Interpretation: the difference between information and meaning

Today's subject was the importance of education for conservation. A universal truth is that politics or social pressure can stop conservation efforts almost any time. If this happens, it's a shortcoming of those of us working in conservation for having failed to educate appropriately.

Topics included: Know your audience, know your message, know yourself (whether it's you or your agency, NGO, etc).  Realize that although hearing and seeing are valuable ways of learning, they are not as powerful as experiencing or participating.  I gave some examples of experiential learning from my work in Missoula. I think people liked this, at least several people told me they liked it. I shared the two popular sayings in conservation education:

1) We conserve what we love, we love what we understand, we understand what we are taught (usually credited to Baba Dioum, Senegalese conservationist)

2) Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I learn (which is credited to everyone from Abraham Lincoln to Chinese proverbs. It just makes sense though)

We talked about the difference between giving people information and interpreting something in a way that is meaningful. Example: this is a saguaro cactus.

Versus: this saguaro cactus is like a hotel! (this is my all time favorite interpretative sign, I think it is from the Phoenix Botanical Garden).

We talked about using pictures and stories instead of data and text.

I shared my opinion that while the brochure describing the park tours had very good descriptions, it would be an improvement if the descriptions were on the webpage, together with pricing, duration, and perhaps some packages so that people could choose pre-planned bundles that fit their schedule, budget and interest.  Now, people don't get the menu of options until they arrive at the park and I think that this hinders foreign visitors from coming and staying for very long.

We assigned teams and homework for the participants to plan packages for day tourists, over-nighters, 3 days, 4 days and 5 days visitors. There was some heated discussion about the 5 day visitor idea. The thought here is that tourists can see all the activities in 3 days.  I feel that if people had some more options they would stay longer.

I asked people to do a list of Top Ten Experiences from their national park. There were some good lists. They got written down somewhere and I hope to develop the ideas a little more with the class participants, and then share them here. I stole the idea from this issue of Montana Outdoors.