NAI Blog

Photo by David Brezinski - U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service National Digital Library

I was just in Philadelphia presenting at the Longwood Symposium for about 140 people from botanic gardens, arboretums and public gardens. I was talking about creating emotional connections through how we design visitor experiences. It’s odd to me, but sometimes I flash on some vignette in my past when talking about this kind of subject. I was remembering my first interpretive lesson and it was awkward, embarrassing. So, I shared it with the audience. I cringe a little as I think about it. I’ll tell the story again for it has a lesson in it.

When I was a boy a BB gun was a popular gift and I had one by age nine. My dad probably thought it helped prepare me for becoming a hunter in later years. It actually led to a good bit of mischief. We shot our BB guns at street lights, small animals and on occasion at each other. It was all very dangerous and we experimented in the worst possible ways.

One day at age nine or ten I shot a female cardinal – a redbird we would have called it. I was curious about what it looked like up close. I killed it with one shot and went to pick up its warm, limp body. Miss Brooks, our next door neighbor flew out the back door and confronted me in the yard. “You shot a female cardinal! It’s the nesting season. Do you realize she likely has a nest and family of babies. You killed a ‘MOTHER!’ Her babies are doomed too. I hope you won’t do that again. Aggghhh!”

I felt badly. She could have just screamed – “YOU STUPID BOY” and found my parents. I would have been in big trouble with them. She could have said, “It’s illegal. You broke the law.”. She interpreted the situation. She told me more about the bird and explained the implications of my selfish act. She used universals. I killed a mother and maybe a family of birds. It was my last shot at songbirds. We were encouraged to shoot English sparrows in those days but I quit shooting at songbirds in general, native or introduced. Still I was taught to hunt quail and ducks, but this interpretive lesson was important. She made me think. She helped me change my behavior by provoking deeper thought about what I was doing with this toy gun loaded with BBs that really could do serious harm.

Miss Brooks was a self-taught painter of nature scenes and historic buildings, and a birdwatcher. I still have one of her acrylic paintings of a pond that I treasure. It reminds me of her. She really introduced me to birdwatching though I would not get serious about that for another decade. Cardinals became one of my favorite birds to talk about as a young park interpreter. I had experience with them that I didn’t share with any audience. I was ashamed of that early episode of curiosity that turned deadly for one small bird.

This episode reminds me of a training program we employ in the host course. Dr. George Wallace at Colorado State University developed a program for training rangers in Latin America he calls ART – Authority of the Resource Training. It helps interpreters, law enforcement personnel and other folks who work in varied roles in resource protection. The process urges the practioner to contact someone breaking the rules in a friendly manner. Get acquainted shoulder to should as you might with a new friend. Describe the behavior you saw that created concerns. Talk about the reasons the behavior is a problem. Suggest a better approach and invite voluntary compliance with the policy being violated. This uses the authority of the resource – the reasons for a policy that protects resources. You can always turn to your “authority of the agency” if the person is uncooperative and talk about the law, penalties and the like. Start with the interpretive approach to help people understand what they’ve done.

Getting people to THINK about their behavior can lead to changing those behaviors. It accomplishes change in the most positive way. I think Miss Brooks did that for me. I’ll not forget her or the lesson.

- Tim Merriman

Wailau Valley on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the past two years trying to wrap my brain around the ways that the ocean interacts with the air. It started with a bit of an epiphany one day sitting on the beach in Hawaii. I realized that I was—at the same moment—standing at the edge of an ocean of water that dropped away 12,000 feet beneath me as I was also standing at the bottom of an ocean of air over 50,000 feet deep. I understood that most of my life was spent right on that thin interface between these two oceans. I was living on the land between these two seas.

The air is somehow different in this unique space between the oceans overhead and underneath. You can smell the salt water, the seaweed, feel the moisture in the air, sense the energy of the ionized air from crashing waves. It’s invigorating to breathe that ocean air. In fact, wherever you are, you’re probably breathing ocean air, because the oceans are responsible for producing well over half (perhaps up to 70 percent) of the oxygen we breathe.

