NAI Blog

I have GLAMPED. When I was young (9 to 49), I enjoyed sleeping out under the stars, roughing it, hearing the bear outside my tent foraging through my camp, and surviving the occasional storm or monsoon rainfall. Now I would just rather go GLAMPING.

I had not heard of GLAMPING ten days ago, but I have done it many times. I just didn’t know what to call it. While teaching interpretive planning at St. Lawrence Islands National Park along the beautiful St. Lawrence River, several of the Parks Canada folks asked if we had heard of it. The answer – never heard of it. It did make me curious. They told me it refers to “Glamour Camping.”

I googled it and only found 79,000 connections to the word. I was impressed that so many were talking about this and I’ve missed it. Worse yet, I’ve done it. When you take a trip to Kenya or Tanzania and stay in a beautiful safari camp with individual cabins with wooden floors, comfortable but rustic furniture, full bathrooms, a canopy bed with mosquito net, a living space or lounging deck, and a tent or canvas top, you’ve been GLAMPING. I’ve led ecotours to Belize, Kenya and Tanzania that were at least partially GLAMPING trips.

It tends to be expensive, even more than a hotel. Prices vary but it’s often $150 a night and may be thousands per night. I’m not staying in anything terribly expensive but even the lower end GLAMPING camps are very nice. At one in the Serengeti I was astonished that our meals were wonderful and the cook was preparing them in an old steel suitcase with the lining burnt out. He also used a 55 gallon drum as a boiler. The African bush camps were early into GLAMPING and really do it well.

I share this new term to point out the opportunity it creates. Many GLAMPING sites use Native American tipis or Mongolian yurts as their tent structures. Boomers are especially attracted to these high-end, low tech solutions to getting in touch with the landscape while still getting a good night’s sleep and being able to find a bathroom at night without a walk in the woods.

GLAMPING quite naturally often includes interpretive tours and experiences. The East African safaris create that rich blend of a unique experience with wildlife in daytime and wonderful lodging experience in a tent cabin at night. In North America GLAMPING providers build the experiences around birding, watching big animals, fishing or spiritual retreats.

Tent cabin at Lewa Downs, rhino refuge, in Kenya.

For interpreters GLAMPING creates an opportunity. You might create a partnership with a GLAMPING facility to provide their interpretive experiences. You might build a GLAMP at your nature center, refuge, living history facility or other site. The customers at these places have disposable income, tend to be environmentally conscious and they want enriched experiences. Take your potential donors GLAMPING in North America or design GLAMPING experiences for other folks that include great interpretive programming.

I’ll never forget sleeping in a tent cabin in Kenya when the sounds of solid objects pelting the tent awakened me. I stood at the screened window for two hours watching an elephant whack the fig tree over my tent with its tusks to drop ripe figs which served as a great elephant midnight snack. I was glad I wasn’t in a sleeping bag.

We have great landscapes in North America where GLAMPING is growing. It creates a growing opportunity for us to meet guests who might become great supporters of our worthy organizations. I’m still hoping that young people will get a chance to sleep on the ground, camp in a tent, or raft a wild river and camp on a sandbar. But I think it’s a good thing when older folks get out to go GLAMPING.

- Tim Merriman

Bill Vaughn, long-time columnist for the Kansas City Star, once observed: “A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won’t cross the street to vote in a national election.” Perhaps Bill was being a bit satirical, but there was often more truth to his comments than we’d like to admit. I won’t comment about the turnout for elections where government offices are being decided, but I do want to encourage your participation in the NAI national election that is now underway.

I’ll admit that elections may not be the most exciting activity that NAI members engage in. However, elections are an important opportunity to select the leadership that will make decisions on your behalf at the Region, Section and National levels. Going back to Vaughn’s quote, now you don’t even have to cross the street to vote or even leave your home. Voting is as close as the computer on your desk.

A few years back NAI moved to electronic balloting. This saves resources (paper), money (postage and printing), and saves lots of time on each end of the process. And it means that you can cast a vote in a couple of minutes and send it off to be tabulated. In the days of paper ballots, a national election might be decided on votes from less than 15% of the membership. With the advent of electronic balloting, that return rate is far higher—but there’s still room to improve.

If you haven’t received an e-ballot, first check your past e-mail folders and spam folders to make sure it didn’t get overlooked. If you can’t find an e-ballot or you’d rather have a paper ballot, please contact Jamie King at the NAI office. She has a great system in place to send you a new ballot.

