ENVS 3000

Disclaimer: This blog was created for ENVS 3000, University of Guelph. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of the University of Guelph. The University of Guelph is not responsible for the accuracy of the information supplied by this blog.

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#11. Nature interpretation in my past, present and future.

I’ll admit, I put off writing this post for a while. It just seemed so daunting! Trying to debrief what I’ve learned and how I’ve grown (all while connecting to lecture, labs, and readings) is no easy task! But here we go.

I signed up for Nature Interpretation thinking I’d be tasked with leading a nature hike in the Arboretum. I was happy to do this. In fact, I’d led several nature hikes in the past as a high school co-op student at a local land trust. And up until now, that’s really what I thought nature interpretation was – nature hikes, pond studies, and other outdoor programs. Through this course, however, I’ve learned there is much more to nature interpretation! In the sections below I’ll discuss my core beliefs and responsibilities as a nature interpreter, and what approaches I plan to use into the future.

“What I learned in nature interpretation is…blankity blankity blank!” I learned a lot and I’ll attempt to summarize key points in my post! Image from SpongeBob SquarePants, Nickelodeon… modified by me. 

My Core Beliefs

I’ve spent a lot of time exploring nature and getting to know my natural neighbours. I believe my connections with nature drive me to protect nature and be sustainable. I realize that not everyone will share this mindset. This I know from our discussion of the “invisible backpack”. I grew up with plenty of positive experiences in nature, helping me to believe in its intrinsic value. People who have few emotions, memories, and experiences with nature may simply see it as a commodity to be exploited. But I think we can try to change that for the better by helping other people build a personal connection to nature. Here’s why:

I believe that people care about things that are meaningful to them. For example, my photo albums mean a lot to me because they help me reconnect with emotions and stories. If my house caught fire my photo albums would be one of the first thing I’d take. When it comes to nature, I know I am more likely to protect wildlife and land that means something to me. Think about this: if two sites were about to be bulldozed and covered with a housing development, would you rather save the woodlot that you walk your dog in each day or the woodlot a few hundred kilometers away in a city you’ve never visited?

Most people, I think, will fight for nature when they have a personal connection to it. When we help people discover find meaning in nature, we inspire them to care about nature and want to protect it.

I know I’m more likely to protect things and places that I have a connection to. Photo credits to my mother.

My Responsibility

I’ve stated my belief about creating meaningful connections with nature. So how can I accomplish this as a nature interpreter? To answer this, I looked back at what I’ve learned in the course. I can’t remember if it was Chris or Aaron, but at some point in class we were reminded that we can’t force people to connect with nature. We can only create the optimal conditions for people to make their own connections. One responsibility of mine is to create these optimal conditions. How might I do this? Relate the subject matter to the lives of the audience – the gift of a spark! Help the audience have positive experiences in nature – the gift of joy! And finally, let my passion for nature illuminate the lives of my audience – the gift of passion!

Another responsibility I have is to encourage people to connect with nature while minimizing harm to it. For example, people can have a lot of fun camping. They might make positive memories and feel connected to nature. But in doing so they might litter, damage habitat (e.g. by removing logs for firewood) or introduce invasive species. This is not a good way to connect with nature. So I also feel responsible for promoting “leave no trace” (or at least low-impact) activities in nature.

For example, I usually encourage people to leave wildlife alone and not try to lure it in, chase it, or handle it. However, I recognize that allowing someone to interact with wildlife can help build a strong connection to it. Some examples would be holding a frog or helping to move a turtle across a dangerous road. In these cases, it’s my responsibility to give guidance on how to make the interaction safe for both you and the animal. For example, don’t pick up animals if you have sunscreen/products on your hands; hold an animal low over the ground so they don’t fall from high up if they escape; and don’t hold the animal for too long. It’s a fine balance, but I believe there are ways to enjoy nature and connect to it without wreaking havoc on it!

One part of the “Leave no Trace” infographic from Fix.com. Click here for link.