But the oceans do much more than give us oxygen, they also absorb 30 to 40 percent or more of the carbon dioxide we produce. We’re all familiar with the respiration of plants—absorbing carbon dioxide (using the carbon to produce sugars and starches) and “exhaling” oxygen. It’s the perfect balance to our respiratory process—inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. Oceans work in a similar fashion, and with 70 percent of the Earth’s surface covered by ocean, that’s a huge buffer to soak up CO2 and provide O2.

The Hawaiians have a name for breath; it’s called “ha.” In the Hawaiian tradition breath is sacred, breath is life. Prayers are borne on one’s breath and some Hawaiian prayers are said entirely on a single breath. A traditional Hawaiian greeting involves pressing noses together and exchanging breaths. Aloha is a combination of two words, “alo” referring to one’s front, face or meaning; and “ha” meaning breath. Thus “alo-ha” can refer to that traditional greeting.

I believe that same idea of exchanging breath happens on a global basis with our oceans. The ocean of water breathes out sustaining oxygen into the ocean of air; while the ocean of air breathes carbon dioxide into the ocean. A certain amount of CO2 is very important as an essential element for the growth of algae. However, an overabundance of CO2 produces carbonic acid in the oceans, which has far-ranging impacts, making life difficult for any creature that builds shells or bones. Some of my favorite seafood comes in shells or with bones, so I’m more than a little concerned about this excess CO2 thing.

Now I understand even more the generous gift the sea of water gives us each day, exchanging breath with the sea of air. It does more than keep my air fresh and invigorating—it’s the reason my sea of air is able to support life. The two are inextricably linked. And in our special place, living on the land between these two seas, we have to be increasingly aware of our capacity to pollute both, and our responsibility not to do so. Now when I walk out on the beach each morning, I exchange that sacred breath, the breath of life, with the ocean. It is my personal aloha, my way of greeting the ocean. And I hope to breathe in the breath of wisdom and respect that will help me preserve the health of the ocean.

Our week of vacation in Japan was wonderful. I love the friendly people who will help you if you even look confused as you walk around as a tourist. I also enjoy Japanese food. We had one meal that was many different kinds of tofu and it was all great. We enjoyed it in a traditional style restaurant with tatami mats on the floor and a low table with a square pillow as a seat for each of us. The windows looked over into beautiful gardens. We shared this meal with a good friend, Masa Shintani. The week’s activities reminded me of when I first met Masa who was working at the Whole Earth Nature School (WENS) in Shibakawa, Japan, near Mount Fuji.

I had very brief four day visit to Japan in 2003 and a Japanese colleague, Dr. YURIE Kaizu, was kind in planning my itinerary for speaking to several groups while there. She started me with an interesting visit to the Edo Museum in Tokyo. I had a guide who spoke English well and was very thoughtful in guiding me through the huge museum. She started her presentation by saying, “The ancient name of Tokyo is Edo,” thus the name of the museum. That’s all I remember from the fascinating two hours there. I look back at the photos and enjoy recollections of what I saw. The information given was interesting but disconnected. I didn’t retain the information. Sam Ham points that out in his popular book on interpretation, that “people remember themes, they forget facts.” It was a litany of interesting facts with no theme to hold them together.

Kaizu-san also introduced me to WENS and I first met Masa-san when he picked me up at the bullet train station in Shinfuji. He immediately put me at ease with his American style English. He explained he had gone to school in Florida for several years and then worked on the Big Island of Hawaii for Hawaii Forest and Trails as a nature guide with Japanese tourists. We chatted on the drive to Shibakawa, just a few miles away. He had arranged for me to speak that evening to twenty of their staff and interns who work with adventure programming, nature center programs and a national park visitor center. It was a wonderful evening of fellowship with young people who are very enthusiastic about their work. I went to bed after a visit to their traditional Japanese hot tub to relax and decompress from a busy day.

