brain and mind with great thought, and noble ideas; that he may be made better, be healthier, and happier” (and this was written by a bureaucrat??). ”

— James Harkin

Superintendent Jackie summarized by saying how all staff were proud and dedicated to doing their part to make the Commissioner’s wish come true for all visitors. Not a bad series of outcomes for staff to aspire to make happen. Not a bad set of expectations for visitors to try to achieve either. How would you measure them?

As visitors depart the park should we ask - On a scale of 1-10 how fortified and inspired by the various ennobling agencies of nature have you been? Imagine if we could tap into how much more productive or innovative visitors felt during and after a park visit…

Actually, I am only being slightly facetious-primarily with the wording. Would our parks be offered more protection and have a higher economic value if regional directors, deputy ministers and politicians were to receive such evaluative feedback on a regular basis beyond simply attendance and revenue? (I know, I know, I am just an old-fashioned idealistic romantic… are there any others of you out there?)

Putting Interpretive Ideas Into Practice – Epilogue

June 22, 2022 EID Coaching

Time, Dance Steps Taken & Missing, and What’s Next

TIME

After posting Putting Interpretive Ideas into Practice-3 Ellen sent us the following comment:

“Wow! Sounds like an awesome program, but what a lot of work went into creating it! I cannot imagine doing that for every program (even though I acknowledge the benefits of it).”

Floral Clock at Kentucky State Capitol, Frankfort, KY

Thanks Ellen, and you are correct. Time is a big factor to consider when doing interpretive planning. There is so much “hurry up and get it done yesterday because the group is coming today” mentality in our field that planning time is not valued as it should be. So, before I get into some practical thoughts, let’s use a “planning a house” analogy that might be useful.

When building or remodeling a house I don’t think of the paint color, wall hangings or flooring right away. First, I want to know Why I am doing this work. Do I need more space, less space, one level or two, something more energy efficient? Next, Who is this new or remodeled house for – the children, myself, my partner, extended family? Then I want to start thinking about What I want or plan to do in this newly build or remodeled dwelling – a room for writing, flexible playspace for children, a music room, space to host 6 – 10 folks for a dinner party? I need to take the time for this “Big Picture” planning before getting into the details -- much like a site needs to take the time to think about the WHY, WHO, and WHAT when developing a Mission and visitor Outcomes. (Note: take a look at Steve Slack’s Interpreting Heritage for more on the WHY, WHO, and WHAT)

Finally, when the Big Picture planning is done and the room layouts are completed, only then do you start to consider the details -- furniture, flooring, paint, and other decorations (interpretive experiences for the visitor). By completing the Big Picture tasks first, it is easier for the front-line interpreters and planners to develop interpretive experiences – they know the overarching goals, they have visitor-types in mind, they know what areas to focus on and they can develop interpretive experiences that enhance the site's Mission and visitor Outcomes.

In the previous posts where we highlighted Métis Crossing, our goal was to show the key elements EID used in an overall site plan for the visitors. Then we zoomed in to show how the process can provide direction for an interpretive experience area (Buffalo Camp), a specific visitor-type (adult couple on ½ day visit), while linking the interpretive experiences to the Mission, Essences, and Outcomes.

We understand not every site wants to develop an entire Interpretive Plan. That said, it is still important that each site have a Big Picture view for the staff and for the visitors. OK – now let me get a bit more practical. Here are a couple of things to consider…

· First, don’t try to make all the changes at once…take your time. Maybe decide which essence or program area is most important and start there, then include other areas over time.

· Second, focus on a visitor-type who will participate in this essence or program area and develop Outcomes first, then the experience that will support the site’s Mission. Experiences for adults will be different from experiences for families with children of various ages…one size does not fit everyone.

· Next, don’t try and do the work by yourself. Work with colleagues and friends to develop the Outcome Matrices. Of course, EID would be happy to set up some coaching sessions to work with you on the basics and provide feedback as you get involved in this new process for interpretive design and planning. Our goal – making sure the final product is your handiwork and reflects the uniqueness of your preservation, collection, or historic recognition site.

· Finally, it is important to have managerial support. You need time to produce a quality product. We also recommend advocating for the interpretive staff and designers to be included from the beginning of any new site projects -- buildings, trails, exhibits, or anything that effects the visitors. All too often the educational and interpretive personnel must settle for inherited “master plans” from other professionals. How demeaning to not be included from the very beginning.

Ellen, we appreciate your comment concerning time – and the lack of time. If you would like to describe your site, the work your position entails, and the range of popular areas and offerings at the site, we may be able to suggest a good starting point. Please contact us any time at contact@eidcoaching.com.

DANCE STEPS TAKEN…DANCE STEPS MISSING

If you look through the Interpretive Design and Dance of Experience book you will notice Van Matre offers 15 Dance Steps (divided into 5 sections) that interpretive designers need to focus on to provide a holistic experience for the visitor:

Defining Step: Mission

Preparing Steps: Message, Image

Receiving Steps: Welcome, Orient, Guide

Interacting Steps: Head, Heart, Hands, Hunger

Producing Steps: Achieve, Motivate, Organize, Reinforce, Evaluate

DANCE STEPS TAKEN: What we did work on…

At Métis Crossing our work focused on determining the site’s Essence(s), identifying Outcomes for the Interacting Steps (Head, Heart, Hands, Hunger) and the Producing Steps (Achieve, Motivate, Organize, Reinforce, Evaluate) - developing meaningful and memorable experiential interpretive interactions for the visitor at the Buffalo Camp Invitation Station. This included an Outcome Inventory, an Invitation Station Outcome Matrix, and an Invitation Station Activity Matrix (Dance Cards in the book).

We would have liked to work on all 15 Dance Steps, but such was not the case. However, this is the beauty of working with EID. The site chooses what areas need attention, together we work on the Dance Steps that fit the project, and then EID works with the staff to ensure a process is in place for future projects. We do not want to just come in, write a plan, and then hand it over…that is Consulting and Leaving. Rather we want to be Coaches over Time and encourage the staff to use the EID process to develop their own plans by…

· offering some models,

· providing practice time,

· giving feedback,

· letting the site partners make final revisions, and

· being available for discussions and questions after the initial work is completed.

DANCE STEPS MISSING: What we did not work on…

The staff, partners and community associates at Métis Crossing did not want to revisit the Defining Step: Mission…they liked what they had. The site was already utilizing strong Images and the staff was working on several options for an overarching Message for the entire site and for various experiences – the Preparing Steps .

Because of some staff changes, the scope of the contract and the time factor, we did not focus on the Receiving Steps: Welcome, Orient, Guide. Yes, we did introduce these steps and offered some suggestions, but in-depth work was not done. These Receiving Steps, in our opinion, are key components to the visitor experience. The Welcome, Orient and Guide set up the visitors’ first impressions of a site. Here are some thoughts on the Receiving Steps.

WELCOME

This step sets the stage for the rest of the visit. Think of how you greet someone invited to your home. What do you say at the front door? What do you offer them right away? How do you make them feel comfortable and, well…welcomed? This step can even start before the visitor arrives. Does your visitor feel “invited” to the site, do they have an idea of what to expect? Can the visitor find welcoming information on the website, on a flier, or on some other form of media?

Does the approach to the site help give the visitor a sense of what they might expect, reduce anxiety about being in the right place, and build their anticipation?

And how about a threshold or gateway that tells the visitor they have arrived. Is there a clear sign that the visitor has crossed over from where they came from and have now arrived at a special preservation, collection, or historic recognition site?

Though it is at the other end of the visit, you also want to think about how to say good-bye…the Exit experience. Does it encourage a feeling of “glad you came?” How do you say good-bye to visitors when they leave your home to make them feel special, worthwhile, and welcome to visit again?

If the site Welcome and Exit are created like a visit to our homes, what a different experience it would be for the visitor. (For a deeper look at this Step check out the posts on “A Tale of Two Welcomes – 1” and “Tale of Two Welcomes – 2”)

ORIENT

How many times have you visited a museum, zoo, preservation site, or other heritage jewel only to look around and think: “Well, which way do I go now and what should I do first?” Even if a visitor feels welcomed, they need to know where things are. Once again, what do you say to visitors who come to your home:

· “Please, put your coat on the bed in the first room on the right. And come right back here to the kitchen so I can get you something to drink.”

· “The bathroom is just down the hall on the left.”

· “We aren’t going to eat for another hour so help yourself to snacks on the table and find a comfortable spot on the patio.”

· “There are cold drinks in the fridge and also in the ice chest outside – make yourself at home.”

A site “greeter” is a great way to combine a warm Welcome with a sincere effort to Orient the visitor. Another great way to Orient is with maps. Jumbo-sized maps along a path or hand-held experiential maps can help the visitor stay oriented in time and space, provide a sense of where they are going and alert visitors about offerings along the way. We advocate for different kinds of hand-held experiential maps for various visitor-types because, once again, one size does not fit all.

GUIDE

Notice this Receiving Steps does not say LEAD. In this context Guide is a gentle helping hand, not a lecture about the place. Here are a few words from Van Matre’s book Interpretive Design and the Dance of Experience (pages 127-130):

“If visitors come to dance with a place, rather than merely using it for another kind of dance, then guiding is often expected and appreciated. Orienting is explaining where to go; guiding is getting people ready to go, and sometimes taking them there. In other words, orienting is giving visitors a basic map; guiding is providing the ‘how to’ for their adventure.”

“Think of guiding in this sense as taking people by the hand or at least giving them the feeling someone is doing so…Just remember, this is not directional guiding, it’s experiential guiding. In a way, it’s saying, ‘I will aid you in getting ready, sharing some things that will be helpful, and practicing them with you when needed. I will even set off with you to make sure you’re comfortable, but then you’re on your own.’ This is guiding as coaching, not leading.”

“Interpretive guiding should prepare visitors to make their own discoveries whenever possible…Remember, good guiding is experience-driven. And good guiding implies that there are discoveries to be made by prepared visitors.”

WHAT’S NEXT

All 15 of the Dance Steps are important when working on a Visitor Experiential Interpretive Plan (VEIP)…none should be left out. The reality is, though, your site may not have the time, money, or staff to take on all 15 Steps at once. Which brings us back to Ellen’s concern at the beginning of this blog post – Time. Here are some final suggestions…

· First, you don’t have to make all the changes at once…take your time.

· Decide the most important essence experience area then consider doing a perfect visitor ½ day or full day exercise to see what is realistically possible.

· Create an Outcome and Activity Matrix for one program experience area, then move to other areas.

· Get support from administration and staff.

· Most important…get started.

Look for an invitation later this summer to join us on a Zoom session to discuss some of these topics, answer your questions, and listen as you share your site concerns. If you would like some immediate feedback on the EID process and the Steps email us at contact@eidcoaching.com and we will be happy to start a conversation and answer your questions.

Pursuing Planning Excellence Part 2

May 11, 2022 EID Coaching

After reading Part 1 of this book review on Interpreting Heritage A Guide to Planning and Practice, by Steve Slack, we hope you are ready for more insight, so let’s jump in.

We were just about to delve into deciding on the HOW you are going to select interpretive devices by merging the WHO, WHAT and WHY of your interpretive plan – what author Steve Slack refers to as the funnelling stage.

Formative Market Research

Steve provides us with a practical example of how formative market research can play a key role in this merging process. The What and Who project he focuses on is the re-interpretation of a Roman fort historic site with families as the target visitor. Why: to engage a new target audience and position the fort as only one component of a wider visit - exploring the entire heritage site landscape that encompasses the fort. Market research techniques for the 12 families involved:

· a table-top exercise probing visitors’ expectations of a site visit along with prior site knowledge,

· self-complete booklets to record responses to existing experiences,

· annotating a paper representation of the site with likes and dislikes,

· a voting activity around proposed interventions, where images of potential devices were shown and responses were recorded, and

· focus groups that expressed how they enjoyed learning together and how they were expecting “physically interactive, hands-on opportunities, punchy text and eye-catching design.”

While the family’s learning expectations were no big surprise from the focus group, there was important feedback about the welcome, catering offered, and interpretive devices experienced. As well was the fact that families felt the need to ask for permission to play safely at the site. For EID these are all critical elements of the visitor experience and need to be considered when designing an interpretive plan. In many projects we encounter that want to cater to families, the site has the research information but doesn’t deliver on the experience! In this case research drove design to accomplish visitor friendly positive directions:

new periscopes inside the fort allowed visitors of all heights to peer onto the ruins on the rest of the site to promote exploration,

life-sized Roman characters were positioned at various stops supporting a variety of play styles
·a spy game was designed to entice families to move from location to location by linking a series of interactive games, instead of following panels around the site, and

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

A common approach is a self-led experience, which means the visitor sets the pace of their visit and they call the shots of what they consume. However, it is really up to the site to provide the options, suggested routes and range of opportunities/interactions, just like in a choose-your-own-adventure book, where the visitor has the sense of control.

When encouraging the visitors to make their own way through the heritage experience is the goal, Slack presents tried and true techniques. The interpretive service needs to supply a range of ways into the topic for different kinds of visitors. Techniques such as specimens, quotations, images, textual labels, storybooks, hand held informative “paddleboards,” to interactive lift-up flaps can all be employed.

“Unled, open-route experiences “may” (our emphasis) need the cleverest and the most cunning of plans of all, even when staff might be present to help frame or introduce the experience.”

— Steve Slack

Sorry Steve we don’t agree with the word “may” and feel these experiences DO need cunning and this should be the time when interpreters put their experiential visitor coaching into high gear. The design of do-it-yourself (DIY) guest experiences is the desired way NOW, and we need to improve our skills at doing this. EID follows the book Interpretive Design and the Dance of Experience’s lead on the concept of invitation stations and setting up ways for visitors to practice awareness skills prior to going on unled explorations.

With the Interpreting Heritage book, author Steve Slack solidly points out the opportunity is to enhance the blank canvas the visitor finds in front of them at the site and to use tools to stimulate their curiosity by using maps, subtle prompts and encouragements without obtrusive panels. We have found the book Earth Education: A New Beginning by Steve Van Matre, to be chock full of these type of engaging leadership tools and guidelines.

Rainbow chips Earthwalk activity Credit Mike Mayer

The interpretive principle of making your site come alive is well described by the example from the State Library of New South Wales in Australia where they activated archival documents - letters written between children fathers serving during World War I (WWI). “While the 100-year-old letters penned in children’s handwriting are incredibly touching as first-hand accounts, they can only have a certain impact behind glass in an exhibition case.” State library staff created a typical Australian kitchen during WWI and visitors were invited to take a seat to hear the letters read aloud in a recording done by the Australian Theatre for Young People. Steve reported that this was a moving and meaningful experience especially because of “…the genuine affection from the hugs and kisses which fill the pages.”

Orientation & Extended Interpretation

Before Slack supplies the reader with a survey of interpretive devices at one’s disposal, he addresses the important but often forgotten role of visitor orientation within the interpretive sphere. “…Give them some hints about what they might experience, where to go, how to understand the site and even a suggestion of what to do first.” He provides a range of statements often used at site welcome desks, and asks the reader how you would react to them and how they would make you feel. He will make you want to spend some time at your own “front desk” and gauge responses. Here are some examples:

· “I’m your guide today, stay with me at all times.”

· “The arrows on the wall will tell you which direction to go.”

· “The site is yours to explore.”