If you’ve already voted, THANK YOU!! If not, you have a couple more weeks to cast your ballot. It only takes a moment.

We’re on the road in Mallorytown, Ontario, Canada, overlooking the St. Lawrence Seaway. It’s a beautiful location to do the interpretive planning course with a group of great colleagues, mostly from Parks Canada.

We’ve been talking about marketing, market segmentation, audiences and the like.  We like to say, there is no such thing as the “general public!” We often simplify our audience descriptions as school children, families with children, empty nesters and seniors. Those general demographic descriptors still overgeneralize our audiences. John Falk, Eric Reinhard and Cynthia Vernon were principal investigators on a 2007 study published by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums as “Why Zoos and Aquariums Matter: Assessing the impact of a visit to a zoo or aquarium.” You can learn more about their findings here. We specifically introduced the five motivational categories that John Falk introduced in a 2006 publication (Curator, 49(2), 151-166) that were also used in the AZA’s multi-institutional research program (MIRP) conducted with 12 institutions.

“Explorers” are curiosity-driven and seek to learn more about whatever they might encounter at the institution;

“Facilitators” are focused primarily on enabling the experience and learning of others in their accompanying social group;

“Professional/Hobbyists” feel a close tie between the institution’s content and their professional or hobbyist passions;

“Experience Seekers” primarily derive satisfaction from the fact of visiting this important site; and

“Spiritual Pilgrims” are primarily seeking a contemplative and/or restorative experience.

Our Canadian colleagues introduced us to their own market segmentation research that identified nine motivational categories of visitors.

No-hassle Traveller

Free Spirit

Cultural History Buff

Gentle Explorer

Virtual Traveller

Cultural Explorer

Authentic Experiencer

Rejuvenator

Personal History Traveller

The Parks Canada website includes a connection where you can take the Explorer Quotient quiz and determine which category you align with most closely. I’m a Cultural Explorer it would seem and it sounds right when I read the description – “You are a very active traveler who enjoys frequent weekend escapes. Always on the move, you immerse yourself in nature, local culture and history.” When I click on the specific category, it not only gives me the description, but suggests diverse sites managed by Parks Canada that might appeal to me with my specific interests. Each site suggested includes a downloadable pdf document with specific activity suggestions that match the motivational category at those specific park sites.

Either of these methods of segmenting audiences by motivations is more useful than generalizing about age groups or geographic groups. They suggest the interests or psychographics of the group and that gives us attributes for planning interpretive media. Take the EQ quiz and check out how it links you to specific opportunities in Parks Canada.

These nice folks also introduced me to glamping, but more about that next time.

- Tim Merriman

Today, October 20, 2009, the Monterey Bay Aquarium celebrates its 25^th anniversary.  I’ve had the pleasure of working at the Aquarium for 23 of those 25 years, and it has been a wonderful journey.  During that time over 46 million guests—including 1.5 million schoolchildren—have discovered the wonders of Monterey Bay through our exhibits and programs.  Over 7,000 volunteers have worked in our volunteer program since we first opened, contributing over 2.7 million hours of talent, enthusiasm and passion for connecting our guests to this amazing world beneath the waves.  A dedicated group of members, donors and sponsors that represents more than 270,000 individuals helps support the mission of the Aquarium by sponsoring many of our programs and exhibits.

Those are the big numbers, and we’re very proud of those accomplishments.  However, it’s the small numbers that really count the most.  What I mean by that is that we work to focus on each class, each family, each individual guest that comes to visit.  While the Aquarium has an amazing collection of thousands of fishes and other marine life, none of those creatures can talk to us.  We have to speak on their behalf, to tell their stories and to help a lot of humans understand what life is like in the ocean.  That’s where our talented volunteers and staff have been such a blessing through the years.  Serving as interpreters throughout the Aquarium, these folks can help you shake hands with a sea star, spot a hidden giant octopus, or feel the inside of a whale’s mouth (or at least feel what the baleen is like inside a whale’s mouth).  In short, our volunteers and staff are here to help each guest make a personal connection with the ocean.