Masa invited me to go on a tour the next day of an ice cave at Mount Fuji National Park. I said “yes” but began to get nervous the next day as we loaded into the van with what looked like serious spelunking equipment. We had snow boots, helmets with headlamps and colorful jumpsuits. We arrived at the cave parking area and hiked through foot deep snow and walked to the cave. We went down into a lava tube by crawling through a five foot by three foot hole, down a ladder and onto a sheet of ice in the floor of the cave. Frankly I was frightened to be underground on a sheet of ice in the surface of an active volcano in darkness. We crawled for a few hundred feet and then Masa asked us to turn off the light. He asked what I could hear. Other than my heart beating loudly, I heard water dripping and said that. He explained that the snow melts into the lava rock, filters downward, freezes on the cave floor and slowly moves downward through the ice layer to become part of the aquifer in that area. This would be the drinking water of his children and their generation, a memorable theme. We must keep it clean.

We left the cave, much to my relief, and I was happy I had done it, but glad to be above ground. We shared green tea and chocolate covered almonds on the snowpack. He showed me flashcards they use with children to teach them about how the Japanese language, the Kanji symbols, are based on nature. He used the “nothing tree,” a beech tree to explain that it’s wood is used for nothing and thus they named it the nothing tree. He went on to tell how it is valuable on Mount Fuji and will grow on bare lava. It helps hold soil and build a forest on the harsh landscape. His theme seemed to be “protect the forest for it protects the earth.” Another idea from his talk endured. “Japanese people value their relationship with nature.” Their language is a continual reminder of that if you pause to think about the origins of the symbols. He liked to share that relationship with children on field trips.

I remember much of that two to three hour experience in great detail. The experience reinforced the themes he introduced. The facts related to the themes. I had a way to mentally carry away the details that was lacking in the museum in Tokyo. I just read my journal from that trip now seven years later. I misremember a few details but most of the story endures for me. The power of  strong themes was evident in Masa’s tour of an ice cave and forest on Mount Fuji.

Masa is in Thailand as I write this doing interpretive training with ecotourism communities. He works as a consultant and trainer all over Asia, the Pacific and sometimes in Latin America. He is a talented trainer and a good friend. We shared his home and visited with his family for much of our week in Japan and it was very special. And it reminded me of a memorable first journey to Mount Fuji and Japan.

-Tim Merriman

Soon we start Daylight Savings Time in most states. On March 14 we’ll set our clocks an hour ahead. I always remember that with the old saying “spring forward, fall back.” Although Benjamin Franklin first suggested change our schedules to take advantage of varying day length, it wasn’t until WWI that some states first experimented with daylight savings in order to save energy resources for the war effort. Daylight savings became common practice during WWII and has been with us every since.

Photo by Heidi Confer.

Traditionally, daylight savings began in April and ended in October. In 2007 a new law was enacted extending daylight savings by two months. So this year we start DST on March 14 and it will extend through November 7. This extension is designed as a mechanism to save energy, allowing us to make use of natural daylight as the days lengthen.

There are growing indications that we humans aren’t the only ones that are starting spring a little earlier in recent years. Nature may be following suit. The frost-free season in the Northeast is starting about 11 days earlier in the past decade. In California’s Napa Valley the frost-fighting smudge pots and windmills that dotted vineyards have been unused in recent winters. Flowering trees and wildflowers are blooming ahead of schedule in many areas. These phenomena are influenced most directly by local weather patterns. However, we’re seeing the same early arrival of spring repeatedly, suggesting a larger phenomenon may be taking place. (Not withstanding the severe winter storms that have swept through New England and the Mid-Atlantic this past month.)

As a birdwatcher, I pay particular attention to the comings and goings of our migrant bird species. So many of our shorebird species migrate to and from the Arctic that I view them as good monitors of conditions at higher latitudes. While I haven’t kept systematic records, it seems like those spring migrants are passing through a little earlier than what I recall years ago watching these birds pass through the San Francisco Bay wetlands. Here on Monterey Bay we’re already seeing pelagic cormorants nesting, and the arrival of Brandt’s geese and pigeon guillemots in the last week of February. The peculiar timing of seabird migrations may be influenced as much by the current El Niño as by any larger climate phenomenon.