At EID we perceive the act of preparing the visitor to engage on-site is fundamental to a successful interpretive experience and is often missing in many interpretive plans. Opportunities to impress and entice should be required and reinforced at the welcome/admission area.

Opportunity missed Photo credit : Bill Reynolds

We are also very glad that Steve proclaimed “…a favourite place of mine to extend interpretation is the café,” with menu design and fabric of the space. The author provides a brilliant image of using table surfaces to reflect the details in an historic site ceiling not easily viewed. He also mentions an exhibit in the middle of the restaurant at London’s Royal Opera House that displays a Swan Lake ballerina’s costume, suspended on wires, giving the illusion of gliding effortlessly through the air. All food service areas should be part of the interpretive plan and are integral to the reinforcement of messages. Subtle reminders of the site’s Mission, Image, Message and desired Outcomes should pervade all visitor service treatments as in the gift shop, play areas, rest areas, pathways, parking, and, of course, eating spots.

Interpretive devices

The book provides a large section describing the choices that presently exist from print to digital to interventions and the following highlights a smattering of these techniques. First, a sharing of two interpretive centre pet peeves (and potential solutions) EID shares with the author.

1) Ineffective, sloppy lighting placement that creates visitor shadows obliterating that which you are trying to read and

2) Unimaginative labels

Any head shakes out there agreeing with us and confirming the frustrating ubiquity of this?

In the first case, Steve describes an elaborate way of remedying sloppy lighting in a gallery by employing a cinematographer to oversee the exhibit lighting scheme that had the bonus impact of mood creation in the different spaces. In an elemental sense, why would you not have someone check light placement when people of different heights are actually in position and correct errors before permanent installation?

In the second case, Steve mentions how he tries to correct the humdrum label issue simply by challenging graphic designers to break the white square card mold and create beautiful labels. Related to this are two different spins Steve shares on the concept of printed labels. In one case, individual character cards were printed and distributed to visitors before they moved through an historic exhibit, explaining what happened to actual people to create a sense of empathy in visitors (e.g. 600 ID card booklets exist for this purpose for visitors to use at the US Holocaust Museum). Along a different vein, Tate Britain’s gallery produced a range of collectible visitor maps directing visitors to enjoy interactions with non-curator-driven topics, such as eclectically themed paintings organized into Odd Faces, First Date, I’ve Just Split Up, and I like Yellow.

As the author says, writing is the subject of a whole book but he does provide some great overview thoughts. He makes an excellent point about knowing the role and the function of a piece of text from the perspective of a visitor’s experience. To quote Steve: “It is NOT what do you want to tell them or what do you want them to know. It is knowing what you want that chunk of text to DO.” That is the driver. This is exactly why EID uses an outcome matrix that reflects the Head, the Heart, the Hands and the Hunger of the holistic visitor. The thinking head stuff is just one potential result and very one-dimensional.

Slack reminds us to keep in mind that writing visitor-facing text means the visitor is most likely “…standing up, on a weekend, in their downtime, and surrounded by people, noisy chatter and beeping mobile phones.” Long conceptual oriented text won’t cut it. A gem, in my estimation, is his advice to “let teenagers read your text” before you commit to anything.

Improving for the Visitor Benefit

Really intriguing was the author’s example of shifting interpretation at the National Trust’s Rainham Hall that had been home to over 50 people in its lifetime. They have chosen to re-interpret the site every 2 years using different historical characters each time. Using “Who’s Living at Rainham Hall” as a bit of a marketing rallying call, this is a wondrous example of partnership and co-creation. Bravo! Lead collaborative designers at Studioweave said on their web site that their goal was to “balance a community focus with scholarly content, alongside joyful entertainment.” An impressive and bang-on triad of aims to accomplish within a mission driven objective.

Steve points out that this is a perfect example that “…interpretation does not need to be left static.” EID would shout from the rooftops and say interpretation should NEVER BE LEFT STATIC. To avoid this perception by the visitor is paramount. Our profession needs to always aim at getting visitors to come back for another experience.

Directly related to this is the subject of interpretive project evaluation and as Steve declares - Why bother? He has 10 points WHY you should bother, along with providing audience response tools and notes on writing an evaluative brief. He shares items to ponder:

· How do you know if your outcomes were achieved?

· How can you grow in confidence and be emboldened to try new things?

· How can you continue to dialogue with your visitor for mutual benefit to understand likes/dislikes?

· How do you flag issues and correct them as you go?

Answering these questions would be following the mantra of continuous improvement, especially so you DON’T REMAIN STATIC. When it comes to evaluating exhibit planning and the search for constructive criticism the author recommends a process called the Excellent Judges Framework, outlined in Judging Exhibitions: A Framework for Assessing Excellence, developed by Beverley Serrell and colleagues.

Installing interpretive elements little- by -little while repeatedly re-evaluating was an approach the author used over the course of a year, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. This inspiring iterative experimental approach assessed:

· six different versions of a written label for the same painting,

· dedicating a whole room to just one painting,

· changing the wall backdrops away from traditional red,

· rehanging paintings to vary their distance apart.

This all provided the team with evidence to persuade reticent stakeholders worried about doing something different to implement changes. Feedback on interventions impacted the development of the next idea, thereby contributing to the front-end evaluation of the next project. Evaluation bottom line: visitor experiences get better.

Kudos to Steve for breaking the mold in the book’s bibliographic treatment by using a two-column approach to provide a brief summary of each book title. He prepared it using his interpretive framework of determining why write a bibliography, who is it for, what outcomes do I want, and how should I present it. Each title was presented like an object in an exhibition with a short label encouraging you to do something – in this case source out and read the book, describing reasons why you should do just that.

This two - part review is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the diversity and wealth of topics on interpretation and planning in this book. You will want to add it to your bookshelf (at least for those of us over 35 still using bookshelves)!

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Pursuing Planning Excellence Part 1

April 21, 2022 EID Coaching

(after a 3 month hiatus we are back blogging - we hope you missed us - send us a note)

“Interpretation planning ought not to be overly complicated or filled with unnecessary complexity. If we strive to deliver clarity for our audiences, then we should strive for clarity in our interpretation planning too.”

— Steve Slack

This line comes from Steve Slack, author of the most recent guide to interpretation planning- published in 2021. I realized how much of an interpretation geek I am as I thoroughly enjoyed reading Interpreting Heritage A Guide to Planning and Practice, part of the Routledge series of Guides to Practice in Museums, Galleries and Heritage. I still get goosebumps when I discover examples of smart practices couched in the insatiable desire for continuous improvement, all wrapped up in the spirit of sharing, that exists among the interpretive profession.

This overview will happen in two segments where this first part will explore the WHY, the WHO and the WHAT in planning. We will keep the HOW of selecting devices from the extensive fun interpretive catalogue that Steve has compiled, for our second review segment.

Practical Guidance and Pitfall Avoidance

Right off the bat I must say the book was easy to read with its enjoyable conversational style. The order of topics and train of thought flow made eminent sense. Steve provides practical guidance and pitfall avoidance. He also celebrates others in order to advance interpretive practice. This book was written with the intent of continuing to support and encourage one another in this rewarding profession. A sense of joy and privilege comes through in the writing, as he takes us on this learning journey into a profession he obviously loves.

EID Note: Steve Slack wrote his book without knowledge of Steve Van Matre’s Interpretive Design the Dance of Experience perspective on planning and design. He had this to say after we sent him a copy: “The content is obviously splendid, but so much more than that. The design and layout are so charming, but also the general tone - careful, considered, philosophical prose from someone who not only knows their subject inside-out after years of experience, but who has also clearly a passion for the subject. And it's future. I'm inspired. “

“For the bulk of the time reading this book, I smiled, saying to myself yep, yep, yep, especially through the central sections with the dance steps. Anything that suggests having an interpretation plan is a good thing in my book (figuratively and literally). Forces - features - facets is new to me and I like it a great deal…”

“In my book, I found myself wanting to be brave - indeed, suggesting that interpreters need to be brave - and I called a few things out where I felt my opinion varied from the interpretive establishment, but ID goes further than that.” Steve Slack mentions a few times he is not writing to challenge anyone -too bad, however his book is chock full of insights. Steve Van Matre, on the other hand does not shy away from challenging the prevailing ethos of interpretation with its emphasis on communication and transfer of knowledge rather than taking a catalyst/coaching approach to visitor engagement. So, if you are up for that, order a copy from Our Inspiration page.

Back to Steve Slack’s writings:

If your background leans more to a natural heritage/parks interpretive experience you will be familiar with Steve Slack’s quick historical reference to the influential Enos Mills, Freeman Tilden, Beck & Cable and Sam Ham; whereas if you have more of a museological bent you will be familiar with authors like Graham Black, Peter Vergo, and John Falk & Lynn D. Dierking. You will have to go to the source for details as Steve only briefly alludes to the concept of principles without sharing any of his favourites or what he would consider the “must haves” for pursuing excellence. I found the very light coverage of principles somewhat disappointing despite a super compilation of references. Having a solid foundation in these building blocks, is critical for budding professionals to have, in order to build up and out from.

Model, Model on the Wall, Who’s the Fairest of Them All

I heartily encourage all our readers to crossover disciplines and discover Black’s 23 principles for museum display or Falk-Dierking’s Contextual Model for Learning or Beck & Cable’s inspiring 15 principles of interpretive philosophy. This will enrich your professional practice.

When Steve starts addressing interpretation planning, he looks at four examples, two from the museum field and two from the park interpretation field:

Story of Change Planning model implemented by the Happy Museum Project characterized by being visionary, inclusive, outcome-driven and evaluative
Outcomes Hierarchy Model emphasizes including a stronger visitor perspective and the benefits of applying a systematic interpretive planning lens at the strategic institutional level (Marcella Wells, Barbara Butler, and Judith Koke)
Interpretive Master Planning model (John Veverka) involves a comprehensive set of questions and prompts investigating the interpretive resources, directing you to think clearly about the traditional plan elements from objectives to evaluation
5M Model for Successful Planning Projects (Lisa Brochu) stresses being rooted in strategic context while addressing Management (mission), Markets, Messages, Mechanics (visitor usage), and Media

The author explains how he has distilled different planning models down to a four- step questioning framework:

1) Why are you interpreting this asset?

2) Who is it for?

3) What do you want to happen as a result?

4) How will you interpret it?

He has chosen to borrow and combine different models by using the terms message, takeaway, Big Idea or theme as interchangeable in order to answer the first WHY question step. The third question is particularly well worded as the WHAT is not just about learning content but it is about what HAPPENS to a visitor from physical, emotional, spiritual, and social aspects not just conceptual. He reiterates that HOW comes last in his schema. Recognized for its inherent ability to worm its way into the beginning of the process and its ability to pull one easily off track, Steve adroitly puts HOW in its place. His analogy with built- in admonishment to “eat all of your vegetables before rushing on to your pudding,” was perfect. You picked up on the fact that he has British heritage, right??

My response was hallelujah! It is so easy to jump to the HOW based on seeing neat techniques and the desire to use fun activities or a digital application. We have to resist the compulsion to do this ending up shoehorning in what might not be an appropriate or best use of said technique. Then we don’t achieve the visitor impactful outcomes we were looking for in the first place. In Steve’s words, “I find myself regularly holding teams back… before rushing to the interpretive toy box.” Resist the temptation, my friends.

He encourages you to draw on others feeling comfortable to “be a magpie and pinch any and all parts from the various models” that work for your situation. Whether it is a master site plan or an interpretive

brief for a single exhibit case, the core principles are the same. An interpretation plan “is a conversation, a collaboration, a journey, a hope or aspiration, a manifesto.” In Steve’s terms he says that you have achieved your aim if the visitor responds with “I’ve got it,” or “Ah, I see.” If interpretive content is met with “So what,” you have failed. Dates and species identification can have this effect.

Integration and Interfacing

A new term for me was the introduction of an interpretation interface plan which I see as having mucho potential (can you tell I am taking Spanish lessons?) This type of plan demonstrates how a new installation would integrate into the existing interpretive scheme at the site. Steve also suggests strategic integration as a heading in an interpretation plan, as a way to not forget the importance of fitting into other site plans or other heritage sites.

We at EID rank integration highly critical to the visitor experience so management is reminded how landscaping, parking, trails, play, and rest areas all have a role in reinforcing visitor takeaways. As Steve points out, “…our {interpretive} work is only ever seen in the context of a wider visit.” In addition to the on-site experience, it would be beneficial to think about the existing regional heritage experiences - how they could mutually support each other and benefit the present visitors’ explorations along with planning future trips.

So glad to see the emphasis on de-siloing, when forming an interpretation working party that strives to integrate with 2D (imagery, graphics and text layout) planners/designers and 3D (exhibition spaces and signage schemes) planners/designers. The author provides an extensive potential list of stakeholders and recommends you err on the side of inclusion.

Answering the WHY question involves digging into the institutional purpose. I am going to share a very important practical exercise the author highlighted when developing an interpretive vision. He refers to it as “interrogating the mission statement” – gotta love that! Starting with the existing mission statement he asks participants to “add thoughts, comments, reflections, doodles, sad/happy faces next to words that they think relate directly to how the place interprets its heritage assets.” The organization’s interpretive vision and agenda eventually came to life after facilitated conversations and “many sticky notes and biscuits” (he didn’t mention it, but there must have been tea!).

The author shares a wonderfully instructive case study of the Tenement Museum in New York where a refocussing of the museum’s purpose forced a rethinking of the interpretation model to incorporate a group experience imparting and internalizing immigration values as part of the visitors’ experience. Is it time for you to revisit your mission and vision, then investigate whether your interpretive agenda matches your intent?

Discussion questions exist at the end of every book chapter and I particularly liked this thought-stimulating set of two from the Purpose Chapter:

What are your internal/institutional reasons for interpreting?
What do you stand to gain from interpreting?

Getting to Know Your Visitor

When the author reflects on his early days he notes, “each day when I turned up, the heritage remained the same, but the visitors were different.” Every visit was going to be different as nobody experiences in the same way. Every visitor was going “to step, see, smile, smell, learn, think, wonder or reflect in a different way…”

To help inform one’s interpretive thinking, the author lays out a solid review on researching, getting to know, and keeping up to date on your visitors. The author hit the nail on the head when he formulated a comprehensive list of psychographic visitor questions to be asked, dealing with: motivations, hopes, fears, site expectations (preconceptions & misconceptions), learning styles, and kinds of desired experiences. These are interspersed with more traditional considerations about what visitors like/dislike about your site, their access issues, and their subject knowledge. The kinds of favoured experiences that visitors could choose from are described using adjectives like: cerebral, reflective, ordered, adventurous, social, provoking, reminiscent, enlightening.

He cautions that interpreters need to be involved in determining these formative front-end research methods that normally get commissioned by the communication group and test marketing options only. The prospect of what is going to be delivered to people when they visit, is as worthy to test but often forgotten, so Steve implores us as guest experience interpreters to speak up. He stresses the importance of listening to visitors as part of the planning process, formatively testing out our ideas and concepts with them early on, so we can tweak our ideas in light of how they react.

My three favourite discussion questions at the end of the Audience Chapter that direct pondering are:

How will your interpretation plan interact with your audience development plan?

How does your understanding of the meaning of diverse, inclusive, and representative impact what you deliver as a visitor experience?

Who will the audience advocate be at all stages on your project?