My Approach

One of the 15 principles of nature interpretation is the gift of provocation, to inspire people to broaden their horizons (Beck and Cable 2011). I have broadened my horizons in this course. Throughout the course, we’ve participated in many different approaches: music, art, history, improv, podcasts, blogs, and a traditional nature hike. Different people have different learning styles, and we can create targeted programs that work with all different styles (Beck and Cable 2011). I’m excited to use what I’ve learned to personalize my approach to nature interpretation. I love using humour to connect to people and create a moment of joy. I also enjoy art and photography. In the past year or so I’ve created a few nature cartoons, which I’ve shared on social media. With each cartoon I also post some text to explain a bit about the species featured in the cartoon and what can be done to help protect them. I hope that my cartoons serve as the “hook” to capture my audience’s attention and inspire them to seek out their own connections in nature. I don’t know whether I will end up with a career as a nature interpreter, but I know that these nature cartoons are a fun way to promote nature interpretation even as a hobby!

A screenshot of one tweet from a thread I did about four-toed salamanders. Link to thread. 

In Closing

The biggest lessons I’ve learned relate to creating targeted programs that are well-suited to the audience. Combining an effective program with a passionate interpreter seems to be the best way to inspire people to care about nature! Thanks everyone for a good semester.

References:

Beck, L., & Cable, T. T. (2011). The Gifts of Interpretation: Fifteen Guiding Principles for Interpreting Nature and Culture. Urbana, IL: Sagamore Publishing.

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I loved your blog post this week, and your focus on the importance of making connections to your audience! I agree that sometimes despite how much we’d like to, we can’t force people to connect with nature and to take the issues associated with it seriously. However, I agree that as enthusiasts of nature ourselves, we have a responsibility to at least make sure that we use the tools available to us to encourage people to develop a positive relationship with nature. I also agree that people are absolutely more likely to care about something if they have some sort of personal attachment to it. I believe that making personal connections to an audience is so very important because it can get them to care about something that they may not have cared about before or realized was important. Even though I won’t be informing large crowds about nature, I can definitely see myself using the tips and tricks that I learned across this course to be a nature interpreter to my friends and family. The labs of this class have encouraged me to think of a nature interpreter as more than just someone who does guided walks through a forest, and the readings have helped me to think critically about what is important when addressing an audience and the process of interpretation. Through the readings, lectures and labs, I think we are all now better equipped to guide people towards making connections to nature and hopefully to be more mindful of their impact on it.

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One Last Breath, and Then Your First

I can honestly say, this has been one of the most challenging courses I’ve taken in the four years of my post-secondary degree. At times, the blog post prompts were the easiest thing I could do, and other times they were the last thing I wanted to think about because I had no idea how to approach it. Over the course of the past three months, the challenge to my creativity has skyrocketed. It’s hard on its own to push yourself to be creative when you’re busy or stressed with other classes, but at the peak of the semester when it feels like there’s so much going on and my mental health feels as fragile as tissue paper, doing something as simple as making a blog post which is supposed to be about my joy and excitement for nature and science communication seems like Mount Everest, especially since at times like this, I’m not really happy, or excited, or optimistic about anything, in fact I sometimes feel like I’m hardly hanging on by a thread and yet I have to either muster up some joy or, more often than not, completely fake it just to get a graded blog post out because neither my wallet nor my mental health can afford to fail a class.

Onto the prompt; moving forward in my endeavors to become a Nature Interpreter or something of the sort (or simply to use the quite helpful skills I’ve learned in this class) I’ll be eager to keep in mind, and question myself as to what type of backgrounds my audience may have (the experiences they’ve likely had, and what makes them tick) in order to effectively spark their interest and show them how our connections and relationships with nature are equally important as the relationships we hold with the people around us. 

Of course, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to reach every person in the way you intended, if at all, and that’s part of the process. Even though your audience is there because they already have an interest in what your talk/walk will be about, the ways you decide to approach the topic (influenced by your personal beliefs and experiences) may cause some in your audience to turn off their ears and try to interpret the environment for themselves. And that’s okay too, because I’ll admit there are interpretive walks where I’ve tuned out because I couldn’t really care less about what the guide was saying anymore (because I had misinterpreted what the talk/walk would be about/the stance it would take on the topic) or simply because I could tell they had a very different opinion related to the topic than I did and it was influencing everything they chose to say about the topic. Which, no shade to them, they can do as they please, I simply didn’t show up to the right tour, and I may not be lead to the revelations and discoveries that they intended for me to be lead to; but I’ll end up guiding myself to my own revelations, if any. It’s the same for audience members that I may have one day; they may not reach the revelations that I intended, but as long as the experience that they had helped them to feel some sense of clarity and peace then my job is done. 