Picking up on these long-term trends in nature really underscores the valuable role of the citizen-scientist, the amateur botanist or birdwatcher that pays close attention to natural phenomena around them. While scientists work to track such things as the timing of wildflowers or nesting, they rely heavily on the ongoing reports and records from all of us that are diligent observers. The internet has brought new ways for citizen-scientists to share data and observations from all over the world, and any one of us can contribute. One such resource is Citizen Science Central, sponsored by Cornell Ornithology Lab. You can check it out at: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citscitoolkit.

Remember to set your clock forward on March 14, and to keep an eye on nature in your neighborhood to see what Nature’s clock tells us this year.

I grew up in my father’s lawn mower business. It was hard to love that, but even as a child I understood  that it supported our family. My mother and sister had a florist shop downtown in Vandalia, Illinois. Talk around home was about landscaping and flowers and plants. By age 13 I was working at both businesses in bookkeeping, shipping, making corsages, running errands and whatever else was needed. I wanted to be a biologist and was totally fascinated by nature, but mostly by animals in and around water. All of this led to a growing interest in bonsai and koi ponds. A brief trip to Japan about ten years ago really brought this fascination to life and now bonsai and koi represent a significant portion of our gardening efforts at home.

This week, my wife and I are in Japan, visiting friends and spending a week of vacation. We began our week in Tokyo with sushi for breakfast in Tsukiji Market. Then we boarded the Tokyo subway and traveled forty minutes to the northeast to visit the Shunkaen Bonsai Museum and meet Bonsai Master Kunio Kobayashi. The high stucco wall on the outside gave us no idea what was inside. Just a sign in Japanese identified the place. We entered through a doorway and met Valentine, a young man from Germany, who invited us to pay the 800 Yen (about $9) to enter and led us on a fascinating interpretive tour.

Valentine explained that he came to Japan to study with Kobayashi-san two years ago. He will spend four to five years in his apprenticeship to the bonsai master. He showed us around the collection of famous bonsai trees of 500 or more years old, many that had been previously owned by  well-known and important people around the world. One is valued at more than one million dollars. We saw the bonsai “hotel” where customers can store individual bonsai plants for weeks, months, or years at a time and know they will be well cared for. The continuous work of the master and his apprentices can be viewed by guests throughout their visit as plants are moved, potted, shaped, trimmed, and watered in a calming bustle of daily activity all around the grounds. A display building constructed in traditional style with tatami floor mats and natural wood was a highlight of the visit. Valentine invited us to remove our shoes as we entered the building to observe the custom common in traditional homes and buildings.

The exhibits in the museum were extraordinary in their simplicity. One exhibit contains a very old and interesting bonsai tree on one side of a well lit niche. A painting hangs in the center with an image of the sun and water below. A small statue on the far left of a man wearing traditional robes sits on a raised wooden platform. Together they create a unity of form that is elegant in its simplicity. Valentine explained that the beauty of simplicity is valued in this expression of art.

We ended our tour with a cup of green tea and a visit with Master Kobayashi. The museum sells a book about Kobayashi-san and his life’s work and one wall of the final tearoom displays memorabilia from bonsai competitions, but most of the museum lacks any written or descriptions of the collections. The grounds, buildings and tour blend together in harmonious union, providing what was for me, a completely satisfying experience that was a great example of good interpretation. We came away with a new understanding of the significance of bonsai and how it represents the beauty of simplicity and connection to nature – two very important aspects of Japanese culture.

- Tim Merriman

Is there anything more appealing than a sea otter? YES! A sea otter pup! Somehow nature has made these pups smaller, fuzzier, friskier and even cuter than the adult version. You just can help but love ‘em.

I had a chance to watch this adoration for otter pups in action this week as we put a pup in the Sea Otter exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Within hours the word was out and people were flocking to the aquarium to see this new addition. Within 24 hours the number of adoring otter fans coming to see the pup was climbing into the thousands. I can think of a lot of human celebrities that would like to have that kind of drawing power!