Do you have an audience development plan? You should start one if you don’t and if you do you should revisit on a regular basis to evaluate and adjust it. The author discusses the thought of being relevant as a strong argument for visitor co-created interpretive content, allowing visitors to be reflected in the exhibit and seeing themselves IN the heritage space. Considering who your stakeholders are and when you involve them during the planning stages brings us back to the inclusive working party.

Public-facing Interpretive Content

The Outcomes Hierarchy Model introduced at the outset is the conceptual framework of choice for this book, focusing on four required outcome domains being:

Social interaction
Psychomotor doing with bodies and brains
Emotional short- term feelings and
Intellectual long- term considerations or reflections

Definitely some similarities here with the 4H approach (Head, Heart, Hands. Hunger) EID utilizes from Steve Van Matre’s Interpretive Design book, that we referenced at the beginning of the blog. In addition, this guide showcases another model, known as the Generic Learning Outcomes framework. This was produced by the Research Centre for Museums and Galleries at the University of Leicester looking at formal and informal learning as well as public - facing interpretive content. The author says these outcomes are “a useful catalyst for conversation when used as part of the group discursive planning process.”

Steve Slack delves into responsible WHAT messaging and the need for acknowledging the shared history of a place that may bring about controversies, the use of multiple narratives, and more than one truth to be explored. I quote, “we have a duty to tell the truth about truth. We ought to say what we know, what we think we know, and what we believe to be true… and what we don’t know.”

Let’s leave it there for now until we meet again for segment two that explores the HOW- and a smattering of the over 200 most prominent interpretive devices Steve Slack has witnessed.

Sign Stew: a Tasty Bountiful Blend

December 15, 2021 EID Coaching

November’s blogs contained some heavy cerebral planning material, so we thought you might want a lighter fare as we enter the holiday season. Here is a gift collection of interpretive design tidbits that caught my eye this past summer season. I wrap up the post with a New Year wish to be sent out into the multiverse so it spreads as far and as wide as possible. Feedback requested.

Note: All Photos were taken by Bill Reynolds unless captioned

Balancing needs

What should the first sign as you enter a site deal with? Here is a wonderful example of an approach that works. The three headings that greet the visitor reflect a balance of catering to the visitor and catering to the site management. What will you see? What lives here? What makes this site unique?

The first two questions address orientation style inquiries that are very commonly asked by visitors so why not talk to your prospective visitor right off the bat responding to what is on their mind. The third question is tied to the mission of the site. Visitors should become aware of what makes this site different and worth protecting. In this case, visitors discover they will be walking among three different and rare unburned relic forests. What a tree-mendous entry sign to a natural area.

In contrast this entry sign to a wildlife reserve, suffers from the old problem of cramming too much onto one sign compounded with a confusing mosaic treatment and colour scheme. The information package is a mix of really need to know and nice to know topics splayed out like a puzzle. The first two questions of the previous sign are sort of handled here but buried. The main concern is a site protection one dealing with impressing on the visitor that they should stay on the trail – read the red top triangle. I fear due to information overload this critical message is not read by everybody.

The message in the red triangle probably should have been a standalone sign potentially using a bold black on yellow cautionary sign quality.

The exclamation point in the middle of the sign may have caught your eye. It is attached to some significant information about species at risk in this area but a dull listing of the 12 species names is a let down for the visitor. Images would have been so much more effective. If cost dictated one sign then message priority should have stepped in and the two areas being discussed should have won out.

Nail down your objective

Now we are talking – giving the visitor something to do and engaging with the visitor’s senses but is this well done or poorly done? What was the objective? Did they go far enough by simply asking a question? That is the usual problem- often times you are asked a question then not provided with enough background to take it any further.

In the avian case are they assuming (often a bad decision based on the writer’s knowledge) that you know what a mallard quack and a goose honk sound like but perhaps not what a “call” of a trumpeter swan is like? Does it sound like a trumpet and is that what the reserve managers want the visitor to listen for? Do they want the visitor to see if they can detect at least a certain number of waterfowl sounds so they get a sense of their diversity in the wetlands? You are left on a precipice of involvement- especially with no audio component associated with the sign.

In the mammal case, they give you three options and show you a photo of only one? Without binoculars from this point, the animals are specks so you would not be able to detect which one anyways? What was the point? If you wanted to assist visitors in discerning the fact that these three furbearing water-loving animals live waaay down there, would you not have been better off showing images of each animal:

· swimming in the water indicating how to tell them apart and/or

· indicating with arrows that point to the parts of their bodies that you use to identify them when visible out of the water?

Writing for the Visitor

How do these interpreters treat a trailhead welcome? Another use of the old question strategy, and in this case it relates to having listened to the visitor and noting where they are coming from. When it comes to GIANT TREES people want to know their age. Instead of just putting up the dates and an associated historical event, the writer went the extra mile of visual imagery engagement. Relating branch growth to a human life that the visitor could touch would really drive it home. Connecting this to sustainable certified logging practices and wood purchasing decisions would extend the teachable moment relevance to human lives.

Were you intrigued by the orange lettering at the bottom of the sign image. It was a clever promotion for park pass purchases. The main point, is the missed opportunity I frequently encounter where cross promotion of other trails or programmes is rarely utilized. A visitor experience interpretive plan needs to consider how to raise visitor awareness of park offerings and encourage visitors to linger longer.

That question strategy again – is it relevant? Not knowing how loud a frog’s voice is -doesn’t that keep you up at night? Large colourful graphics are so commanding of attention. It seems like the small text real estate is being vastly underutilized. This is great cocktail party information but what purpose does it serve?

A positive aspect is how they handled the distance -rather than just stating it numerically, the text grounds you to the present by referring to an object (the resort) that you not only can still see from this location but it is also where the trailhead started from.

This management component of a sign (left) was also seen at the entrance point to a forest trail. Taking a light tone yet still delivering a strong message. Taking the time to communicate potential impacts and explaining the rationale for requested visitor behaviour. Do these strategies work? Do you attract more flies to honey than vinegar? Does this help parents explain to their children certain needed rules in high traffic areas? Master’s thesis anyone?

An interpretive sign glimpsed in a kid’s bike park that speaks so well to starting where your learners are. Having the look and feel of a kid’s book it also focuses on subject matter that appeals to their age group - licking a slug and poop. Will this encourage kids to approach these forest animals in an investigatory and caring way, as opposed to stepping on them? Does it supply enough NEAT factor to get kids to appreciate its existence?

Diversity and Inclusion Firsthand

If your objective is to alert the visitor to the wide range of plants growing in a small space then this layout accomplishes that. The array of species on the perimeter are connected to the central photograph using white dotted lines (hard to see in photo but clear in real life) so it is easy to make the link. At the same time, what percentage of visitors like counting the number of plants they see? Perhaps the goal was just to encourage visitors to slow down and look more carefully on the ground. This sign might need some more hints to direct kneedrop behaviour and micro-trailing to allow the practicing of close-up skills.

Larger Than Life

Here is a clever way to share the impact of a dam and make it approachable from an invertebrate perspective that is also relatable to a human experience. This writing style captures you right away and it places you in the centre of the action. The larger-than -life image draws you in. The content is very dramatic and pertinent as it relates to the impact of a dam on these little fresh water fellows. This deals with a daily happening that most visitors would never think about. You can almost hear readers saying, “I had no idea…”

Great example of design that reinforces the message Bugs for Breakfast where the background is a red checkered tablecloth and plates. Zoom in and you’ll see each invertebrate has a size reference beside the larger-than-life drawings. So many times this little detail is forgotten and people go away with no concept of how tiny these creatures are. What is missing here?

There is plenty of reading but no call to action – no exploratory doing suggested. Was there a place close by where the passerby could get engaged? Could you have promoted a regular program, the visitor centre aquaria or a kit to borrow focused on pond life?

Exhibit Dynamism

How about a wayside exhibit you can actually step into? How do you give visitors the sense of ski-jumping at an heritage ski hill where world records were set? Like a tandem skydive where you are strapped to your instructor, these interpreters envisioned a sculpted metal figure that visitors would literally lean into while standing on a set of skies and looking dooown. A very gutsy move.

Even the picnic table infrastructure reinforces the essence of the site. You may be familiar with actual skiis being used as seats and snowboards as seat backs in other ski-related locations. This treatment breaks the stale mold of same-old.

How about a twist on the standard mounted flat interp signage? At the same ski hill wayside exhibit this twist was presented like a wide “V” similar to an old-style flipped open newspaper - laid out with snippets of articles & ads.

Another clever addition was the English title Face Plant Daily which I assumed was made up and not the actual title of the local paper of the time period. You should always be on the lookout for catchy quirky titles. The writer may have borrowed the idea from the local accommodation in town -Face Plant B&B. The French Title translates as the Snow Bulletin – falls flat for me - missed opportunity to help the reading visitor to have some fun.

Let Interpretive staff be creative

Are any of your sites using new methods of communication due to line-ups caused by social distancing? If not, you are missing an interpretive opportunity. Sure, you can put a line on the floor to designate the six feet separation but how creative is that? In this case, the owner capitalized on social media testimonials as a marketing gimmick to draw you in and confirm you have made the right choice to visit. Your site could do the same and/or incorporate an interpretive message. Never underestimate what you can learn standing in a cafe line!

Seen on a road at a outdoor camp setting where a trail crossing occurs:

What if cautionary/warning signage could be original and aspirational at the same time yet still be effective? In this case you want to slow drivers down and also give them something to think about. Bonus, campers feel pretty good about their future self too. Whereever you need to communicate with visitors, let interpretive staff be creative.

Love this non-traditional directional sign positioned at a T-intersection. Big and Bold and easy to read plus makes you ponder and packs a chuckle punch. If you are going straight ahead anyways you get a confirmation that you are heading to good times (the town of Kimberley). If you were planning to turn left then you have a seed planted about Kimberley and perhaps you are missing out on something- good times. Can you see how this can be applied not only during the arrival stage of your visitor’s journey but how this technique can be used on-site at trail intersections, in lobbies or hallways? Let interpreters be creative!

Contracting street-artists may pay you back many times over if you simply provide them with the interpretive essence and primary message of your site, letting them create a stunning visual. What word caption or phrase comes to your mind when you encounter this? For me, it is nurturing.

Let us know what your caption might be so we can share -there may be a prize awarded, you never know.

Putting Interpretive Design Ideas into Practice – Phase 3 (cont.)

November 11, 2021 EID Coaching

Getting the Visitor on the Interpretive Dance Floor: The HOWS & WAYS

Notes from Bill & Mike: In the last post, Putting Interpretive Design Ideas into Practice – Phase 3, we introduced Activity Matrix examples for the Head and Heart using AMORE (Achieve, Motivate, Organize, Reinforce, Evaluate). This planning tool is to help the visitor engage with interpretive experiences at a preservation, collection, or historic recognition site. To conclude Part 3 we have included Activity Matrix examples for the Hands and the Hunger. Let us know if you have any questions and please send us your comments on this or any other posts.

Quick Reminder…The Activity Matrix examples are for an Invitation Station (10-20 minutes) at the Métis Crossing Buffalo Camp for the ½ day adult visitor. The intent is for the Invitation Station to entice the visitor to return for a deeper experience of Métis culture by signing up for the Buffalo Camp Immersing Experience (60 – 120 minutes).

HANDS Activity Matrix (Tangible Skills & Memories)

This Dance Step of Hands can be a bit tricky because most folks immediately think of “Hands-On” activities. Not the case this time. The hands-on, sensory, visceral experiences are in the Achieve section of the Activity Matrix. When Van Matre refers to Hands he literally means what visitors will take home in their hands:

“Never forget that people want to take home some piece of the places they visit – as a concrete reminder, sometimes a trophy, often a validation of their experience…And if visitors cannot meet this need with something environmentally-friendly that supports the site’s mission, they will buy junk – lots of it – or pick up some object at the site and haul it away.”

It is also important to remember that using our “hands” (or even our feet) to learn new skills can be something tangible we take away from a site. As we struggled to clearly understand pages 168-169 in IDADE, we decided to offer two examples for Hands: (1) literally a memento the visitor takes home in their “hands” from the Buffalo Camp Invitation Station, and (2) utilizing the visitors’ hands to “earn” an item that will provide a memory of the place.

(1) “Laws of the Buffalo Hunt” -- Visitors receive a copy of the “Laws” to read over and keep as they enter the Invitation Station. Then, on the poster with all the “Laws” listed, place a mark by their choice for “Top Law.” (2) Métis Hunt Captain -- As each new Buffalo Camp Immersing Experience begins, the Métis Hunt Captain, dressed in traditional Métis clothing, announces the “Laws of the Buffalo Camp” for all present to hear. (3) Exploratory Booklet -- On pages provided visitors can record reflections on the “Laws of the Hunt” and record the rules and consequences that work in their family & community.

(1) Traditional Buffalo Products & Silhouette – traditional tools and items made from the buffalo are available on a table for visitors to handle. Visitors add a check mark or initials to the Buffalo Silhouette indicating what part of the buffalo was most interesting. (2) Make A Sash – visitors receive 5 colored threads to make a sash after visiting 5 Invitation Stations and highlighting 5 threads of the sash illustration in the Exploratory Booklet. (3) Exploratory Booklet -- After the visitor experiences an Invitation Station and interacts with the traditional items, they highlight one thread of the sash illustration in the booklet with a special pencil. When five threads have been highlighted, and sensory and visceral descriptions recorded and shared, they can receive the actual threads to weave into a sash.

Photo Credit: Métis Crossing/Métis Nation of Alberta, Canada

HUNGER Activity Matrix (Flavorful Delights)

“Let us break bread together.” This often-used quote speaks as much to the need for social interaction as to the need for nourishment. Relaxing over food can provide a mental and physical break from “site fatigue.” A meal or snack is also a chance to relax and ruminate over what the experience has meant so far, and, of course, to gather and “break bread” with friends and family members. Every visitor experience interpretive plan should integrate social time and activation of the taste buds in the pursuit of the site’s mission and message. If we as designers neglect this aspect of planning, the visitors will find a way to relax and eat even if it means bringing their own food and discovering their own comfortable spot. So, why not make “flavourful delights” an integral part of what the visitors remember about the site?

Van Matre has a few things to say about this on pages 169-171:

“For most people visiting a public jewel on a leisure journey demands some opportunity to attend to the toothed end of their intestinal tract, not merely as a necessity for their physical well-being, but for their mental well-being…Unfortunately, such activity is often divorced from the interpretive messages of the places visited. What visitors eat and drink, and where they do it, should contribute to the site’s intended outcomes, and giving the visitors something to discuss or ponder at these times should be an objective of its experiential design.”

The Invitation Station, the Immersing Experience, the Café, and the Gift Shop are all areas where the visitor Hunger can be addressed and integrated with the Outcomes and takeaways.

(1) “Rate the Taste” – A-Frame stand with the daily buffalo products available to taste. Visitor can use a simple 1, 2, 3 rating scale for “Great”, “OK”, “No Thanks” for each product tasted. (2) “Buffalo Silhouette” – silhouette divided into sections to indicate where tools, cuts of meat, and products obtained from buffalo come from. Visitors put a check mark on parts they tasted and tools they liked. (3) Exploratory Booklet – page to record which buffalo products and tastes they liked and compare taste with favorite family foods. (4) “Favorite Flavour of the Day” – Near exit to Cultural Gather Centre visitors record “Favorite Flavour of the Day.” An alternative is to put re-usable tokens in containers that have pictures of the various site “taste” options that day.