The Aquarium’s mission is to inspire conservation of the oceans.  Easy to say, but not always easy to do.  Marine conservation issues can sometimes be complex and daunting.  However, the solutions often come down to a few simple choices about what we eat, what goes on the ground or down the drain in our homes.  But research has shown us that our willingness to make good choices is directly tied to how much we care about the ocean.  That’s where the inspiration part of our mission comes in.  We have to take everyone one step beyond knowing about the ocean, to caring about the ocean.  By applying the principles of sound interpretation to our exhibit design, programs and our interactions with guests, we promote personal, emotional connections to the ocean.  That’s where inspiration starts, which, in turn, fosters conservation solutions.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has discovered a great recipe for inspiring conservation of the oceans, and we’ve been serving that very special dish to our guests now for 25 years.  Just like any other good meal, each individual enjoys it in their own way.  That’s why the biggest number at the Aquarium is still one, because inspiration happens one person at a time.  I hope you’ll have a chance to visit us and be the next one to enjoy the Monterey Bay Aquarium!

In 1970 I was running environmental and field ecology workshops for high school students at Southern Illinois University’s Touch of Nature. My fascination with food as part of a learning experience began there. We had a lunch as part of the environmental workshops that involved students drawing the name of a country from a box. Then they ate a lunch with comparable calories to what people in that nation might have for lunch. Obviously the disparity in food amount from nations like India as compared to the U.S. led to deep discussions about the have and have-not nations and the causes. It enriched the program and made it more holistic.

In the field ecology workshops we lived in tent camps, trapped mammals, banded birds, produced a vegetation map and a contour map of the study area and cooked our own meals. Fixing food for each other had a wonderful bonding effect. We learned how important that was when the university’s union for cooks filed a grievance and made us return to catered meals. The holistic experience was altered and not as powerful.

From 1972 to 1980 I was a park interpreter at a state park and Saturday evenings were devoted to campfire program with 20 to 300 people. I always made food a part of those experiences, usually with hand-cranked ice cream or dutch oven cobblers. Three times a season we would do a natural foods dinner with dishes made from acorns, morel mushrooms, cattails and the like. We told the stories of how these foods served Native Americans, pioneer families or specific cultural groups of the area.We interpreted the relationship between people and what sustains them.

I know some agencies prohibit the serving of food or even snacks in interpretive programs and we must live with the rules of the employer. However, there might even be options in those circumstances. We held a Certified Interpretive Trainers course in San Quirico, Italy, in 2007 in the heart of Tuscany. Monica Price of Experience Plus, a bicycle touring company, was in the class and also helped us with the logistics of the course. At each meal she would come around to each table and interpret how the particular meal matched the local culture and was made from locally grown foods of the best quality. It added a richness to the experience that might have been missed. Her company does this as part of their bicycle tours across Italy and many other nations.

Larry Mink of Idaho State Parks is well known in the profession for his Dutch oven cooking programs. He put on a demonstration for a planning course we conducted there and it was a wonderful food experience alone, but the interpretive value was evident as well. People who are camping can learn about everything from safety in outdoor cooking to unique cultural cuisines.

A few weeks ago a professor in a hospitality program called us to ask about food interpretation. He is interested in engaging his students in interpreting the food they prepare in resorts and the like. Think of the possibilities – cultural connections, locally grown, organic, pollination dependent, foraged from nature, etc. It’s a chance to talk about the rich relationship in cultures between people and what they choose to eat.

When we teach about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we talk about how food is part of basic human needs. People don’t move up to more advanced needs until their basic needs are met. Food is reassuring at a basic level and exciting when it rounds out a rich experience.

I remember being at the joint meeting of the Association of Interpretive Naturalists and Western Interpreters Association in 1978 in Tucson, Arizona. Field Trip day took me down to Tumacocori Mission for a tour. I drifted away from the  tour of exhibits about mission history and wandered down the trail to meet a woman in a colorful skirt and blouse who was cooking over an open fire. I tried English and Spanish and she shook her head, “no English, no Spanish.” She handed me a ball of dough and she took another and patted out a tortilla. She cooked it on a griddle and I tried to cook mine, which fell apart. She gave me hers, spooned fresh salsa on it, and invited me to eat it using the universal sign language we all use when words don’t work. I loved it and remember it. I asked inside about her role and her culture – a Tohono O’odham woman, hired to share local food culture with visitors. It was a wonderful first introduction to her culture and her stories.Words were not necessary.

Food brings us together and sharing it creates a sense of belonging. When language allows, it can lead to a discussion of beliefs and ideas. Do you use food in your programming? How does it help? Any stories to share?

- Tim Merriman

On a nature walk today I hit the jackpot—loads of scat on the trail! Thanks to some very cooperative coyotes, we had fresh scat, dried scat, decaying scat, all placed neatly in the middle of the trail awaiting our admiration.