Kit, the new 11-week-old pup, is in the exhibit with an adult female sea otter by the name of Mae. Kit came to us as a orphan that was observed swimming from one female to another in Morro Bay, in a rather sad version of “Are you my mom?” After being rejected by a number of females, the biologist observer determined that Kit was an orphan and the decision was made to bring her to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. There we have three female sea otters that serve as surrogate mothers for young pups, raising the pups for release back to the wild. However, the available surrogate moms were already bonded with other orphan pups, so what do we do with Kit? As luck would have it, there was an opening for another otter in our Sea Otter exhibit, so Kit was bound for stardom as the newest member of the exhibit otter team.

I enjoy watching wildlife, but I also enjoy but I also enjoy watching people watching wildlife. Watching the public view this otter pup as been a lot of fun. As a scientist, I’m aware of the pitfalls of anthropomorphism, but it just can’t be avoided with otters. I hear the word “cute” uttered by nearly every viewer, along with “loveable,” and a fair amount of baby talk with Kit (who probably doesn’t hear much of this through the exhibit windows).

I’m sure there is a universal appeal with babies of nearly any species that triggers maternal or parental responses, at least in mammals. We’ve all seen the photos of pigs nursing tiger kittens or a female tiger nurturing piglets—there are many amazing examples of this phenomenon. Of course we humans will adopt all manner of creatures and try to raise them. Our heart just goes out to orphans of nearly any species, and sea otters are no exception.

From an objective, scientific standpoint, it can be argued focusing on raising a single individual animal may be using up valuable resources that would be better spent on recovering entire populations or habitats. That’s true in nearly all cases. However, sometimes we need to focus on an individual representative of that species–an ambassador if you will–to rally our support for saving the population in the wild. That’s my hope for Kit, that she’ll help us understand the need to care for sea otters everywhere on our coast, and to ensure a healthy ocean home in which to live. That’s a lot to communicate from one little otter pup, but she seems to have a big ability to inspire us.

If you’d like to take a look at Kit, you can watch a YouTube video (above) or tune into the Otter Cam at the Monterey Bay Aquarium: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/efc/efc_otter/otter_cam.aspx.

I was just reading Doug Knapp’s blog on “Facilitation.” I agree with all he says about facilitation vs. communication. I have always believed that the best presenters engage the audience by asking questions. It reminds me very much of being in church as a child. The preacher preached and we listened. Questions were asked, but always rhetorically. “Do you want to go to heaven?” Hmmm. I remember the joke that used to be told about that. One fellow when asked that question said “NO!” The preacher followed up with, “You really don’t want to go to heaven some day?” The man countered. “Oh sure. Some day. I thought you were getting up a load to go right now.” I wandered down joke road for a moment and may have missed my point. The point is there was never a conversation at the church I attended. The preacher in the joke really didn’t expect an answer either, but he did start a conversation – accidentally.

My favorite teachers in school not only asked lots of questions, they tolerated respectful arguments or disagreements. They allowed multiple perspectives to come out in a class discussion. I also had teachers who lectured and I slept through many of those lectures.

Conversations are powerful and this isn’t new. Socrates (470-399 B.C.) proposed it a long time ago. If you Google “Socratic questioning” you will get Changingminds.org as one of the first options to look at. They point out that questioning of this kind can be used to help the listener or student answer her or his own question.

We teach questioning technique in the Certified Interpretive Guide course in four basic question categories. They are open, focusing, interpretive and capstone. These are great tools for someone who is new at using questioning to get people started in a conversation. Ideally we leave the audience with more questions in their own minds after our presentation.

We also have an opportunity through questioning to conduct informal surveys with each audience. How many have been here before (hold up a hand)? Who is afraid of snake? How many of you remember the Challenger accident (space vehicle explosion)? Asked early in a conversation, we find out what people know, believe, where they come from and what brought them to our place.

The very notion that we EDUCATE people seems wrong to me. Albert Einstein said, The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. People educate themselves when their curiosity and their ambition collaborate to understand something more deeply. We are at our best when we facilitate that.

Isn’t it more respectful of our audience to start a conversation? Ask questions that we may or may not be able to answer ourselves. Listen to what the audience says in response. It helps us immediately know more about their beliefs. We find out what they already know. We get a sense of their world and political views in many cases. It helps us make our point of view easier to understand.