Activity Matrix Things To Think About… here are a few items we feel are important to remember when putting the Activity Matrix together.

1. Are you just presenting the pieces of a place or focusing on the processes that make the place a “jewel” ? An object should help reinforce the processes, not be the primary focus. You will notice we have incorporated the primary process for this Invitation Station into the Outcomes for the visitors.

2. Does the “meaningful information” fit into the visitor’s mental web? Will the experience and information connect, fill-in gaps, or strengthen the visitor’s mental web, or will the information fall out? To quote Van Matre: “The web of life is the inter-connected, inter-working of inter-related stories. When visitors grasp this ‘webbing concept’, it is easier for them to catch new things while dancing on their own.”

3. Do the “memorable experiences” provide a strong enough sensory and visceral glue? Has the visitor been deeply immersed in the place, is there time and space for reflection and sharing, and to explore ways they may be changed?

4. Is the focus on the meaning of the place? We want to celebrate why the cultural or natural heritage jewel is important, and then connect it to the visitor’s web. That is why it is important to provide experiences that reinforce the mission and message of the place throughout the site. The task of the interpreter is to set up an environment so the visitor can make the connections as they “dance” with the site on their own.

5. Are visitors being attracted to and “pulled” into experiences rather than simply ignoring or feeling “pushed” into an experience? It is important to find ways to invite the visitor into experiences with creative and sensory and welcoming “hookers” that cause a bit of delight and curiosity. If they are motivated to participate, then the mental and emotional web is better prepared to catch new ideas and feelngs.

6. Are the experiences organized in a Way so the processes and Outcomes are easy to hold onto and understand? What will the visitors take home in their Head, Heart, Hands and Hunger (stomach) and will it be connected to the whole experience? This may mean carefully reviewing all aspects of the visit — from car park to gift shop to café as well as examining current and future interpretive experiences.

7. Finally, is there some accountability? That is the value of the Evaluate column in the Activity Matrix. Are we achieving the intended outcome? Is it connecting to the visitor’s Head, Heart, Hands, and Hunger webs? Is it helping the visitor to embrace the natural and cultural value(s) of the place? Again, from Van Matre:

“By combining meaning with mission, we restore the dynamism to our interpretive sites. Each place represents a unique expression of the processes of life that is worthy of attentive experience; that’s why it was established, and what we are paid to celebrate and share. As interpreters, when it comes to our places, we don’t want so much to help people find their own meaning as to help them experience and appreciate ours. That’s the core of our job.”

We hope that our posts of Phase 1, 2, and 3 of Getting the Visitor onto the Interpretive Dance Floor have provided a clearer picture of how the process of designing and planning for the visitor works using IDADE. And yes, we did make some adjustments when working on a real-life project. However, the core of the books ideas were used in the planning process and embraced by staff at Métis Crossing.

An Epilogue to these three Phases is next on our list. There are a few important steps we did not spend time on at Métis Crossing but are vital to success: Image, Message, Welcome, Orient, Guide and Visitor Flow.

Putting Interpretive Design into Practice - Phase 3

November 4, 2021 EID Coaching

Getting the Visitor on the Interpretive Dance Floor: The HOWS & WAYS

From Bill and Mike…Yes, there has been a long gap between our post on Phase 2 of Putting Interpretive Design Ideas into Practice and Phase 3. Some of this was due to holidays, camping trips, family commitments and other life events. But mainly we wanted to provide some good examples for this post…and that took time. If you have the Interpretive Design and the Dance of Experience (IDADE) book, review pages 218 – 219, “Everglades Dance Card.” Notice there is only a Head example. We wanted our examples to include the Heart, Hands and Hunger for a better sense of how to set up and use this planning tool. For a variety of reasons, we have decided to refer to the “Dance Cards” as the “Activity Matrix,” but we are using the same planning and organizing pattern for the design process.

Though a fully developed Activity Matrix was not included during our time with Métis Crossing, we used the Outcome Matrix from the Buffalo Camp Invitation Station as the basis for our examples. We carefully designed HOWS & WAYS to best Achieve the desired Outcome, talked with Van Matre several times, and used the “Model-Practice-Feedback-Revise” process on ourselves. We think this completed model will provide a better understanding of how the Activity Matrix (Dance Cards), work and we look forward to your feedback. If you have developed an Activity Matrix, or you would like us to work with you on developing one at your site, let us hear from you.

A Quick Review…

In our first blog post on “Putting the Interpretive Design Ideas into Practice-Phase 1” we looked at EID’s Phase 1 when working with a site on an visitor experience interpretive plan. The major focus was making sure everyone is headed in the same direction as we Dig Into the Whys:

During Phase 2 of the visitor experience interpretive plan process we worked on the following:

Phase 3

Now in Phase 3 we get to the fun stuff – designing the HOWS & WAYS of getting the visitor on the Interpretive Dance Floor. The Activity Matrix, or Dance Cards, are used to start designing the mission-based experiences for a particular Visitor Type which will to help them Achieve intended Outcomes. And maybe by this time you are ready to throw up your arms and shout, “What, another matrix to think about and plan?” – well yes. This type of careful planning can help ensure the visitor will take away the importance of the site and connect it to the web of their life experiences in an organized and memorable manner. And yes, this takes time. Remember – these matrices are living tools that can be adjusted as goals and circumstances of a preservation, collection, or historical recognition site change. That does not mean new front line seasonal staff members should redo everything every year. Once an experience is doing what it is supposed to do, leave it alone and let it do its job.

Getting to Know AMORE

To get started on developing the four different Activity Matrices for the Head, Heart, Hands and Hunger, it is important to have some clear idea of what is meant by Achieve, Motivate, Organize, Reinforce, and Evaluate (AMORE). If you refer to pages 198-214 in IDADE you will find lots of details from Steve on these last 5 Dance Steps. We have condensed the information a bit for this post and it is still important to review the pages in the book for a deeper understanding of AMORE.

Achieve: Design and offer specific process and outcome driven interactions that invite & prepare the visitor to participate in a deeper experience with the site.
Motivate: Pull the visitor in with compelling & appealing invitations; stimulate willingness to experience what the site has to offer.
Organize: Tie together common outcome takeaways from the Invitation Station, the Immersing Experience and at other on-site experiences to assist visitor recall & integrate new understandings and feelings.
Reinforce: Designate a variety of site locations and experiences to practice and strengthen the outcome takeaways, aiming at enduring memories for the visitor.
Evaluate: Determine if the experience has Achieved the intended outcome and provided “enchantment, sparkle and delight” for the visitor.

As we developed the Outcomes for the Head, Heart, Hands and Hunger we stated the natural or cultural processes we were aiming for and incorporated these processes into the Outcome Statements. And by the way, please give us some feedback on this – Is it clear? Do you have questions? Do you have some examples to share?

Key points to remember:

These Activity Matrices examples are focused on the ½ day, adult, drop-in visitor type – so their time at Métis Crossing is limited. A different matrix would be needed for a different visitor type.
This is an Activity Matrix for an Invitation Station (10-20 minutes) at the Métis Crossing Buffalo Camp. It is an introduction that will hopefully entice the visitor to return for a deeper experience of Métis culture by signing up for the Buffalo Camp Immersing Experience (60 – 120 minutes) another longer experience.
Given the visitor’s time constraints (½ day), the goal is for this visitor type to leave with an initial connection in their Head, Heart, Hands AND Hunger (in the stomach) of the Métis Essences of Land & Water Relationships and Becoming a Nation.

Head Activity Matrix (Meaningful Information)

Pages 218-219 in IDADE display the “Everglades Dance Cards” example for the Head. You might wonder if this is really an activity description. No, it is not. It is simply a brief outline of the HOWS & WAYS the Outcome will be achieved (brochure, exhibit, walk, etc.). Fortunately, pages 220-222 provide more details about the HOWS & WAYS. We are going to use this same format to present each Activity Matrix – the matrix outline followed by a bit more detail about the activities we envisioned being developed. (Reminder: as mentioned earlier, these examples were developed by EID to better explain how AMORE works, they were not fully implemented at Métis Crossing during our time with the site.

HEART Activity Matrix (Memorable Experiences)

As Van Matre mentions on pages 161-164 of IDADE, the feelings are the “glue” that hold the mental web of understandings together. How we feel about our experience at a site is often stronger than the information we may, or may not, remember about a place. To quote:

“Essentially, when it comes to the feelings, interpretation aims for visitors to take away both a feeling of a place (sensory impressions) and a feeling for it (visceral impressions), so we have to consciously design interactions that do both. People take away deeper feelings of a place when they have been immersed in it in a fully conscious way with all their senses stimulated. And people feel good when their needs are met in a way that says others care about them. In both of these cases, it’s the detail that counts. Those who want to facilitate memorable experiences should practice creating memorable moments that fit together in service of mission. Doing so requires a lot of hard work but the rewards are worth it.”

For more on “making memories” check out the dozen “Pointers” on page 164 of IDADE.

OK — how about we stop there so you don’t feel too overwhelmed with one post. The Activity Matrices for the Hands and Hunger, and a bit of an epilogue will be posted next week. Once again, please let us know if you have any questions or comments, and look for us at the upcoming NAI conference on Zoom in early December.

Falling Leaves Trigger Discovery

October 1, 2021 EID Coaching

In the autumn, social media headlines can seem like falling colourful leaves where some can be eye-catching enough to grab your attention. This month I discovered blogger Kate and her website Museum Drip: Flexin on Art History and Museums. You are no doubt familiar with the “one thing led to another” expression. In this case enticing little literary leaves having fallen and scattered about on a blogger’s page triggered my interest. My computer mouse finger responded.

Is looking, learning?

In her post Art Museums: Is Education the Objective?, the core of the article dealt with increased understanding for the critical role of the interpreter. She came right out stating that “… with all of this mounting evidence that art museums need to connect to audiences to remain relevant, there continues to be pushback against doing it.” {witness recent cuts to education/interpretation staff and docents}. Kate delved into this in a very refreshing way. One avenue worth exploring was whether looking is learning for all visitors. She also addressed the institutional quandary of how “inserting a mediated experience can interrupt the transcendence of immersing yourself in an artwork.” She even poked some fun at this sentence and its comprehensibility.

Even though this post talked about an art museum, the role of the interpreter and the situation of a guided (mediated) experience butting up against the art curator concept of looking is learning, is just as relevant to exploring a natural environment or historic house. Looking can be enhanced by an interpretive guide approach and accomplish many of the core values as set out below.

Kate included the core values of interpretation as prescribed by the Association of Art Museum Interpretation (AAMI):

Creates multiple pathways for understanding by creating an experience that equally values the visitor, the art object, and the organization’s mission.
Encourages audiences of varying backgrounds, knowledge levels, and learning styles to make relevant connections between art, ideas, and their lived experience.
Practices socially, intellectually, and physically accessible and inclusive interpretive strategies onsite, offsite, and online.
Creates learning opportunities that invite visitors to shift previously held views and expectations through intentional, respectful, and often playful provocation,
Utilizes collaboration, curiosity-driven experimentation, rigorous evaluation, reflection, and skill building, to create meaningful interpretive experiences.

Regardless of where you interpret, these points are valid and unpacking their meaning could be worth several blog posts. Suffice it to say, spend some time reviewing these statements as an evaluative checklist for your facility and its programming.

Some quick highlights: The second bullet focuses on the variable characteristics of your audience, something that can never be overstated yet is so often forgotten during program design. This is the first time I have seen playful and provocation linked together and I like it. Can you remember the last time you incorporated playful provocation? The last bullet above captures so much to be conscious of when planning an experience that it deserves abit of reflection time and self-analysis. (So, read it over slowly and spend some time doing exactly that).

Anybody interested in a creative, no-holds- barred, group zoom session, on how you might accomplish elements of each of the following 5 values when presented with an artifact of EID’s choosing? If interested, drop us a line at contact@eidcoaching.com and we will set something up.

In relation to art museums, the article introduced an interesting term - empathetic thinking. My immediate response was how this is potentially relevant for all interpretive environments. The art world examples are why EID always advocates that we share across fields of education and interpretation, because we can gain from new twists on existing perspectives.

Community Engagement

Kate mentioned the Delaware Art Museum and their multi-year project to engage their community because it impressed her, resulting in a paradigm shift. This was another colourful, intriguing leaf fluttering by, so I took a peek and investigated further, being glad I did.

Planning for gallery reinstallation meant involving the community, curators, and educators. Not only did they attack the curator/educator divide but they also ramped up participatory dialogue with visitors! The use of community salons and prototyping workshops collecting visitor feedback from post-it notes led to “clusters” of ideas. This process resulted in the realization that adding voices to walls permanently would be invaluable. The team decided that there was a need in all future endeavours to incorporate more frequent access to visitor’s ideas, questions, and opinions. For more background, read the full article on AAMI’s website:

https://artmuseuminterp.org/2019/09/26/centering-community-relevance-in-reinstallation-planning/

R-E-S-P-E-C-T & silo dismantling

She referred to her earlier post Cardboard Cutout Kids: Museum Field Trips & Interdepartmental Buy-In on the subject of how interpreters can gain respect from internal colleagues and how to bridge the gap between departmental silos (one of my favourite topics). Another leaf floating by that got plucked up for its inspiration…

On the subject of counteracting the GET NO RESPECT situation, she looked at better internal profiling for the profession. Kate brought up the point about museum field trips being a daily occurrence, so they tend to be talked about less often, and primarily only in terms of sheer numbers. Her super effective solution was to highlight one or two adorable, hilarious or profound things that happened during a field trip and share it weekly via email to the full staff.

Those weekly emails were a great way to crack the door open to set up tour shadowing for people in other departments. This was successful in her facility. Kate declares that everything that happens in a museum is interconnected, so it’s important for everyone including collections staff, curators, event planners, marketers and fundraisers, to see how the collection and galleries are used on a school tour while sensing the multiple benefits being gained through organizational and communication skills. This also results in a great feedback process.

If you are wondering whether this will be a rewarding and fun read, here is an example of her relevant, conversational style when describing school field trips: “…you just can’t really fathom the lack of personal space, the feeling of constantly being “on,” the number of conversations you need to carry on simultaneously, the trickiness of transitioning from one lesson or space to the next, the planning your lunch food for maximum wolf-it-down-fast-ness.” Combined with some images that will have you chuckling, giving this blog a read will not disappoint. https://museumdrip.com/2021/09/12/cardboard-cutout-kids-museum-field-trips-interdepartmental-buy-in/

Being comfortable & accepted

Her reference to the Hello wall as an example of effective field trip welcoming meant a third leaf found itself pirouetting into my view, in the form of a referral post titled, Five Things I Look for in a “Welcoming” Art Museum. Many of our EID posts talk about the importance of welcoming and designing for visitor anticipation. Especially our A Tale of Two Welcomes and What Make a Happy Heritage Facility delved into this important topic.

EID and Museum Drip are both aligned on this concept of welcoming, which is connected to the fact that people need to see themselves represented in public spaces. This relates to all human age, race, gender and ability characteristics along with learning styles. Kate drilled down on children, emphasizing that one’s facility needs to show it is aware of children (with and without adults) – that they are wanted and embraced as visitors even when they are not with their class. If this isn’t visible in the galleries/exhibit areas, but only down a back corridor (in a special room), then it doesn’t count.