Obviously, I’ll always hope that the intended effect is the effect experienced by all members of my audience. To give my audience an new personal understanding of their place in our world, the importance of their actions in a big world where they feel like a drop in the ocean. To illuminate to my audience the terrifying beauty of the interconnectedness of the world, and the wrongs that our world has endured at our hands, that one group of humans have experienced at the merciless hands of another group, in order to educate a new “generation” (that is becoming better educated on a topic brings them into a new realm of life and feels nearly rejuvinating; the beginning of a new life) and change the future of all of mankind. To conserve the natural beauty of the world, in order for future generations to be inspired by it, to be able to use it to understand the importance of the relationships and connections among all living organisms; sentient and not.

In every dull moment of mundane life on Earth, or every sad moment that drags on your feet like lead, we gratefully accept anything to give us that feeling of hope again. Whether through song or story, we learn new things to broaden our minds and to give us the ability to look upon this world with fresh eyes. When we were children, we’d beg our parents to tell us stories of when they were growing up, to hear that we’re not alone in the way we’re feeling and that life gets better; to learn of the bad things people have done in anger and fear, and provoke ourselves to feel inspired to never repeat those people’s mistakes; to learn of  our place in the world, through the life, full of discoveries and learning, of a fellow human being; to feel connected to another living being, and feel even if for only a moment that we’re not alone and people care to feel a connection with us, because they give us their time; the most valuable thing in any living organism’s life.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

– Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

image credit: https://www.planetary.org/explore/space-topics/earth/pale-blue-dot.html

If I’m to become a nature interpreter, I’ll likely only work with small groups (10 or less) because I feel more disconnected with bigger groups, like no one’s really listening to what I’m saying. Whether that’s because there are too many eyes and I can’t meet all of them for a meaningful enough time to feel like I have that person’s attention, or there are too many eyes and I can’t meet all of them and so I feel that they don’t feel that they have my attention. I like a more personal connection with people even if it’s only for a short time, giving up that connection leaves me feeling adrift and purposeless; like everything I had done previously for the tour meant nothing and wasn’t heard by anyone.

I hope to feel that I have the ability to touch the spirit of all whom I come into contact with, brighten their world, and clear their eyes in order to see their world anew for the true breathtaking beauty it offers us with every passing moment.

[ekenvs3000-19-blog]

I liked the honesty in your blog post this week, and how you talked about the importance of connections. I think we can all relate to having an experience, such as a nature walk, that really didn’t capture our attention for one reason or another. The bigger the group we address, the harder it will be to relate to everyone, and I like that you pointed that out. Of course, I feel that through this course, everyone now has a better understanding of how to ignite a spark in at least most of the audience we address. Due to all the super important environmental issues that we face today, I feel like the ability to be a nature interpreter in one capacity or another will begin to become very important, even if it is just sharing important information with a friend. Talking about the importance of connections, I liked that you mentioned that it’s important to feel connected to another living being and to feel that we’re not alone, as I feel this is one of the most important things that draws someone in while presenting or discussing information is if you can relate to them and make them feel like they are/can be a part of what you are discussing. All in all, through readings, lectures and labs I believe we now all have a great set of tools to use in our future nature interpretation!

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A Reflection of ENVS 3000

Even though becoming a nature interpreter as a job is not in my future, this course has led me to at least become a form of a nature interpreter. Even though I won’t be informing large crowds about nature, I can definitely see myself using the tips and tricks that I learned across this course to be a nature interpreter to my friends and family. Since I am more familiar with the animal aspect of the environment, I believe that when it comes to the environment/nature, everyone should be able to learn the truth about everything from how different species of animals behave to why conserving certain species are very important to our ecosystems. I am sometimes shocked to learn when people are horribly misinformed about certain species and give them a bad rep solely because they didn’t know the ‘why’ behind an animal’s behaviour or the contributions these animals make to their ecosystems. To give an example, over Thanksgiving I was asked by someone (not a relative), as Wildlife Biologist in training, what a city should do about coyotes that were running through the yards of neighbourhoods. This person also claimed that these coyotes would be daring enough to snatch children out of their yards during broad daylight and that he was very much in favour of shooting them all. I used what I had learned so far at that point in the course, such as assessing my audience, as I went along to explain why coyotes wouldn’t snatch a child out of a yard during the day and that shooting all the coyotes could create more problems. If there was a strategy that didn’t work in convincing him to consider another point of view, I’d change my tactics and offer another idea that he may not have considered before, such as if you shot all the coyotes you’d be overrun with rabbits eating your gardens by the next year. He wasn’t 100% convinced by the end, but I feel I did my responsibilities in at least giving him more information to think about.