The best thing about a conversation as an approach to interpretation is that we can learn and grow from every one. Our audience is often a mix of people who are wise, well-informed, thoughtful and engaged along with some who lack those admirable traits. If we stand and talk as the unquestioned expert, we gain little but narcissistic self-esteem. We get more real appreciation from our audience when we get to know each other more deeply.

Social science research suggests that people will change their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors if they arrive at a new point of view through their conversations – internal and external. A great speaker/facilitator engages us so deeply that we leave talking to ourselves or to our friends about what was discussed. Sam Ham points out that getting people to THINK should be our main objective. That can lead to what we want from interpretive experiences. We want people to become better stewards of resources who actively participate in protection of great places and stories. We often have specific measurable objectives, and invariably they involve some change in visitor behavior.

Socrates was put to death for corrupting the youth of his day with his deep philosophical questioning. Most of us live in places where we are free to start conversations. We just need to start more conversations.

- Tim Merriman

I love to watch the Olympics! I suspect that holds true for a large part of the population around the world. And for a couple of weeks every two years, a significant part of humanity sets aside many other pursuits to follow the competition between the world’s best athletes.

Of course, the concept of competition is not limited to human kind. Virtually every living organism competes for key resources—food, space, shelter and more. Competition at that level can literally mean life of death, and losing that competition can have serious consequences. There are other forms of contests in nature– such as rights to mate, to occupy prime territory or other forms of dominance–that are very important but where a loss may not cost you your life. It’s interesting to see how various creatures have developed some form of ritualized combat to establish a dominance hierarchy without killing each other. Various contests that demonstrate strength or fitness may be involved, along with some amazing posturing, calls and behaviors that may also intimidate competitors. By now you’re probably visualizing bighorn rams crashing into each other, wolves biting each other or elephants engaged in a shoving match.

I suspect some of that idea of ritualized combat is part of the foundation for competitive sports among us humans. As we humans began enjoying increasing success in basic survival skills, we didn’t have to devote all our attention to staying alive. That made it possible to develop richer material culture, larger, more stable and more complex communities, and games that sharpen and test our skills. Instead of running for our life to escape a large predator, we could run in competition against each other. Throwing stones, spears and axes at a target sharpened skills that might be needed in hunting or defense. Through the millennia, the equipment grew more sophisticated and the games grew more complex. But they’re still based on that deeper human quality of honing our personal abilities and testing our skills.

One of my favorite examples of ritualized combat comes from a custom of several of our Native American groups in Northern California. When there was a dispute between two groups, first some form of restitution or payment was demanded to resolve the dispute. If that arrangement was rejected, then the situation might escalate to a face-off. The two groups would face off in a clearing, hurling jeers and insults at each other. This yelling match might go on for some time, until someone on one side or the other would eventually throw a stone or stick, perhaps take a swing at the opposing side. When that happened, the aggressor and his/her side was declared the loser in the dispute. You see the first one to lose their temper was deemed to have less strength and discipline, so they lost. Wouldn’t it be great if we all adopted that approach to settling disputes?

Olympic competition is an expression of some of the best traits of our species. Individuals compete against each other, but also compete against themselves to beat their own previous performance. Athletes also compete on behalf of their sponsoring nations, so there’s also a strong element of national pride. However, all the world is willing to rise above that national focus and come together to celebrate the triumphs of individual athletes. For when any of us wins or sets a new record, we all win. That’s where competition rises to its highest level, when we extend the capacity of the human species.

Perhaps someday we’ll reach a point where ritualized combat and competition will eliminate the need for actual combat among nations. Wouldn’t you rather watch a great cross-country race than an arms race between countries?

Kelly Farrell of Arkansas State Parks recently let us know of an interesting article in the New Scientist on “Five emotions you never knew you had.” It points out that psychologists recognize six basic emotions: joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust. This article delves into five additional emotions that may be of more interest to heritage interpreters than the original six. They are elevation, interest, gratitude, confusion and pride.