Drawers at child level Photo credit Bill Reynolds — Drawers at child level
*Photo credit Bill Reynolds*

Kate expounded that “since most museum visitors are not art-world insiders, a child-centered exhibition strategy that considers how to make complex art concepts accessible, actually works well for visitors of all ages.” EID stresses this approach ad-nauseum and advocates its applicability for all heritage subjects. I have often found written self- guided activities done for school classes tucked away from the general public’s purview. They should have been available for weekend use, because they were extremely well done and promoted investigative curiosity. I fear this is another silo needing to be bridged – that between the public programmers and school programmers. Watch out for those walls, not only between but within departments.

Not only a bench but a themed one to boot in a botanic garden’s aquatic habitat Photo credit Bill Reynolds — Not only a bench but a themed one to boot in a botanic garden’s aquatic habitat
*Photo credit Bill Reynolds*

My favourite quote of all three blogs has to be this one. “For the love of Ruth. LET PEOPLE SIT DOWN.” One, because I have not heard that expression in a long time and for some reason it always commands my attention while making me smile at the same time. Can’t tell you why. Two, because she is addressing one of EID’s pet peeves from a visitor experience design perspective. Interpretive designers know this and if they were brought in to the exhibit planning table, the human need for rest and reflection would be designed in.

Finally, how about this zinger that appeared in her blog: “9/10 art museum’s style guides for writing their wall texts say something along the lines of “we assume that our audience is educated, but not experts on art,” and probably 2/10 art museums actually write their texts that way.” How do we get that changed? Through respect for the art of interpretation? Through silo breaking? Through seeing a range of visitor types being represented? Through hearing community voices on the walls?

Be a leaf peeper this fall and let your curiosity run amok. Maybe even gather up a pile and dive in. You never know what will surface. (Note: I live in a temperate deciduous forest).

Hello, World!

Neighbourhood National Park: Homeowners Unite Part 2

August 25, 2021 EID Coaching

In the first blog post on the book, Nature’s Best Hope by Douglas Tallamy, the focus was on how individual efforts in restoring native landscaping of residential/corporate landscapes, city parks, hedgerows, and roadsides could reverse the deleterious impact of non-native plants. The author pointed out that homeowners remain clueless, through no fault of their own, regarding the human race’s reliance on ecosystem functioning. As a result, ecological health has been severely impacted by urban/suburban landscaping choices. In this post, we explore how we might accomplish buy-in for wholesale landscape change by tens of millions of homeowners and delve deeper into why this new approach is so necessary. Believe it or not, this all starts with our cute, wiggly, highly delicious caterpillar.

The Critical Caterpillar

96% of breeding terrestrial birds rear their young on insects not on seeds or berries. The author recounts a lot of evidence that catapults caterpillars ahead of all insects as the primary food that needs to be available in a relatively small area. This is due to the number of trips parents need to make to satisfy the incredibly fast growth rate of nestlings. Specifically, a male warbler, a small songbird, makes 240 nest visits a day and a female visits the same nest up to 570 times. Nestlings stay in their nest on average for 12-16 days. Are you doing the math?

Chickadee parents, another small songbird, feed their fledglings for up to 21 days even after they have left the nest. That is quite a demand for caterpillars brimming with proteins and fats. Imagine how many more trips would be needed if you were feeding nestlings tiny aphids or spiders. You still have to multiply that one nest by the number of different bird families in your neighbourhood needing food. That’s a truckload of caterpillars. Any wonder why our bird diversity and numbers are down? Have you noticed a predominance of seed eaters (finches, cardinals) and carrion feeders (crow family, gulls) in your neighbourhood? What you plant in your yard makes a difference!

Nutrients called carotenoids are twice as plentiful in caterpillars as in other insects. Birds need to get their carotenoids from insects that eat plants in order to produce brightly coloured feathers- key for attracting females and as a signal of health. Carotenoids also stimulate three biological processes: immune systems, antioxidants that protect DNA from oxidative damage and sperm vitality (remember signal of health-those females are a smart lot). This points to the fact that caterpillars are not optional but essential during the breeding season.

So, which plants are the best hosts for caterpillars? Suffice it to say, as Tallamy points out, native species are by far the best. Keystone species that make up about 5% of plant genera host 70-75% of the local moth/butterfly producing-caterpillars. If you would like to discover more, check out https://www.audubon.org/plantsforbirds

Caterpillars are only one phase of the butterfly/moth life cycle requirements; they also must have the microhabitats their pupae need to survive. If the host trees are surrounded by sterile raked up lawn, their will be no leaf litter or rotting wood in which to spin cocoons. Similarly, they can’t tunnel into a concrete surface or into the soil if it is too compacted by regularly trammelling of feet or lawn mowers. We haven’t even touched proper landscaping for the egg or adult stages of life.

Ecological Elephant in the Room

But it does not end there. We have only looked at impact on caterpillar-bird interactions. There is a bigger elephant in the room, ecologically speaking. As we homogenize plant diversity around the world with a small plate of ornamental favorites, the insects that depend on local native species decline with a domino effect on other invertebrates and vertebrates dependent on them for food. Tallamy reports that 90 % of insects have restricted their development and reproduction to very specific plant lineages, so non-natives will not support a majority of them. In the mid-Atlantic region alone, there are 69 native bee species that need exclusively either goldenrod, aster, evening primrose, blueberry or willow pollen to rear their larvae. Is this just the tip of the iceberg?

To add insult to injury, we have created a culture where insects are maligned. We win the war against insects at out peril. Interpreters have their work cut out for them to counteract the position that many children are being taught to fear every insect they see, rather than respect those few that might sting to defend their nests.

So “how” do we go about starting to make some changes in our yards and gardens to counteract the aesthetic biological wasteland choice? Tallamy’s raison d’etre is about empowering all of us to make our planet a better place and kickstart a grassroots approach to perhaps the greatest conservation project of all time. We cannot confine all of our conservation efforts to patches of protected areas because that will never be enough. Parks are too small and too separated to accomplish viable biological corridors that connect preserved habitat fragments with one another.

The book’s premise relies on the fact that we can easily manipulate the land we own and it is the low hanging fruit for ecosystem restoration. The personal space landscaping paradigm must change and become synonymous with ecological restoration. Most landowners would have to make it a conscious effort to convert a significant percentage of their present sterile lawn and “restore it to much of its prehuman productive native plant glory.”

We worry about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest - 20 % of which has been logged. Who is getting upset with the destruction of the North American eastern forests - 70% of which has been transformed into pavement and lawn? “Every square foot dedicated to lawn is a square foot that is degrading local ecosystems.”

Why a New Approach?

Tallamy cites two major missteps whose correction must become part of our everyday culture.

1. The most serious misstep he claims has been to assume that people and biodiversity cannot co-exist.

2. The second misstep has been to leave conservation to conservationists - a tiny trained community of ecologists.

Leaving this responsibility to a few experts means the rest of us remain largely uninformed about why we need respect and care for the earth’s and its systems of life and how to practice that care and respect in our daily lives. “Land ownership is not just about privilege. It’s about responsibility.”

Tallamy believes it is critical for us to make nature relevant again in people’s lives and to reduce the fear factor of venturing outside. The media informs us that we may be attacked by a mountain lion, maimed by a coyote, struck down by West Nile of Zika virus or crippled by Lyme disease. We need to reverse the negative relationship with nature causing avoidance because of inaccurate safety concerns.

“Our misguided risk assessment has convinced us that tailgating a forty- ton trailer at 75 mph is of no concern, but revegetating our yards will surely result in a deadly bite from a rattlesnake species that in reality was extirpated 150 years ago.” The author relates how our ability to assess risk is really skewed. Benefits far outweigh the risks. Statistics tell us that we are far more likely to die from the common cold, falling out of bed, slipping in the shower or using a toaster for that matter, so why should we avoid contact with nature due to a miniscule chance of harm?

Make Nature Relevant Again

Basically, there are two options to make nature relevant again: take people to nature or bring nature to people. The fallback strategy has been the former with trips to parks and the participation success rate has been small. We must ramp up support for the latter approach, emphasizing the surrounding of people with nature, where they spend most of their time, by using native plant suburban/urban landscaping. This should prepare people so they can capitalize on the few nature outings former approach. Will we be able to expose a majority of people to the countless species on this planet long enough for them to develop a caring and harmonious relationship with them? No one can be certain but let’s give it a try.

I agree with Tallamy’s assertion that native plantings in urban/suburban landscapes can become the norm, if logic-based peer pressure combined with financial incentives are promoted and implemented. Landscapes dominated by native plant species would become the new normal when more and more high-end properties demonstrate such attractive designs and gain community admiration. Heritage sites should play a role as frontrunners in piloting and encouraging paradigm shifts in plant community landscaping.

What needs to change? The traditional status symbol of the upstanding gold standard property, with its immaculate, weedless, inanimate, sterile lawn, maintained by “unspoken rules established by the tribe,” has got to go. We need to bring Home Owners Associations into the 21st century. Being good citizens with responsible community minded values means our properties must be productive from a watershed, climate, and biodiversity perspective. This also means landscapes must be designed to support diverse food webs, support generalist and specialist pollinators, and store as much carbon as possible in plants and soils.

The newly planned and cared for native- plant- dominated landscaping has less lawn, and more powerhouse species that drive food webs and support pollinators. It will be important to dispel the common viewpoint that using native communities represents a form of lawn neglect. Lawns as pathways rather than wall-to-wall carpeting, can be the transition to conscious design and attitude change toward nature. A neatly trimmed, defining grass border goes a long way towards opening the door to breaking gold standard stereotypes. Tallamy refers to websites and apps like YardMap and Nextdoor to help you coordinate conservation with neighbours.

The Problem with the Word “Weed”

In addition, he proclaims that we have a marketing issue with many of our native plants that needs addressing. They have been carelessly given common names with the word weed in them because of a subjective notion that where they grow is in the way of a cultivated crop, crowding an ornamental garden species or along a roadside. This has “stacked the emotional deck against them.” What if milkweed was called monarch’s majesty, New York ironweed was called Manhattan splendour, fireweed was called blazing torch, tickweed was called golden star, hawkweed was called orange delight or sneezeweed was called radiant sunset? Sneezeweed’s moniker encouraging avoidance is “not even up to snuff” as it does not make you sneeze unless you dry its leaves, crush them, and stuff the powder up your nose.

Moving forward, how do we reward the private landowner (83% of the US is privately owned) from the smallest city lot to the largest corporate landscape, if they rebuild much of the food web that once existed in their yard, by including plants that provide nourishment, cover, and forage?

As Tallamy points out the existing concept of a homeowner- driven certified habitat program was the brainchild of the National Wildlife Federation in 1973 and provided a model that has resulted in changing 2.5 million acres as of 2018. Tallamy has estimated 400 million acres in the US is in lawn, so there is still a way to go. The program includes college campuses, schoolyards, corporate landscapes, botanic gardens, zoos and entire communities.

In Canada I am aware of the international reward and recognition program called Communities in Bloom, that has been operating for at least a decade or two. After reviewing the evaluation criteria for this traditional civic pride beautification and green space enhancement program, nothing about native landscaping popped up. This indicated to me that they might be ripe for some new approaches.

E.O. Wilson brings the seriousness of our non- native landscaping home when he said,” If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” He even predicted humans would last only a few months if “these little things that run the world” were eradicated.

Ecologically Sound Aesthetics

What is ahead of us? Luckily, Tallamy bounces back from some potentially depressing statements. Exciting times he says - to get involved in the hugely rewarding task of restoring ecological function to the land, and viewing it, ”…not as a commodity to be exploited but as the source of our continued existence.” Every day we are learning more about how to redesign landscapes to meet aesthetic, cultural, ecological and practical needs to place plants from the ground to the canopy that will sustain complex food webs, store carbon, manage our watersheds, rebuild our soils and support a diversity of pollinators. As interpreters, how do you plan to modify your site’s appearance and stimulate behaviour change in visitors when they return to their communities and yards?

Neighbourhood National Park: Homeowners Unite

August 18, 2021 EID Coaching

“We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post on interpretive design and planning to bring you this important message from Douglas Tallamy…”

Not too often, but occasionally, a book comes along with a powerful conservation message that crosses boundaries and speaks to a wider than usual audience. Nature’s Best Hope, by Douglas Tallamy, is one of those books.

“Millions of acres now covered in lawn can be quickly restored to viable habitat by untrained citizens with minimal expense and without costly changes to infrastructure.”

This book grapples with the challenge of convincing people to value something they do not currently value – and it’s for their own good and the good of the planet. Tallamy want folks to discover the rewards of responsible landscaping to reduce vision-clouding tribal loyalties to the artificial lawn culture that, on the surface, appears to be self-sustaining. What is being advocated is a new national pastime to refocus our current denaturing of neighborhoods to one of renaturing our urban and suburban environments.

Ignorance of nature has led to indifference about its fate. It is tempting to garden only for beauty and choose plants for decorative value, without regard to the many ecological roles our landscapes can perform. The result: vitality is drained from the surrounding ecosystem. Introduced species take over, and complex food webs are not supported.

By understanding human behaviour, the author underpins his book with examples of indulging our need for immediate, short-term gains rather than acts of sacrificing in order to fix problems. As Tallamy says, “Humans are not genetically programmed to care about the future.”. He proposes a selfish approach but for ecologically good reasons, where people begin to wholeheartedly accept their role as citizens of the natural world rather than its conquerors or at best “oblivious -of – consequences” destroyers. Small efforts by many could deliver enormous physical, psychological, and environmental benefits for people, plants and animals by contributing to a homegrown national park.

Tallamy drills down to one’s backyard and focuses on homeowners. Individual action is front and centre - this is not about reduce, reuse, recycle behaviour. This is about planting behaviour and a conscious shift away from traditional landscaping. One would be building a powerful connection to place -that personal feeling of identity, comfort and special meaning. “We can never truly own nature, but a sense of ownership, creates a strong sense of stewardship ethic, something this land we occupy desperately needs.”

Humans have explored, mapped and colonized virtually all of land-based planet earth. “We crave new experiences, new horizons, and uncharted territories…most of us still yearn to discover.” Could we enhance the thrill of discovering new places with the same exhilaration by discovering new things? Would bringing natural wonders to our backyards open up a new thrill of discovery? Many people have discovered during COVID how the existing natural world, that was always there, surrounds them with delight and captivation once they start noticing.

The convincing gets easier when you combine this with the research detailing numerous mood enhancing, attention enrichment, and stress reduction medical benefits that arise from nature exposure. Author Richard Louv has coined this balm Vitamin N. However, Tallamy points out that these benefits are short-lived and realized only from repeated exposures. He stresses that a two-week vacation trip to a national park cannot fulfill this, but your yard or neighbourhood “national” park can.

Organized school trips, community hikes, and even family picnics are social events involving large and small groups of people. The author explains that typically these are highly structured and regulated events (and usually never at dawn or dusk when much of nature is most active). They are far too infrequent to help children and adults develop a sense of seasonal changes or a sense of the un-noticed natural cycles of life. These experiences lack the unhurried exposure and repeated solitude enhancing opportunities that could come from expeditions into our own yards - if planted with native passengers from the local bioregional community. We can enter this natural world 365 days a year having simple, commonplace encounters resulting in a sense of nurturing responsibility and harmonious relationship. Might the human race take this on as a life value?