Image 1 (above): When I explained more about the coyotes, this was the first time I applied what I had learned so far in the course to something outside of school. Image from freeimages.com (License: https://www.freeimages.com/photo/relax-speed-1-1445027)

Whenever I talk to someone about an aspect of the environment, I feel as if it is my responsibility to inform them of all the information if I know of the correct information. I won’t flat out say that they are wrong (that would not connect with the audience!) but I may offer them a counterpoint, such as “Coyotes are mainly nocturnal, and only hunt during the day if there is little to no human activity.”. I also try to give them some background information or explanation for behaviour, such as “Coyotes have only started moving into urban areas because our construction is pushing them out of their natural habitat.”. I wouldn’t talk down to someone, but instead, try to offer them extra information that would help them to rethink their previous beliefs. Whether they decide to take that information is up to them, but I feel it is my responsibility to at least let them know about that information.

A lot of the labs and the readings for this course have also helped me to think more critically about nature and how different people perceive nature. For example, I really enjoyed Chapter 13, the Gift of Beauty from our textbook the Gifts of Interpretation. In this chapter, it really forced me to think critically about how you can convey the beauty of nature to others. Part of me used to believe that everyone would find nature beautiful, but through this course, I realized that not everyone has the same opportunities and experiences that would allow them to experience nature to the fullest. I also never thought about just how many ways people can slow down and notice the smaller details of nature, and each one of the labs helped to outline many of the different ways someone could interpret nature. I really enjoyed the Music lab, as I’d never been a part of making a song before and it was interesting to see the process of songwriting as well as how carefully worded lyrics can have a big impact on the listeners. Through the labs, lectures and reading, I’ve learned that there are also many different ways to be a nature interpreter and that you don’t have to do nature walks and address large public crowds to be one. As I said in one of my previous blog posts, if you have a passion for nature and you want to inspire those around you to care about nature as much as you do, I believe you are one of the forms of a Nature Interpreter. 

Image 2 (above): A road out in the country with a sign saying “Relax 23 MPH” on it. Image from freeimages.com (License: https://www.freeimages.com/photo/relax-speed-1-1445027)

In conclusion, this course has definitely helped me to think critically, expand my horizons and step out of my comfort zone. In the future, I most likely won’t be addressing large crowds about Wildlife Biology but I will be trying to convey information to anyone I meet who is willing to listen. Through this course I’ve learned the importance of understanding your audience, recognizing when to change tactics and how to connect with your audience. No matter what information I’ll be conveying, I now have a better understanding of how to convey this scientific information in a more engaging way and I have a strong feeling this will help me when discussing nature topics with people in the future. I took this course because, in the future, I could be in a position where I can influence the perspectives of people just by telling them what I know about a subject related to the nature around them. It’s awesome that through this course I now have the tools to not only engage them but could also get an idea to stick with them. I have not always been great at conveying my ideas, and now I feel that with what I have learned I would be able to more easily connect with an audience, no matter how large.

References:

“The Gifts of Interpretation” by Larry Beck and Ted T. Cable. 3rd Edition, Copyright 2011

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Improv: A Recipe for Delight

     Dread. An emotion I’m sure many people felt with the looming thought of an Improv lab. What could this mean? What will we do? Hesitation. Shy at first trying to blend into the background. But, by the end? Laughing and face sore from smiles. A pleasant surprise that I’m sure many people shared. 

     I am fairly comfortable with general public speaking, but this style of presentation was new to me. Therefore, I found that exposure to on the spot thinking was very rewarding. Although it felt like light-hearted games, underneath I could clearly see the intent behind them to help us become comfortable with our classmates. 

