My Personal Ethics and Nature Interpretation
I think this week’s prompt is one that I have sort of been mentally working through all semester. I’ve taken quite a large variety of courses over the past four years and have thought about the ethics of the different fields, whether that be anthropology, writing or biology. I think it is very important to consider the impacts that we have on the world around us and the people and animals on it. The ethics that I bring into my role as a nature interpreter are shaped by both my own personal morals, and what I have learned since being here at school.
My own moral foundation tells me to be respectful of everything around me and the other people, plants and animals that I share the world with. They tell me to make every effort to understand where other people come from and their perspectives on a situation or life in general. When it comes to nature interpretation, my existing morals make sure that I consider how both the people that I am interacting with and teaching could feel and how my actions affect nature itself. I want to make sure that everything I do as a nature interpreter is accessible to as many people as possible, since not everyone has the same learning style, mobility levels, and ages. I want to make sure that no one feels left out when I interact with them since everyone deserves to have equal access to nature and to learning about nature. My existing morals also dictate how I interact with nature itself. I want to be respectful of any plants and animals that I might come across while out in nature and make sure that I leave no trace of my trip into nature. For the sake of both the environment and future people, I don’t want my presence to harm nature. This also goes back to making sure everyone can access nature. If I, or anyone who goes into nature, damages it, that could jeopardize future interpreter’s opportunities with nature. Ultimately, though, I think the most important part is making sure that nature itself is unharmed. The balance that is struck in nature can be so delicate and I know I would feel horrible if I did anything to risk disrupting it.
On top of the morals that I grew up with, over my time in this course and university as a whole I have learned multiple things that have impacted my ethics. What I learned in my anthropology courses and ecology courses have taught me more about people and the world around me that has only strengthened my morals. The more I know about the world the more strongly I believe that it deserves nothing but our respect and protection. Especially with the state of climate change at the moment and the ways that my courses have focussed on it. This focus has made the importance of being educated about nature and the world around us incredibly apparent to me. This course has also taught me more about all the different ways that one can be a nature interpreter. This has added to my personal ethics by expanding on my empathy to the other ways that people learn and teach.
Out of all the ways that one can be a nature interpreter I think the one that now speaks to me the most is a role where I get to interact with the public and with animals. Following my ethics, this role would prioritize making nature accessible to everyone while also protecting it as much as possible from people. To me this means keeping my nature interpretation to areas that are relatively resilient and where my presence won’t cause any negative effects. To try and make my interpretations as accessible as possible I would turn to the internet where I can help connect people that don’t have easy access to nature, with nature. I think that is one way that the internet can be incredibly positive.
The responsibilities I have as a nature interpreter include my responsibilities to nature, to the people I am teaching, and to myself. My responsibilities to nature are to make sure that I am not harming it and even further than that, that I am helping nature by educating people. My responsibilities to the people I teach are to make sure that the information I am teaching them is accurate, that they are not in danger, and that nature is accessible to as many people as possible. It’s all well and good for me to teach people more about the environment but if no one can reasonably access what I am teaching, I might as well not even do it. Finally, I do have a responsibility to myself and that is one responsibility that often goes overlooked in my experience. For the sake of myself and my work, I have to make sure that I am not getting burned out or over committing myself. I want nothing more than to be able to do everything all the time for other people and the world around me, but that can sometimes come at the expense of my own mental and physical health. So I have to make sure that I prioritize my own health sometimes. With nature interpretation that might just look like taking time just to myself to go for a walk with my dog and relaxing in nature, instead of trying to constantly be in interpretation mode.
It’s impossible to do anything in life without your personal ethics playing a role and these are a culmination of all your experiences, things you have learned and people that you surround yourself with. This course has opened my eyes to the field of nature interpretation, and it, like everything else, has impacted my personal ethics.
Hi Maddy!
I enjoyed reading your final post for ENVS3000! I agree that we've been developing and working through the idea of what ethics and responsibilities we have as a nature interpreter throughout this class. For me, this idea has definitely evolved and changed after every week. I connected with your ideas of valuing and respecting our environment. Something as simple as being conscious of your impact on the nature around us and respecting the natural ecosystems is very important. I also believe in the importance of understanding our audience and engaging ways for more people to connect to nature. This is something I learned greatly from this course, how we can adapt and view things from others perspectives to execute interpretation more effectively. Broadening your perspectives and approaches also allows us to connect more people of different diversities, accessibility levels and ages, like you mentioned.
It was very interesting to see how your other courses at Guelph have impacted your views and strengthened your morals. This is an idea I hadn't considered but reviewing my classes I can see some personal connections as well. I take a lot of psychology and neuroscience courses which discuss how and why we do things or think things. These approaches have allowed me to see generally what engages people more and allows them to learn and retain memories of the experience better. This includes talking to audiences that connect with your morals or from your community. As well, I've gained a deeper understanding of the importance of including learning styles which are often based on psychology research.
Have a great week!