The aim is to reverse the impact of invasive plant species (3300 in North America) that are displacing our native plant ecosystems, causing major disruption and spreading like a tumour. The intent of this collective effort would be to help preserve ecosystems in all bioregions and biomes that have been decimated by the fake “aesthetic” culture of a monoculture sod lawn and non-native ornamental plantings. Here is how Tallamy sets the stage for a land ethic development:

“Just as we are not free to throw garbage into our neighbour’s yard, we are no longer free to release countless propagules of invasive species onto our neighbour’s landscape. We are no longer free to flood our neighbours with stormwater that our huge lawns cannot absorb; nor are we free to deplete our neighbours’ aquifer by watering our thirsty grass. None of us have the right to destroy the diversity of life that once thrived on our properties-life that is required to run the ecosystems that keep us and our neighbours alive. We do not have the right to starve our local pollinators by removing the native flowers on which they depend. We do not have the right to heat up our neighbour’s airspace by cutting down the trees on our property.”

The book explains why ignoring these “rights” have led to an ecological catastrophe that could be reversed with individual action. Individual efforts will determine whether “…we live in a world thriving with life or in one in which little stirs.”

As many of you know, increasing the number and biomass of plantings in yards and public spaces provides great benefits. Plants pull carbon out of the atmosphere and also pump that carbon into the soil via their roots. However, through misguided purchasing preferences, the public has reinforced the landscaping industry’s focus only on the aesthetic value of plants, rather than the plant’s role as an ecological backbone supporting an interrelated web of life. The underappreciated consequences have wreaked havoc by severely reducing biodiversity. Nature’s Best Hope provides a recipe for reversal.

Tallamy makes a point that: “…even our greenest cities have missed the most critical aspect of nature-conscious urban design: PLANT CHOICE MATTERS” (my caps). The type of plants we use in our landscaping determines how much energy is passed on to animals from that which is captured by them, thus effecting the carrying capacity of the area. Native plants differ in their ability to do that because of the evolutionary traits they have developed and are incredibly better at it than introduced species.

Replacing native plant communities with introduced plants compromises ecosystem functioning making it less stable and less productive, primarily by reducing the number of species and the number of interacting species. This is “…akin to throwing a monkey wrench in a machine.” Non-bioregion species can interact in a negative way and prevent other native bioregion parts from interacting effectively. When introduced plants replace natives the caterpillar community and the associated reliant insectivore community become severely diminished (96% less food available). Most birds rear their young on insects, especially caterpillars, and non-native ornamental plants are nowhere close to being as caterpillar friendly.

“Not only is it easy to create a world in which insects can coexist with humans, it is easy to create landscapes in which they can actually flourish.” We just need to choose the right kinds of plants that support the two groups of insects (caterpillars and native bees) that “…contribute the most energy to local food webs- that is, the insects that are larger, more numerous, more edible, and more nutritious than others- and those responsible for most of the pollination.”

And now a word from our sponsor -EID: Tallamy’s manifesto and strategic approach is highly relevant to interpretation as a helpful blueprint for wildlife preservation that our visitors could take home and apply immediately after their visit to your site. (some follow up “doing” post the “presentation”).

The endgame is to enrich lives: “…more pollination services, more cost-free pest control, more carbon safely tucked away in the soil, more rainwater held on and within land for our use in a clean and fresh state, more bluebirds, orioles, and pileated woodpeckers in our yards, more swallowtails and monarchs sipping nectar from flowers.”

I had no idea the extent of damage caused by inappropriate landscaping choices until reading this book and being exposed to the research data that Tallamy has pulled together. The current habitat loss could be modified and thus be reduced from the present damage already inflicted on our native populations, and hopefully prevent the need for further reversal in the future. This is critical and provides the ecological basis that will allow the window dressing of beehouses and bird feeders to actually make a difference.

We’ll continue this conversation in the next blog post by trying to answer Tallamy’s question: So, how do we move beyond “preaching to the choir to reach the tens of millions of people who, through no fault of their own, remain clueless?” Stay tuned for some shocking and mind- boggling facts along with the on- the-ground strategy to move forward.

Identity Crisis

July 14, 2021 EID Coaching

“Our (heritage) institutions are unable to resolve their problems of role definition” as they suffer from “an identity crisis.” This quotation from an 80’s museum journal was addressing the issue of institutional purpose attributed to the increasing importance of social function and community relevance.

As I clean out old file folders from my interpretive naturalist days in the roaring 1970’s and 80’s, I continuously come across essays that speak about contemporary issues of the time prevalent at interpretive conferences and in publications. Light is shed on perspectives worthy of consideration in present visitor experience debates relevant to all natural and cultural heritage sites.

One historical essay that brought to light situations that needed addressing - which are still relevant today - was The Museum, a Temple or the Forum by Duncan Cameron, Director of the Brooklyn Museum.

Mr. Cameron showed concern that “many institutions cannot decide whether they wish to be a museum, as a temple, or wish to become a public forum. Some have tried to bring the forum inside the temple.” This is an ongoing debate in 2021.

Duncan advocates against this, as he stresses that “the idea of bringing the forum- the place for confrontation and experimentation- inside the temple is to inhibit and in effect, to castrate the performance in the forum.” Integrating these two discrete sociological functions he says poses a significant problem and his recommendation was to create a distinct exhibition hall and meeting place open to all where controversial interpretations of history/society/ nature of the world, and radical innovations in artforms are accepted.

Not only is the forum potentially “robbed of its vitality and autonomy,” if placed inside the temple, but also the acceptance by the museum of something untried tends to devalue the museum process of expert judgement and “proved excellence” credibility in the eyes of the public.

This need for a forum function that creates opportunities for societal critics to produce, be seen, be heard, and to confront established values and institutions was being proposed as a real and urgent need in the hallowed museum/gallery halls. Similarly in a natural history context, what opportunities for environmental and sustainable development criticisms are being presented and heard to confront established economic systems and values in zoos, botanic gardens, nature centres and parks? How are you doing in this educational regard of balancing the forum/temple roles?

Until a century ago, collections were private and reflected the owner’s perception of reality and self-image - look how curious I am, how far I have travelled, how rich I am, what good taste I have. This changed with the public museums concept of assembling collections for education, enlightenment, and recreation. This was no longer someone else’s collection you could look at but your collection, owned publicly, embodying the concept that it should be meaningful to you, the visitor.

Mr. Cameron notes that two problems arose “that have not yet been solved in the majority of museums and galleries.” Read on and reflect – are these still a problem today?

The first problem came about because “the collectors and those responsible for organizing and structuring the collections were now the members of an academic, curatorial elite.” Exhibitions were meaningful to “this exclusive private club of curators” due to their being trained in ”scientific systems of classification, prevailing theories of history, or the academic approach to art history.”

The second related problem dealt with value systems that reflected the upper middle- class elite that determined the selection of material to be collected and its priority for presentation.

credit to Anacostia Community Museum web site

Mr. Cameron proposed that the academic systems of classification were “an undecipherable code for the majority of museum visitors” and must either be “replaced or be supplemented by interpretation of the collections based on the probable experience and awareness of the museum attendees,” (can’t agree more). He asserts that museums impose and enshrine the evidence of bourgeois and aristocratic domination of society on to the public. “Social history and the insights of the anthropologist must be used to develop techniques of interpretation” that will relate the collections to popular culture, contemporary life and society. Another bold statement that rings so true and why we in EID emphasize the use of universal processes in interpretation, presented in the book Interpretive Design: The Dance of Experience, to address this deficiency identified so long ago.

“The forum is where the battles are fought, the temple is where the victors rest. The former is process, the latter is product.” Duncan advocates for social responsibility in museum programming and states, “where museums have the knowledge and the resources to interpret matters of public importance, no matter how controversial, they are obliged to do so.” Do battles of the environmental kind need to be fought at nature centres, botanical gardens and zoos?

Are you working in a temple or a forum or both? Do these two roles work best as partners or apart? Should you be rethinking your role? “In the absence of the forum, the museum as a temple stands alone as an obstacle to change… In the presence of the forum, the museum serves as a temple, accepting and incorporating the manifestations of change. From the chaos and conflict of today’s forum the museum must build the collections that will tell us tomorrow who we are and how we got there.”

Anacostia Museum Credit to Smithsonian Institution web site

In The Museum, a Temple or the Forum the Anacostia Neighbourhood Museum is offered up as an example, of a place that suffers from an identity crisis and should not be considered a museum but some form of centre instead, as it does not hold any collections and does no original research yet presents a continuing program of exhibits. If the public considers what they have is a museum but it does not possess these two critical functions then will they be getting shortchanged?

The article mentioned that this centre was affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution. My initial thought was how forward thinking of a recognized museum to see its role as a partner to provide a hand-up to an emerging educational institution focused on protecting its heritage through presentation. Are you familiar with examples near you where ongoing mentoring or mutual support is provided by heritage institutions to benefit each other?

There was no consideration at this juncture that perhaps the word museum needed to evolve – or that a spectrum seemed to be emerging where different forms of centres with different roles emphasizing behavioural exhibition design and education should have a place on the heritage interpretation landscape. Similarly, a new focus on non-object documentation and preservation along with the provision of a social platform role for civic engagement and community relevance was brewing.

At the present time, Mr. Cameron would have to be in agreement with the word museumas the now called Anacostia Community Museum (ACM) – the first federally funded community museum in the USA- do research and have collections.Their mission states that their “museum convenes people and ideas, while documenting and preserving communities’ memories, struggles, and successes, and offering a platform where diverse voices and cultures can be heard.” Read that again and take it all in.

Compare to your site mission and how diverse voices are being captured. Even if you are natural history based, consider how you are documenting the natural communities’ memories, struggles, and successes and offering them a platform to be heard.

“Through community-based documentation and research—including extensive oral history interviewing, photo-documentation, community surveying and mapping— the Museum is able to offer cutting-edge insights about the wide range of social, political, economic and environmental forces that have shaped and continue to shape our urbanizing world.” Again, even if you are natural history based, how have you and your stakeholders used interviewing, photo-documentation, surveying and mapping to offer cutting-edge insights about the wide range of social and environmental forces that have shaped and continue to shape your park/forest/ecosystem?

ACM's approach to exhibition development and the viewing experience (their choice of words) is based on direct collaboration with local communities, including residents, members of neighborhood organizations, artists, community activists, planning organizations, scholars, local officials, local businesses, and families. How many of you can claim such a wide- ranging level of collaboration? This sure builds buy-in and word of mouth promotion!

The ACM vision is to inspire communities to take action, and to be an incubator for the next generation of civically engaged citizens. By illuminating the intersections of history, culture, and contemporary social issues ACM amplifies peoples’ voices, and uses a local lens to “tell stories that resonate nationally and globally.” Better read THAT again and take it all in, regardless of your “collection” and mandate.

There are some very significant words and phrases used that are NOT normally associated with museums or exhibition centres. Can you see a role for your site doing a better job in any of these areas? Take your time. If you are even remotely wondering whether you need to up your community relevance, there is good fodder here to consider in the ACM vision statement.

As I explored their web site, two programs that breathed their vision and mission, caught my eye. Take Time Thursdays with the ACM talks about giving participants a chance to take time for wellness, health, and creativity with artists, thought leaders, performers, wellness practitioners and others.

WEL program image credit to Anacostia Community Museum

Secondly, was the Women's Environmental Leadership (WEL) initiative: “a program that builds the capacity for future women in environmental leadership by introducing established leaders to the next generation of women interested in environmental advocacy and justice efforts.” WOW !

My archival file folder reflections indicate to me that revisiting the positions and philosophies espoused in the not- so- distant past can be worthwhile on several levels. Not only as sparks of inspiration where we can gain from their insight, but also as routes into the present to benefit from previously unbeknownst facility exposure. Being familiar with some of the historical perspectives in our field can be very helpful as one continues to advance one’s professional standing and one continues to raise the profile of interpretation as the core element necessary for a successful visitor leisure experience.

Anticipate future looks into the past.

Interpretive Invitations

June 3, 2021 EID Coaching

Two of EID’s blog post installments in October and December 2020 (Putting Interpretive Design Ideas into Practice Phase 1 and Phase 2) covered the importance of developing a clear mission driven interpretive framework, with specific holistic outcomes for the visitor, based on key site essences. This set the stage for our upcoming third post on describing the interpretive offerings at an Invitation Station that will invite the visitor to participate in the essence driven immersing experiences. The key word here is…Invitation!

As Mike and I put the finishing touches on Phase 3 about our interpretive planning and design project at Métis Crossing, I made a point of revisiting the Interpretive Design and the Dance of Experience book for more inspiration and instigation.

When I found myself corner tabbing, starring and highlighting sections in the book again, I thought, “Why don’t I bring some of Steve Van Matre’s declarative positions forward for our blogging community to digest and ruminate on.” All the quotations that follow in this post derive from Van Matre’s challenging and creative viewpoints, directly pertaining to the concept of interpretive invitations which form a critical part of our upcoming third installment. This post will flesh this concept out as a necessary precursor.

What is an interpretive invitation?

An invitation is a request for the visitor to get involved and to do something mentally and physically that will enrich their personal dance of experience. The interpretive medium chosen must reach out to the visitor helping to get them underway in experiencing the site’s purpose. With this preliminary definition in mind, I hope you are primed to ponder and to have your thoughts and methods challenged? Are you ready to absorb and maybe even say “Hmm” occasionally?

Get ready for a ride with interpretive author – provocateur Steve Van Matre.

Let’s raise the bar…

Van Matre summarizes on page 240 of the book:

“The ultimate goal of interpretation is experiential transformation.”

The methodology to get there is a marriage of the structure developed in previously described Phase 1 and 2, with the design of invitational experiential interactions. Let’s unpack this concept of invitation and the preparation of visitors to continue experiencing a site on their own. Have a pen handy or your keyboard close by because you will probably want to capture your thoughts before they fade away.

“As interpreters, we want to turn the dance of experience into a dance of love for the visitors. The aim is to love our jewels [heritage site], not just recognize them. People value what they understand, and love what they feel, so we want to guide them in moving from value to love in their dance with a place. To love something is to cherish it, support it, return to it, and that is what we want in interpretation. We begin by inviting the visitors, ‘Come, dance with us,‘ but along the way, we pass them off to ‘dance with the jewel’ without us.” (page 240)

You may want to read these quotes over a few times slowly and methodically (remember at the beginning I talked about ruminating). Please, take the time to really grapple with what Van Matre is proposing, as it is a slight whack on the side of the head. So here are a few more morsels to consider on invitation in the interpretive experience…

“An interpretive experience needs to be offered with an invitation and some practice beforehand or it will struggle to reach its goal.” (page 222)

“An invitation is usually a request to attend something. The most successful ones have a personal feeling about them. If every interpretive tool was designed in the same way, it would change interpretation from an often passively informational medium into an active engaging one.” (page 196)

“We need invitations not opportunities. An opportunity is a suitable time or circumstance while an invitation is a specific request to be somewhere. By its very nature an invitation is designed to attract. It says someone wants us. An invitation reaches out while an opportunity is just there.” (page 196)

What Part Should We Play in the Visitor Experience?

Once again, Van Matre has a perspective that demands some more mind churning and note taking.