(Teacher With Male And Female Drama Students At Performing Arts School In Studio Improvisation Class - Retrieved from Colourbox)

     The first gift I think shined through was the gift of Spark. Activities, such as our 5-minute prep presentations on a new invention gave us the chance to practice conveying information while trying to capture and maintain the interest of the audience. As Beck and Cable mention, “Interpreters can capture attention by using movement, noise, bright colors, unusual objects, or with startling statements.” I found all of our groups used this approach well, as exaggerated movement, voices, and actions focused our attention. It was the humor we all tried to infuse into our little presentations that maintained the interest. Many of us took to the infomercial route, in which we were over the top and using rhetorical questions to engage the rest of the class. 

(As seen on tv grunge rubber stamp on white - Retrieved from Colourbox)

Next, I felt the improv class was a good way of practicing the gift of story. Interpreters have the ability to “treat knowledge imaginatively,” (Beck and Cable, 2011) and assemble an overarching story to their program. This can be conveyed in different forms, not just words. The game in which we acted out different ecosystem was a great example of conveying a story without words. We had to cut away all the insignificant details and focus on prominent features that would tie together to form a bigger picture. By each student acting out a different feature of the ecosystem, the class as a whole was able to paint a picture to the guesser. It makes us think about what’s important and recognizable to an audience.

    Finally, one of the strongest gifts this lab provided was the gift of joy. 

“Interpreters can promote optimal experiences through intentional and thoughtful program and facility design” 

(Beck and Cable, 2011)

Interpretation shouldn’t just be a constant flow of information to digest. This dry form of learning can lose the attention of the audience. Inciting joy in an audience through a program can make it memorable and looked back on as a good experience. I found our class’s use of humor captured the attention of all who attended and immersed us in the experience. We were able to see “beyond [ourselves] temporarily,” (Beck and Cable, 2011) and set aside our anxiety to simply have fun with each other. 

     In the end, I think a gift that could have been further developed in this lab is the gift of precision. Although it can be very entertaining it is important to remember that “the key to using humor effectively and appropriately is to recognize that all humor is not the same” (Beck and Cable, 2011). We are all at the same stage of our lives, therefore we focused on relatable jokes to us, but these might not be effective with other audiences. We need to know our audience and carefully select jokes that do not go over someone’s head or drive people away. It was clear our intent was playful, but we need to clearly establish this in future interpretive programs. 

References:

Beck, L., & Cable, T. T. (2011). The Gifts of Interpretation: Fifteen Guiding Principles for Interpreting Nature and Culture. Urbana, IL: Sagamore Publishing.

[ekenvs3000-19-blog]

A very relatable blog post this week! I definitely agree that most of us shared mutual feelings when it came to the anticipation of this lab. I also did this week’s blog post on the improv lab, as it was the lab that I was the most nervous about, but it was also the lab that I had the most fun doing! Originally the three gifts that I associated with this lab were the gift of Provocation, the gift of Story and the gift of Joy, but after reading your blog post, I can also see how the Gift of Spark could also fit nicely into the activities associated with this lab. I think we all managed to step out of our comfort zones as we went through the activities, and our movements and our voices definitely became more exaggerated over time. As a person who doesn’t like public speaking in the slightest or being put on the spot, I was pleasantly surprised by the end as to how much fun everyone was having together, and my face absolutely hurt by the end from smiling and laughing. I like the quote from Chapter 14 of The Gifts of Interpretation that states “…happiness is not the result of random chance. It doesn’t depend on outside events, but rather on how we perceive them. Happiness comes as a consequence of being totally involved in our living.” I feel like this fits in with the improv lab as everyone started out by being nervous, but once we all started to get fully involved, we all found ourselves enjoying the activities!

References:

“The Gifts of Interpretation” by Larry Beck and Ted T. Cable. 3rd Edition, Copyright 2011

[ekenvs3000-19-blog]

The Gift of Embarrassment (or new-found Confidence?)