Scat is like the guide to fine dining in any community. You can look at the scat, start to sort out bones, seeds, fur, teeth and soon you have the local menu. Today we found that brush rabbits were the most popular special du jour, complimented by fresh seasonal berries and perhaps a beetle or two to top it all off. However, there was also a sprinkling of rodent toes, suggesting that mice and gophers remain a popular mainstay of coyote cuisine.

Poop—more properly referred to as scat—figured prominently early in my career. One of my first jobs was working on an impressive scat collection at U.C. Berkeley. There was scat from some of the most rare and reclusive mammals in North America like wolverine and bighorn sheep. Any scatologist would be proud to have a collection like that.

But looking at scat in a museum case isn’t the same as finding it in the wild. Fresh scat on the trail suggests the source of the scat may be just a few steps ahead of you. That’s almost as good as seeing the animal in person. So finding scat on any walk was always a good way to introduce the audience to local wildlife and food webs. After getting past the usual “yuck” and “ugh” comments, folks usually get into the fine art of poop sleuthing to read the stories in the scat. Tracks can be informative, but scat has so much more information—not to mention the multi-sensory appeal!

When I came to work at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I thought my long-term relationship with scat might be over. But I have been truly blessed with the finest sort of scatological luck. In my time observing marine mammals, I have seen the crimson excreta of blue whales and humpback whales feeding on krill. For many years the Aquarium was the primary source of southern sea otter scat (we could scoop up fresh samples in our otter exhibit). Now that local sea otters are hauling out in large numbers, we’re also able to recover sea otter scat from their favorite rocks and beaches. These samples provide valuable insights into sea otter feeding ecology, metabolism, and epidemiology.

As a true scat fan, I have to salute a colleague that works with East Bay Regional Park District in the San Francisco Bay Area. In an effort to collect scat specimens and bring them back across interstate and international borders, she has devised a brilliant technique. She carries disposable diapers, and gently rolls the desired specimen up inside the diaper. The scat specimen is well protected, and nobody has ever asked to inspect the contents of the diaper. I bow before true genius!

- Jim Covel

Kristen Nelson of the USDA Forest Service recently sent me a link to a study of state park users by the Government Solutions Group, a marketing firm. It suggests that 61% of state park visitors buy “green” as consumers as compared to 23% of mainstream consumers. About 9% of the general population prefer organic foods but 31% of state park visitors prefer organic. That’s not terribly surprising, but it is an important observation for those of us who work with state parks specifically and parks, nature centers and environmental organizations in general.

© Environmental Leader 2009

Visitors, who prefer organic foods and “green” products, will also notice our commitment to such things in nature centers, zoos, science centers, and parks. If we don’t recycle and our audience does at home, they will wonder if we only give lip service to protecting the environment. If we have concessions or shops that sell items shipped from all over the world, over-packaged things, highly processed foods and other items seemingly inconsistent with our philosophy, we are sending a message contrary to our stewardship mission.

Programs to encourage buying local and organic foods are growing throughout the U.S. and farmers markets are another kind of non-formal learning environment. Vendors often have a sign declaring they grow “organically.” They have the added credibility of the growers being able to talk with customers and explain their commitment to growing foods without chemicals. Organic farmers and managers of “buy local” campaigns can be great partners for parks and nature centers.

I visited a visitor center at Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales that invited local growers to sell locally grown products at their facilities. That not only introduces visitors to quality products produced organically and locally, it builds a relationship with local farmers who often feel threatened by public lands that tie up prime agricultural lands for recreational uses.

Many commercial businesses are also likely to cosponsor your programs if they specialize in “green” products and if they understand that your visitors are a concentrated group of their potential customers. Over the past thirty years we have seen Americans move from resenting environmentalists to thinking of themselves as environmentalists.

“Greenwashing” has become common with some businesses trying to appear environmentally conscious when they are not, so be cautious that your partnerships are with organizations who also “walk the talk.” It’s easy to say you have a commitment to safe foods and products that protect the environment, but some organizations only project the image of being “green.”

Did our interpretive programs and messages over the past thirty years bring our audiences to greater interest in living “green” and eating “organically?” I hope so. We were a part of the diverse pathways that lead people to learn and grow and change. Knowing of their commitment to living better is a chance for us to be even more careful in making our programs and facilities exemplary in how we use resources. Others are watching.

- Tim Merriman

I have a rather unusual collection of sorts. I collect handshakes. It’s something I’ve done since I was a youngster. To me it seems like a way of “touching history” I guess. My father had a keen sense of history, and he made a point of introducing me to people that had done important things. I was just a kid and I didn’t always understand the significance of some of these folks at the time—but to be polite I always shook their hand. As I grew older, I learned more about history and came to appreciate the opportunity I had to shake some of these hands. Some of the handshakes in my collection belong to prominent figures in the field of parks and interpretation.