“How we see ourselves professionally shifts our focus. As interpreters, we are not presenting opportunities for enrichment, we are inviting people to do enriching things. This makes us proactive coaches... An interpreter is a coach for visitor experience.” (page 196)

“Guides offer a menu of opportunities, interpreters extend invitations. “

(Note: Van Matre’s use of the word “zoo” below could be interchanged with other types of heritage sites)

“It [guiding] is the difference between going to the beach and going to the zoo. People go to the beach realizing no one has set something up for them. It’s a recreational area for what they will do on their own. There may be some facilities, some amenities, but the activity there is something people arrange primarily for themselves. Going to the zoo is different. People expect to find things on offer there. They know people at the zoo think about the visitors’ experience and want to share the work of the zoo with them. Just remember this is not directional guiding; it’s experiential guiding. In a way it’s saying, ‘I will aid you in getting ready, sharing some things that will be helpful, and practicing them with you when needed. I will even set off with you to make sure you’re comfortable, but then you’re on your own.’ This is guiding as coaching, not leading.” (page 128)

“All interpreters are guiding, but all guides are not interpreting.”

How Shall We Best Communicate?

“The most important factor for successful guiding in interpretation seems to reside in the use of words. Since an interpreter translates the natural and cultural language of a place for visitors who come to experience it, and much of that language is non-verbal, and since interpretation is first and foremost direct experience, an interpreter must translate the language of place through meaningful and memorable interactions, not just words. If interpreters are not extremely careful, their words will overwhelm the experience for the visitors.” (page 128)

“Good guiding implies that there are discoveries to be made by prepared visitors… Interpretive guiding should prepare visitors to make their own discoveries whenever possible.” (page 130)

Getting visitors to continue dancing (maintain their excitement) and engage with the heritage site is best done through interactions. Some common interpretive media formats are personal presentations, guided or self-guided tours, simulations, demonstrations, re-enactments, storytelling, campfire talks, guided discoveries, or portrayal of persons from the past. Just as important are the communication devices of various formats: print (e.g. signage, banners, labels, maps, brochures), exhibits, audio, video, smartphone/tablets, digital screens, QR codes, augmented reality or virtual reality. Regardless, Van Matre points out many of our media still predominantly focus on information and not invitation.

He reminds us several times about this concept/idea: “As interpretive designers we should ask over and over, ‘Where’s the invitation?’ If an offering doesn’t invite participation, then we should consign it to the library. It is information not interpretation.” (page 134) This is true for all interactive communication devices or interpretive media.

Photo credit Bill Reynolds, in Galapagos National Park- an invitation to think?

An invitation to do favourite digital pastimes close by en plein air

How Can We Set Up Invitation Stations

To extend this concept, Van Matre introduces Invitation Stations - “…where interpreters deliver the invitational interactions that prepare and motivate visitors to participate in one or more essence experiences” (whether interpreter led or not). We use the term immersing experience (essence-based) as synonymous with Van Matre’s use of essence experience.

Visitors need to feel pulled in and set up for their adventure and this can be enhanced by a carefully crafted Invitation Station. This is where they practice, and begin to absorb the designed outcomes in preparing for an extended experience. I liken it to a sampling at a farmers’ market. Visitors should then be invited to do something on their own with what they enticingly gained at an Invitation Station. Accompanying paths, both real and metaphoric ones, emanating from the invitation station should be designed for the expressed purpose of leading the participant to an immersing experience…a chance to dance deeply with the place.

Here’s one Invitation Station example from the book that Van Matre presents for Everglades National Park in Florida:

“Invitation stations for sharing essence can take many forms. A small-roofed viewing platform that’s raised to give visitors a panoramic view, could become the outpost for setting off on foot onto the boardwalk over the marsh but also the artists’ point where returning explorers record their experience. With a little interpretive legerdemain, the various signs, containers, props, even costumes, could be reversed, or turned inside out while the walk was underway, transforming the station in just a few minutes from an outpost for exploration into a retreat for contemplation.

“This latter element could be expanded upon by encouraging regional artists to create things based on the view from the overlook, then sharing them in an exhibit assembled there once a month (letting them sell their other work in the car park below. For visitors during other times, a large chalkboard could be installed under the shelter with an invitation to share words and renderings that capture the language of the place (with the board being salted on a regular basis).” (page 224)

Salting side bar: Salting was introduced earlier in Van Matre’s book referring to any time you add something that will enrich the visitors’ experience with the place. As he points out, where can YOU chalk graffiti on a back wall, arrange for an old nest to be found, stumble across the bag of an early explorer, have a door to open or find a pull - down map under the eave of a building? “…when sharing a particular place, we don’t have to rely on what is immediately at hand, we can add things to help us heighten the intensity and clarity of our messages.” (page 137)

These are techniques to strengthen the invitational interaction and pull the visitor into the experience that awaits. Sometimes it is just a word or phrase, other times it is an item found normally in the area but you place it in a particular spot as a focal point for something you will explain or for something you will use as a prop for a special activity. In addition, it could be an item that visitors could discover when guided surreptitiously by you, like evidence of unseen inhabitants or architectural details.

“An immersive experience without a structure for attracting and sustaining mission-driven mental engagement becomes little more than a shopping mall, recreation area, or theme park.” (page 235)

What is the Key Design Process?

As we explained in Phase 1 and 2, the key to developing meaningful, memorable, tangible, and delightful visitor experiences happens by:

determining your site essences,
knowing the processes you will emphasize,
developing an inventory of visitor outcomes, and
deciding on the messages you want to reinforce

Collecting all of this place-based evidence, then displaying it so it supports your carefully crafted interpretive plan is key to the process of designing invitational interactions.

It is so easy to skip the early, foundational steps covered in Phase 1 and 2 and jump right to the fun stuff of creating interpretive programs and choosing interpretive media. However, without the well-thought rationale of what makes your site special, what you want to accomplish and for whom, the site interpretation can’t reach its potential. This is why Van Matre placed creating interpretive experiences in Chapter Six of the book and not at the beginning.

This framework for interpretive design is what we unravelled in Phase 1 and 2 of Putting Interpretive Design Ideas into Practice. Phase 3 will look at what Van Matre calls AMORE interpretive skills as the basis for developing experiences based on invitational interpretive interactions, integrated into various media formats. See you there.

It’s Finally Time to STFU

May 4, 2021 EID Coaching

EID encourages collaboration and sharing of smart practices across disciplines. Bill is an exemplar, as he brings a cross-disciplinary background of tourism planning and design, with event management and marketing interwoven with front-line experience in natural heritage interpretation. These worlds often don’t intersect and they have much to teach each other especially when it comes to experiential interpretation.

EID has addressed this importance in several of their posts. We discovered interpretive blogger Don Enright had crafted a related plea to form a bridge between the experiential tourism world and the meaning making world of interpretation into a memory making visitor experience, five years ago.

He touched on the need for combining fun with the facilitation of concrete interpretive outcomes, in the orchestration of a suite of experiences. When he stressed the downplaying of presentation mode a comment surfaced about the training utility of a judicious use of duct tape across the interpreter’s mouth when involved in program design (with a nod to Earth Rhythms CEO, Celes Davar for mentioning this technique). Watch this short comical video, abit Monty Pythonesque, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMdiUbA5XXw as a spoof on communication style of interpretive guides.

In other words, it might be time to engage in the practice of Shut The F… Up or STFU, as our guest blogger states in his title. We have reproduced these words of wisdom here in their entirety. It still stands the test of time. Interpretive planner Don Enright declared that he wanted professional interpreters to retool. Take it away Don:

It’s Finally Time to STFU

Start to think of yourself as narrator, stage manager, and prop assistant.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of interpretation in the rapidly-expanding world of experiential tourism.

What is experiential tourism? It’s the future. Actually, it’s the present—the world of tourism began moving to an experiential model at least fifteen years ago. Where once it was enough to see Florence, to see Old Quebec, to see Long Beach, we now need to engage with these places in ways that are tactile, emotional, local, authentic and transformative.

Eating pastry in Paris? Nice, but now we’re taking pastry-making classes from local chefs there. Riding a gondola in Venice? So ten years ago. Now we’re learning to steer our own gondolas under the tutelage of a local pro. Sampling Italian food in a restaurant? Lovely, but now we’re eating in Abruzzo country homes, hosted by local families (and brokered by the Italian government.) Learning about dinosaurs in the badlands? Okay, but you really must take part in a real dig with working palaeontologists.

And shuffling along on a guided tour listening to an interpreter talk about pastry in Paris? Um, no thanks. That’s the way people travelled thirty years ago.

Interpreters love to talk. And they really love to find themselves a captive audience and bend their ears back for 45 minutes or so. And I think this is why, 59 years after Freeman Tilden pointed out that our role is to reveal and inspire rather than to inform, we still haven’t stopped talking.

And the world of travel and tourism is slowly but surely reacting with a giant, collective yawn. They’ve had enough. To quote my friend Fred: it’s time for interpreters to STFU. We need a collective shift away from presentational interpretation.

What do I mean by “presentational?”

Are you on a stage, standing in front of a circle, behind a touch table, in front of a group at an artefact? That’s presentational interpretation. Are you talking more than half the time in your program? That’s another hallmark of the presentational model. Are you the star of your program? That’s definitely presentational interpretation.

And what is experiential interpretation? Experiential interpretation moves the interpreter from the front and centre to the sidelines. The activity becomes the star; the interpreter is still key to the experience, but she is no longer front and centre. She plays second fiddle to the experience: the things that the visitor is doing to connect with the place.

The activity is the star. The interpreter is secondary in the visitor’s eye (but still omnipresent in the background as the designer of a carefully-crafted suite of experiences.)

Steve van Matre calls this “interpreter as narrator, stage manager, and prop assistant.”

In my previous post, I talked about the making of memories. Recently, I’ve been going further with my reading, and came across a pretty compelling study. It suggests that lifelong memories are made when visitor experience accomplishes the following: 1. social impact— the experience deepens our friendships and other relationships; 2. intellectual development—the experience challenges and advances our understanding of the world; 3. self-discovery—the experience transforms the way we see ourselves in the world; and 4. physical challenge—the experience pushes us in the acquisition of new skills. 1

Look at those four criteria. Nobody’s going to get them from a touch table, I’m sorry to say. Nobody.

I’m whistling across the Bay of Fundy in a Zodiac; my guide is Tom Goodwin, a biologist with thirty years’ experience on these waters. At no point does he lecture us about whale conservation or pollution in the bay or climate change—here’s here to help us find the whales. But as we search, he points out what he sees, and contrasts it with what he used to see. When we find our whale, we whoop with delight and snap photos like crazy—and he points out its behaviour, and in a few words, tells us how whale behaviour is changing. It’s enough to make you think. For me, it was enough to inspire my own reading on the subject after I got home. Looking back, I had a wonderful time. I certainly never thought of it as a program or a lesson… but the lessons, in retrospect, were clear.

I’m in a parrot sanctuary in Costa Rica, and I’m surrounded by gorgeous, outrageously-coloured macaws. We snap photos as they pose and cavort and occasionally climb on us. We snack on local fresh fruit as the director quietly tells us the history of these birds: they were confiscated at the airport, stuffed in tubes inside suitcases. Later we walk to an area where we can watch successfully-reintroduced birds streak past through open skies. I knew about the illegal pet trade before; I’d never really felt its impact before now.

Experiential interpretation looks a lot like recreational tourism, and goes by the same names: River rafting. Cross-country skiing. Canoeing and kayaking. Horseback riding. Snorkelling and diving. Orienteering and geocaching. Backpacking. Whale watching. Wine tasting. Heritage cooking and gardening. Heritage quilting and knitting. Traditional hunting and fishing.

But it’s more than recreation; it has its own quiet agenda. It is a designed and choreographed experience with concrete interpretive outcomes: to inspire thought; to make meaning; to connect with essence of place; to facilitate epiphanies large and small; to quietly connect the ecological or historical dots, however subtle they may be; to teach a few, relevant and carefully-chosen facts, and then to stand back and watch those facts come to life.

That’s what makes it interpretation, and that’s why the world of experiential tourism needs us. The pure tourism model is content to let visitors simply have fun—and there’s nothing wrong with having fun while we travel. But experiential interpretation says yes to fun, and a lot more.

We can craft experiences that change lives. We can facilitate subtly choreographed activities that challenge, provoke, reveal, and inspire—using minimal words and maximal action. We can build lifelong memories; we can design experiences to connect people to all things real, local, authentic and sustainable.

It’s good tourism, it’s good conservation, and it’s good interpretation.

And it’s high time.”

Don Enright is a freelance interpretive planner and visitor experience advisor, who works collaboratively with parks, historic sites, museums, aquariums and other organizations to help bring their stories to life. Connect with Don and dig into some great resources on his web site Home - Don Enright

Notes:

1. Exploring the essence of memorable tourism experiences VWS Tung, JRB Ritchie, Annals of Tourism Research 38 (4), 1367-1386

Inspired to Inspire: The Dance of Inspiration

April 15, 2021 EID Coaching

Are you up for another guest blog post? My fellow Canadian, Jacquie Gilson, Principal of InterpActiv, has recently published a book, Inspired to Inspire: Holistic Inspirational Interpretation. She conducted a wonderful session at the recent Global Association of Heritage Interpretation (GAHI) and we invited her to provide some highlights as she is challenging the interpretation profession to rethink its core. Her growth mindset sees the field presently being tied down but being on the verge of taking off like a hot air balloon. She poses very practical and thought -provoking questions. Take it away, Jacquie.

I have been a devoted fan of Steve Van Matre since his books Acclimatization and Acclimatizing came out in 1972 and 1974 respectively. I was fortunate to attend a nature-oriented summer camp in Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada and Van Matre’s ideas guided the camp program. It was a camp for inner-city kids, and it changed my life. I qualified to be a camper since I was one of five girls being raised by a single mother. After a session there as a camper, I went on to spend four glorious summers working at the camp, while studying environmental education and interpretation at university.

At summer camp, we did every activity that we could from Van Matre’s book! I recall pouring over the Acclimatization activities, always looking for new and fun things to do with the campers to help them experience the natural world. We even did his Day in the Bog activity from Acclimatization, in which you walk right into the bog. We experienced as many of his other hands-on and engaging activities as we could fit in while the kids attended the camp.

Fast forward 40 years. (I just turned 60, so I'm doing lots of reflection lately!) Here I am with my own book and ideas to share. I've spent my entire career working for various parks as an environmental educator, interpreter and/or interpretive manager. I have led many guided walks, campfire talks, evening programs, school programs, and trainings, and I have always made them as interactive as possible. My belief that exploring nature and culture should be active for audiences has only gotten stronger over the years.

(Special Note: I don’t even like to use the term audience anymore. In today's more active, participatory world, I think we should use the word “engadiences” instead. The word audience suggests that people are there for the audio, i.e., to listen. I prefer to think of participants as being there to be engaged.)

Believing that engadiences/participants of all ages should be involved directly in interpretation, led me to experiment with different techniques over the years. Rooted in the Acclimatization activities I learned from Van Matre’s books, I have tried to make my interpretation as hands-on and involving as possible. I have used, or encouraged my staff to use, experiments, crafts, games, rotating stations, competitions, sharing of costumes and props, and so on. Even adults participating in an interpretive experience like to take part in hands-on activities; why should kids have all the fun?

With the desire to make interpretation more active and aim to inspire audiences of all ages, I developed the framework that is a central part of my book. It is based on my doctoral dissertation research into the concept of inspiration in heritage interpretation, as well as my experiences from the last 40 years.