The lab activity I decided to discuss in this blog post is the improv lab! I decided to discuss this lab, as it was hands down the lab I was the most nervous about. I am not naturally an outgoing person who is able to come out of their shell around everyone. Just the idea of having to do improv gave me major anxiety, as I don’t really like being put on the spot and expected to think in an instant. However, no matter how much anxiety it gave me, I also can recognize that experiences such as this one can be really good for me. Starting off with smaller activities such as the word association game and working up the bigger activities such as the science machine helped me to work up to coming out of my shell. It also helped immensely that we weren’t expected to immediately do things individually. One thing that I really loved was by the end, my face hurt so much from smiling and laughing, and I actually had a really good time!

The first “gift” from the textbook that can be related to this experience was the Gift of Provocation in Chapter 4. In this chapter, they say that “the purpose of the interpretive story. . . is to prompt the listener or reader to broaden his or her horizons and then act on that new-found breadth.” Even though there wasn’t really an interpretive story, the goal of the lab itself was for us to step out of our comfort zones, aka broaden our horizons, and have confidence in ourselves to come out of our shells and have fun and be silly, aka. act on that new-found breadth. The second gift would be the Gift of Story in Chapter 3. In this chapter, they say that “the interpretive presentation – as a work of art - should be designed as a story that informs, entertains and enlightens.” Through each of the exercises that we did, we were presenting something that we were trying to make entertaining to others in the class, and also informative, even if the information we were talking about wasn’t always true in the case of the scientific machine exercise for example. Even though asking us to make a presentation for a scientific machine was vague, it allowed us to make our own interpretations of said machine, which created some pretty unique ideas! The last “gift” from the textbook was the Gift of Joy in Chapter 14. In this chapter, they say that “…happiness is not the result of random chance. It doesn’t depend on outside events, but rather on how we perceive them. Happiness comes as a consequence of being totally involved in our living.” I feel like this fits with the improv lab, as I originally perceived this lab as being anxiety-inducing and was worried I wouldn’t enjoy myself, but once everyone started to get involved, we all started to come out of our shells and actually have fun without feeling too embarrassed. We were able to perceive the improv as something fun instead of something scary.

I don’t think there was any one particular gift that could have been further developed in this lab specifically, as it wasn’t a typical lab, but in general, for all the labs I think the Gift of Illumination through Technology could have been developed more. We kind of discussed the role of technology regarding the reliability of sources, but we didn’t really talk about how to involve it in a nature interpretation program or more specifically a nature walk/talk. However, I can see how this would be hard to do as nature and technology are usually though to be two quite opposite things.

References:

“The Gifts of Interpretation” by Larry Beck and Ted T. Cable. 3rd Edition, Copyright 2011

[km-envs3000-19]

my scientific heroes

In my early years as a budding scientist I loved to watch Zoboomafoo! Growing up without cable, TVO was always on Saturday mornings and I loved watching Chris and Martin tell me all about animals. I can’t remember any specific episodes, but I can remember Zoboomafoo leap! Leap! Leaping along! I could sing you the theme song too! I remember seeing giant tortoises, monkeys and red pandas playing around in Animal Junction and thinking: Man, I wish I was just like Chris and Martin! And I think, without really knowing it, this started my journey as a lover of nature and wanting to learn all about them. I was kind of disappointed to find out that lemurs can’t talk and that I couldn’t get one to be my sidekick, but nonetheless I wanted to learn all about animals because of the passion that the hosts brought to the show.

Video: Some of Zoboomafoo’s best jokes! A great way to engage the viewers and to make them laugh! Also a great way to break up big chunks of information. (From YouTube) 

Chris and Martin were engaging and brought the most interesting information to the viewers making us want to be zoologists just like them. They were positive role models, brothers who were best friends and shared a common interest. I feel like my brother and I played Chris and Martin when we were young too. They presented a selection of information that was interesting for kids and didn’t include information that would disengage the audience. As a nature interpreter, I hope to be like Zoboomafoo and the gang, engaging, funny and informative for all the audiences I interpret to.

               As an adult, my scientific heroes definitely shifted as I am now well on my way to becoming a scientist. As a young woman in STEM, I find it crucial that I have female role models within my field. Rosalind Franklin’s contributions to discovering the structure of DNA marked the scientific community in a major way. Using X-ray crystallography, she created “Photo 51” unveiling the double helix structure of DNA, advancing the field by leaps and bounds. She eventually died of ovarian cancer, likely caused by her close contact with X-rays. As a woman in STEM, this story is one of triumph and heartbreak. I remember hearing this story in grade 11 biology class, and thinking: Wow, someday I’d like to make a difference like her.