Dr. Harold Bryant was a professor at UC Berkeley. Along with Dr. Loye Miller, he started the first “nature education” programs at Yosemite in the early 1920s. These summer programs were instantly popular with park visitors, and thus began the interpretive programs in the National Park Service. Dr. Brant would visit Lakeside Park in Oakland from time to time and I was privileged to shake his hand on several of those occasions.

Horace Albright was Steven Mather’s right hand in creating the National Park Service, and he took over as Director when Mather retired. Years ago at a Western Interpreters Association workshop we were able to spend a Sunday morning with Horace Albright as he recounted some of the obstacles and triumphs he experienced in those early days of the park service. Shaking Albright’s hand was truly touching history, as he had shaken hands with the likes of John Muir, Steven Mather, and Franklin Roosevelt.

William Penn Mott was the Superintendent of Parks for the City of Oakland when he hired my father to be the first municipal park naturalist in the West. Mott went on to become the General Manager of East Bay Regional Park District, California State Parks Director, and Director of the National Park Service. His firm and friendly handshake is one of the favorites in my collection.

And I guess I’d have to count my father’s handshake in that collection. He had shaken hands with an amazing assortment of folks from Harry Truman to Earl Warren, Henry Kaiser to Buckminster Fuller to Roger Tory Peterson. My father was a true collector of people’s stories, and I’m grateful that he passed down the stories of all those encounters. That’s the kind of provenance that makes a handshake particularly valuable to a handshake collector.

Now all those handshakes and stories haven’t made me a better interpreter. But they have instilled in me a better sense of history and of the heritage of interpretation. Best of all, this handshake collection doesn’t take up any shelf space in my already cluttered office, although it does occupy an important space in my heart. There are many other handshakes, accompanied by great stories, in this unusual collection of mine. Every time I meet with another interpreter, there’s an opportunity to add another story and another handshake. Perhaps I’ll have a chance to meet you one of these days and I’ll look forward to shaking your hand.

Harold Johnson, an old friend and former NAI Board member passed away on August 17. Theresa, his wife, called to share that sad news with us. Harold was only 62 and had recently retired after a long career with BLM. Our posting on the main website tells more about his life and family.

I mentioned to Theresa that I’ve not seen Harold at national events in many years. She explained that she also has health challenges and he has stayed home to be with her, but generously helped his staff members get to NAI events. She affirmed that his interest and belief in NAI as an important professional family never waned. She had called to let us know that his will left a bequest to NAI and we had paperwork to file to apply for it. We don’t know the amount of the gift but that’s really not so important. It was very kind of him to think of NAI as a beneficiary of his life insurance. We will recognize the gift when it arrives and in perpetuity but I also wanted to mention the sentiment he expressed. He told me of this bequest more than a decade ago. Theresa assured me that she supported it and they had discussed how strongly he felt about the value of NAI for interpretive professionals. He chose this way to recognize it. Those of us who knew Harold, will remember well his skill and professionalism in helping Region 8 grow and improve. Theresa was kind in letting me share this information  about the bequest publicly. She said, “Harold would want his gift to be an example for others.”

It reminds me of a conversation I had with Dr. Bill Randall about 13 years ago. He told me he was buying an insurance policy in his name with NAI as the beneficiary. He was outspoken among members about the need to invest in NAI and the profession.

Bill had served as Vice-president of the Association of Interpretive Naturalists (AIN) parent organization of NAI, and  taught interpretation at University of Massachusetts for may years before retirement. He and I often talked about financial stability for NAI and the profession. Economic recessions, politics and underperforming events sometimes result in very challenging times for NAI and the many organizations and individuals who belong as members. AIN took a very large loss on a national workshop one year and the Board had to decide whether to declare bankruptcy or spend years working our way back to solvency. We chose to survive, I’m happy to say, but Bill and I participated in that uncomfortable discussion as Board officers. Thankfully, we took an optimistic approach and paid off the debt in a few years. Bill passed away in 1999, leaving a substantial gift of $100,000 to NAI. We also have the gift of great memories of his generous spirit and great attitude about life and our shared profession.

NAI’s in memoriam page on this Interpnet website has become a good place to remember individuals we knew in the profession.  I hope you will take time to share your thoughts if you knew Harold or Bill or many of the others on that web page. It’s a simple gift to share with others.