At the centre of the framework is what I call the entry points to inspiration. I believe that people are inspired through their head, heart and hands, (and sometimes even the feet). People are varied and inspired through more than just information; let’s be sure to give them variety and we will reach more people.

The two swirls in the image above represent the two critical moments in inspiration; what people are inspired by and what they are inspired to.

My research, and experiences since, suggest to me that people are inspired by people, places (plus ideas, events, objects, etc.) and by participation. That’s why I aim to engage visitors, trainees, and workshop attendees in as much participation as possible. I always try to ensure that the participation has purpose and that people know it is perfectly acceptable not to participate if they don’t want to.

And the other swirl, which is equally important, is the idea that people are inspired to something. That something may be action at, i.e., while they are still at the site, or action after they leave. As one of my research participants said, in interpretation we put on our capes and aim to save the world! We need to give people ideas for concrete actions they could take and also invite them to generate their own ideas for actions. People may also be inspired to a non-action, i.e., a change in being or in a way of thinking. I recall loving Van Matre’s more quiet and reflective activities, and I love the idea that we don’t always have to inspire people to take action. Sometimes we all just need to slow down and take some time to think, feel and absorb. This may result in a change in being or in viewing the world a little bit differently. And, of course, it may lead to action later.

In my book, I go through this framework in detail, with lots of examples from my experiences. I wanted to make the framework real and practical for interpreters and I hope the ideas will inspire a new generation of interpreters to think about their craft a little differently. I encourage interpreters to question their base and consider how they could be more holistic in their work. To this end, I provide thought provoking questions with sticky notes to guide reflection. Like…“How might your approach to interpretive programming or design of interpretive media look, if you were aiming to be a facilitator or inspirator, and not just a presenter or instructor?” (BTW- I think I made up that word, inspirator!)

Just as I was inspired by Steve Van Matre all those years ago, I hope you are inspired by these ideas and inspired to act upon them in some way, for the betterment of the world. There’s a lot to be done.

To Steve Van Matre, thank you for the inspiration.

(EID Note: His latest book Interpretive Design: A Dance of Experience is a tour de force for the field).

To EID, thank you for keeping up the dance and inviting me to join in.

Jacquie Gilson has been involved in interpretation, and loving it, for more than 40 years. She received her Doctor of Social Sciences degree from Royal Roads University in 2015 and recently retired from being an Interpretation Coordinator for Parks Canada in Banff National Park. She now runs her own company, InterpActive, named for her philosophy that interpretation needs to be more active. She focuses on interpreter training and her specialty is online training on dialogic and participatory interpretation.

Check out https://interpactiveplanning.wordpress.com/about/jacquie-gilson/ or www.interpactive.ca

Look for her book Inspired to Inspire: Holistic Inspirational Interpretation on https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08SB3922Y or https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08S6R9177

Tips to Ease Overcrowding at Parks and Sites

March 30, 2021 EID Coaching

When we read this practical and idea-full post by Regine Kennedy, interpretive planner with the 106 Group, we knew it was time for another guest blog post. The issue of overcrowding, as it effects not only the visitor experience and the protection of the heritage asset, is an important management conundrum and has especially been on many manager's’ minds this last year. How can an interpretive mindset come to the rescue? In her blog post, reproduced in its entirety here, Regine provides us with some excellent solutions to consider :

Across the country, visitation at parks has been rising for several years. With coronavirus and limitations on air travel, parks have seen a new boom along with changes in visitation patterns. Tour busses are no longer bringing international crowds, but local and regional visitors with limited options are flooding in. This includes a rise in visitors who have never been to such parks before.

While this boom is a dream for many outdoor advocates, more boots increases damage to resources and wear on infrastructure. And negative visitor experiences have the potential to taint support for parks long-term.

This is not a particularly new problem, just a change in scale. The 106 Group has worked with Pennsylvania State Parks and is currently working with Joshua Tree National Park, California to address these issues through an interpretive lens.

When limiting admissions and increasing staff aren’t feasible, two forms of interpretive messaging can help:

How-To Basics

Those of us who work in this realm take conservation messages for granted. However, newcomers to parks have not necessarily been exposed to the ethics of Leave No Trace™. Likewise, we are hearing an increased need for reminders to wear appropriate shoes, carry enough water, and take a map because cell coverage cannot be assumed. Long lists of regulations don’t help, but clear information at trailheads and along trails can.

Spreading Out

One way to minimize damage at one attraction is to spread visitors out. Make people aware of other interesting things to do in your park. Even encourage visits to nearby businesses and other parks.

The question then is how to make people aware of these messages. Ideally, every visitor would talk with trained staff who can assess level of experience and interests to provide the best advice on where to go and how to behave. But always, we recommend multiple information channels. Here are some tips.

Before they come

Visitors learned about your park somewhere and they found their way to you. That almost certainly means that they came to your website or social media platforms. Prioritize these how-to and spreading out messages right up front. Be repetitive. Be friendly. Be funny. And remember the importance of gorgeous photos. Some parks are even creating new short how-to videos.

On the approach

As visitors drive in, grab their attention with signs intended to be read while driving. You can play with the yellow warning sign format; try the old-time Burma Shave approach of a series of smaller signs; and the National Park Service has been testing drive-by waysides. Depending on your specific geography, consider also a low-power radio station like those used for traffic information. Radio has the advantage of being easily updated to current conditions.

On arrival

Ideally, you would have staff or trained volunteers easily available at each parking area. A temporary tent and table could help them be found. Whether or not that’s possible, use the message strategies at each trailhead. Create bold signs, emphasizing visuals over words. (Don’t feel like you have to struggle to get it just right. Temporary is better than nothing. Consider it prototyping.)

Sometimes, nothing can beat a human voice. A solar-powered audio post can provide easily changeable messages at the push of a button. This also has the advantage of options for multiple languages. And the posts can be reused in the long-term as needed.

Provide updated park guides/maps built to highlight the messages. Point to the alternate locations as boldly as you do the biggest attractions. Feature how-to information. Put safety tips alongside trail names (“One-way, 3-hour hike with slight slope. Bring water and bug spray. Poor cell reception!”)

These tactics work best as part of a larger strategy including infrastructure changes such as reservation-based ticketing (try a lottery), updated traffic flow, additional restrooms and trash, shuttle busses, and increased staff contact stations. But these interpretive strategies are also relatively quick and easy. Go ahead and try them out on their own.

Regine Kennedy is a resourceful planner, facilitator, and project manager whose award-winning work includes community engagement, facilitation, interpretive planning, and exhibit development. She applies a keen attention to detail in every project, while never losing sight of the bigger picture. As a result, Regine empowers clients and their stakeholders to create meaningful and effective solutions that transform challenges into opportunities. You can contact the guest blogger via email: RegineKennedy@106group.com

If you are in the mood for more along these lines then our Shape-Shifting post from December 2018 deals with the concept of signs, signs, everywhere signs. Are they getting noticed or ignored? Another EID Christmas present that month was about greeting your visitor with the Keep Anticipation Alive post. We advocated for checking and balancing of the predominant following message tone: “Here are things you are not allowed to do and by the way the fire risk is this, the animal danger is that and such and such a trail is closed.. Have a nice day?” Concern about an effective orientation and welcoming entrance is touched on in our posts Tale of Two Welcomes Part 1 and Part 2. The Gift of Humour post from January 2020 builds on this and provides some how-to’s for increasing receptiveness in the visitor for your message.

Finding HOPE-FULLness Part 2

March 16, 2021 EID Coaching

Glad to have you back aboard to travel down some more pathways into HOPE-FULLness. Part 1 involved some very practical ways to inspire your visitor and this go around I have found myself dabbling in a more conceptual labyrinth – a motivational synaptic playground. I hope you feel a motivating charge.

My fourth nudging into HOPE-FULLness, was initiated by a strange occurrence. Have you ever had the experience of a book spine calling out to you? Well, not actually calling -more like beckoning. Writing a post about HOPE-FULLness might naturally have predisposed me to notice this title, Hope Beneath our Feet, among the books lined up along my bookshelf. In any case, the book’s premise is based on the editor, Martin Keogh, asking fifty authors to respond to the question, “In a time of environmental crisis, how can we live right now?” (Note: this book was compiled before COVID). The universal response: “Life as we know it is precious and worth protecting.” Let’s unravel this abit.

The book Hope Beneath our Feet is so full of inspiration along these lines that I have dedicated the full post to it. I have incorporated perspectives from a few chapters and placed them into the interpreter’s realm. The post is chock full of quotes from the book. They create the stimulus for thought exploration. I have always found the sharing of quotes with visitors when I delivered programs as productive fodder for reflection and reimagining. As I share a few here with you, I hope they stimulate your little grey cells.

In the “Eyes Wide Open” chapter, Chameli Gad Ardagh of the Awakening Women Institute, discusses expanding our sensory receptivity as she harkens back to the time when “… little sticks and stones were portals into exciting adventures.” My grandkids remind me of this every time we walk outdoors. Too many people get caught up in what Albert Einstein called “…the optical illusion of the human mind;” the busy activity of our own thoughts leading to the feeling of separation from the earth and all her beings. We must grease the wheels of receptivity for our visitors so they sense a world of vibrant life. Can we figure out how to help our visitors watch the natural world bustle about its business, feeding itself and its’ families, running one urgent errand or another?

Naturalist and essayist Diane Ackerman waxes poetically in her “Healing Power of Nature” contribution, about the need for people to “…inoculate themselves against the aridity of a routine workaday life,” by spending time in nature. We have certainly seen this in the past year where doses of sunlight and wildlife have been restorative.

She emphasizes how “…wonder heals through an alchemy of mind.” We feel whole, healthy and deeply nourished only when we stop the self-imposed exile and reacquaint ourselves with the outdoors by knitting our being into nature. However much water you draw from nature’s magic well, you always find more waiting for you. “Time to go outside and take a drink.”

Diane also mentions how important the concept of the earth being perceived as our mother truly is. Might this be the most crucial aspect of nature interpretation to improve our relationship with the earth and the understanding of the healthy interrelatedness of all living things? The role of the nature interpreter is to heal that feeling of divorce and help repair and deepen that relationship.

What skills are we re-giving people to practice a childlike openness? How are we helping our visitor to tone down their internal mind conversations to make space for connections and conversations with the natural and cultural worlds around us? What a gift to be able to focus on the wonder of the moment! The practices shared in our April 30, 2020 blog Earthwalks: Using Our Senses To Deepen Our Feelings For The Earth deal directly with ways to achieve this.

As mentioned in Part 1, the first living cell came into being 3.8 billion years ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. We share a common 100 million-year- bloodline with every mammal, sharing with them more than 90 % of our DNA., We are in each other’s blood. Author of Ecological Intelligence, Dr. Ian McCallum, exclaims that, “We too have our alarm calls, our cries of territory, of sexual display and discovery. We experience fear and rage and we are not the only ones who die of a broken spirit.” Interpreters must highlight these aspects of mutuality to boost the relatedness factor.

In the wise words of Dr. Ian McCallum’s chapter:

““To lose the sense of connection with the landscape is to suffer one of the most overlooked psychiatric disorders of our time. It is a condition that I call ecological amnesia. We have forgotten our wild heritage, of where we have come from and who we are - the human animal.””

In his practice, Dr. McCallum has found that patients’ sense of self is intimately associated with a sense of landscape – a memory of origins and the sense of shared survival strategies. Productive therapy involves rediscovery of biological roots and a knowledge of our indebtedness to the natural environment. It is a healing process of becoming ecologically literate - to be sensitive to and informed once more by the wind, the ocean waves, bird song, the bark of trees, the industriousness of ants - the skin and spirit of place.

“We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells”

— Environmental activist, Paul Hawken

As Paul Hawken points out the planet came with a set of instructions but we seem to have misplaced them because we are not paying attention to them. “Important rules exist- like don’t poison the water, soil or air; don’t let the earth get overcrowded; and don’t touch the thermostat.” He also refers to visionary Buckminster Fuller who was famous for his description of “spaceship earth” that is ingeniously designed to fly through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and with really good food… until humans came along and started taking over, ignoring the manual … yet the realization is there, with hope that this present generation will study and follow the manual.

Scott Rodwin, a leader in sustainable architectural design, bolsters his ongoing commitment to the planet, when he feels his contributions are insignificant, by retelling the starfish story in his chapter of the book.

“A man is walking along a beach after a big storm. There are tens of thousands of starfish washed up and dying. In the distance, a small boy is picking them up and throwing them one by one back into the ocean. The man walks up to him and says, “What are you doing?” “Saving them,“ replies the boy. “You’re crazy. There are thousands and thousands of them. You can’t possibly make a difference.” The boy was quiet for a moment and looked down, picked one up, and threw it in. “Made a difference to that one.”

The quote from the famous humanitarian and African doctor of the early 20th Century, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, provides a kickstart for visitors to think about how to stand up for our world. Schweitzer was on a quest to find an ethical basis for living when he wrote this:

“As I sit here under this tree, I think about how much I value my own life and wish to go on living and to have more of it. Then I look up at this lofty tree with its gently swaying leaves and think, this tree must hold its own life as valuable and also want to go on living and have more of life, too. And even though it is mute, it nevertheless is no different than me in its desire to live, grow, and flourish.:”

— Dr. Albert Schweitzer

As interpreters we have an unprecedented opportunity to find the drive, the will, and the passion to stand up for our natural and cultural world. Helping others to observe life around them, to recognize their common bond to all of life and to grasp that importance may be our profession’s most important calling. Be an emissary for nature and culture to assist visitors to broaden their circle of awareness. Find your contribution and offer it. What interpreters do matters and makes a difference for us all.

In the previous blog post Part 1, the Biomimicry Institute had sent me a Happy Birthday Earth email, and within it they had included a request for me. I thank them for the idea that I have modified slightly and will now request of you, our reader. It is also an idea that you could use at your heritage site with your visitors.

Please share with the EID community any uplifting wisdom (e.g. favorite quote) that life has shared with you and provided a sense of HOPE-FULLness.

Leave your quote in the comments below, or contact us. We will be sure to share them in future posts.

Right Memories

Formative Market Research

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

Orientation & Extended Interpretation

Improving for the Visitor Benefit

Practical Guidance and Pitfall Avoidance

Model, Model on the Wall, Who’s the Fairest of Them All

Integration and Interfacing

Getting to Know Your Visitor

Public-facing Interpretive Content

Balancing needs

Nail down your objective

Writing for the Visitor

Diversity and Inclusion Firsthand

Larger Than Life

Exhibit Dynamism

Let Interpretive staff be creative

Is looking, learning?

Community Engagement

R-E-S-P-E-C-T & silo dismantling

Being comfortable & accepted

What is an interpretive invitation?

Let’s raise the bar…

What Part Should We Play in the Visitor Experience?

How Shall We Best Communicate?

How Can We Set Up Invitation Stations

What is the Key Design Process?

It’s Finally Time to STFU

Start to think of yourself as narrator, stage manager, and prop assistant.

When limiting admissions and increasing staff aren’t feasible, two forms of interpretive messaging can help:

How-To Basics

Spreading Out

Before they come

On the approach

On arrival

Please share with the EID community any uplifting wisdom (e.g. favorite quote) that life has shared with you and provided a sense of HOPE-FULLness.

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