The article is interesting in general, but I was particularly attracted to the specific emotion, “interest.” Interest is described as “the curious emotion.” We talk about that in the social marketing continuum of “curiosity to awareness to understanding to caring about and caring for.” The final stage of “caring for” is the same as “stewardship.”

Emotions are supposed to have some survival value and its easy to see how “interest” or “curiosity” could be critical to surviving in a world where finding new food or shelter might rely on that behavior. We rely on human curiosity to bring people to our sites and programs. We recognize that lots of other places and activities compete for their time and interest.

Tilden’s First Principle gets at creating “interest” in a basic way. Relate to something in the life of your audience. They already have an “interest” in all sorts of things. The more we know about our audience, the easier it is to tap into their interests. If you don’t know what interests them, use “universals.” Family, fear, life, hope, faith and love are examples of universals that all humans share. Those can be used as the connection to get people started, to make them curious enough to want to know more.

Movie trailers are especially good at building curiosity or interest in their products through short clips. Often these focus on universals such as life, death, adventure, mystery, romance and intrigue. They rely on our natural interest in these common scenarios and use that interest to take us deeper into their stories.

The article about emotions describes the overload of information that we all experience these days. Interpreters have to be good at creating interest through communication techniques and real life experiences. Our experiences may be richer and more important than a movie or video game, but we have to attract our audience away from those media. And they are everywhere.

The concept of “biophilia” suggests that we have a natural advantage over the new digital world of interest and intrigue. Millions of years of evolution may have programmed us to be more naturally interested in living things.  Right now young people seem more interested in the imaginative worlds of TV and the Internet than the real world of the outdoors. As our youngsters bury themselves more than 35 hours a week in the digital world, we still have the opportunity to take them outside and give them real world experiences with living things. I have some faith that it will make them curious and capture their interest in lasting ways.

- Tim Merriman

I’ve always been a believer in the concept best know as “sense of place.” There are multiple definitions for sense of place. Most revolve around the perception humans have involving the natural and cultural landscape connected to a particular location. Interpretation focuses on making intellectual and emotional connections with a resource, which sounds a lot like fostering a sense of place for our audience.

Photo by Fred Fokkelman

In the budding field of ecopsychology, psychologists are looking at this phenomenon in more detail. A recent New York Times Magazine article examined this new area of ecopsychology as an attempt to examine the interaction between the human psyche and the ecosystem. The idea is that nature can optimize the human mind according to a recent article from Peter Kahn in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. His study reported that humans who were mildly stressed recovered from stress more quickly when exposed to nature than those who were exposed to natural scenes on a plasma TV. Real, authentic nature seems to have an important effect on our sense of well being.

The alternate condition might be termed “placelessness,” a location that is devoid of any unique feature, culture or character. More and more of our urban landscapes are sanitized, homogenized locations where “sameness” is all too common. Take a walk through any big mall or community of tract homes and you might be hard put to distinguish that place from thousands of others in this country. On top of this placelessness, many locations where we live now suffer deteriorating environmental quality, leading to an even more serious phenomenon termed “solastalgia” by Dr. Glenn Albrecht, professor of sustainability at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia. He defined solastalgia as “the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault…a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home.”

Ecopsychologists are observing this condition of solastalgia in such diverse cases as communities exposed to large mining operations to native populations that have experienced changing uses of their lands. So far, those instances have been localized, but the looming possibilities of climate change or large scale pollution may expose whole sections of the planet to solastalgia, in effect destroying our sense of place.

One of the first things we have to do is to help every person experience a proper sense of place, to form a relationship with a healthy environment. If people know and understand how important it is to maintain those unique features in our landscape (built, natural, cultural), perhaps we’ll fight actions that lead to placelessness and environmental degradation. That’s where interpreters come in, helping to connect people to the most important things in the world around them. If the ecopsychologists are correct, our sense of place is directly related to our sense of well being—our health, both physical and mental—depends upon a healthy environment. If we do this well, perhaps we can increase another phenomenon, “soliphilia: the love of and responsibility for a place, bioregion, planet and the unity of interrelated interests within it.”

If you’d like to learn more, follow this link to the article from the NY Times Magazine: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31ecopsych-t.html .