Image: Rosalind Franklin’s famous “Photo 51″ where we can see the double helix structure of DNA. (From LiveScience)

Now it is unlikely I’ll make a revolutionary discovery that will forever change the face of biology, but I do plan to make a series of small, positive changes over my career (wherever that leads) to leave a positive mark on the world. Big changes are the aftermath of many small changes put together. I don’t know if Rosalind Franklin would be a very good interpreter, but her work shaped my motivation to become the best scientist I can be, so there’s something to say for that!

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Really interesting post this week! I think everyone can relate to watching similar programs such as Zoboomafoo as a child. I grew up with only three channels geared towards children, so I didn’t have much variety, but I did enjoy the nature programs they had on PBS Kids. I also admired the passion that the hosts brought to the show, especially after I learned later in life that they were one of the first people who were trying to create nature programs geared towards kids, so I’m so glad they were able to succeed! One thing they really helped me to understand as a kid was that all animals are unique and important to our planet since I was one of those kids that was only interested in cute animals.

I think one of the common themes or characteristics that runs through many scientific role modes and heroes, is the passion they have for their job, as well as enthusiasm to teach the people around them about a specific topic. Both of these are so important as it draws everyone in (including kids!) and even inspires people to pursue a career in the field they are teaching about. Chapter 15 of The Gifts of Interpretation states that “Passion is the essential ingredient for powerful and effective interpretation – passion for the resource and for those people who come to be inspired by it.”, and I definitely agree! If there was no passion for the work our heroes were doing, I have a strong feeling that no one else would care about that work either.

References:

“The Gifts of Interpretation” by Larry Beck and Ted T. Cable. 3rd Edition, Copyright 2011

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Scientific Heroes: Thank you for making some animals less lame (to a kid)

Growing up, I only had access to three cable television channels geared towards kids. Three. That was it. Kind of hard to fathom considering the sheer number of things available to watch nowadays. Anyways, getting to the point, one of those channels was PBS Kids. I’ve been an animal lover for as long as I can remember, so when a nature show popped on, it normally didn’t take much effort to convince me to watch it. However, I was also the kid who really only loved cute animals, so if they didn’t feature something cute looking, you can bet that I was less than excited to watch.  The only exception to that was if the other two channels had something I’d be even less enthusiastic to tune into. So, despite not always liking what specific animal they might have been talking about, the following “scientific heroes” at least helped me to learn something cool about all the fascinating creatures of Earth.

First, I’ll start with one I’m sure so many people have also grown up watching, which was Zoboomafoo! This television program featured the Kratt Brothers, as well as a Coquerel's sifaka lemur dubbed Zoboomafoo (whose real name was actually Jovian, sorry to disappoint all the long-term fans). Every episode of this show had some sort of theme related to animals, whether that be baby animals, frightening animals or the importance of play in animal species. As well, there was always a “mystery animal” in each episode, where the brothers would list off some different and interesting facts about the animal. The enthusiasm that the brothers showed while talking about these creatures also helped me to become interested in them as well, even if as a child I didn’t classify them as cute.

The second is a lesser-know, but it was definitely something I looked forward to watching on the weekends: Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures! This television program was a nature documentary series hosted by Jack Hanna, an American zookeeper. Through this series, I was able to learn so much about not only so many different types of animals, but I also got to see a behind the scenes look at what happened at zoos. This show in particular sparked my interest to visit a zoo when I was younger and to understand the benefits as well as the downsides to them. Jack is also a very big advocate for supporting wildlife conservation, so this might have subconsciously been where I got the idea for my major!

Image 1 (above): Jack Hanna and a cute snow leopard! Image from https://www.wdwinfo.com/news-stories/jack-hanna-returns-to-seaworld-orlando-for-wild-weekend/

This last example is actually one that I discovered in later years but is still one that I watch to this day: Hope for Wildlife! Hope for Wildlife's TV series documents the efforts by Hope Swinimer to rescue, rehabilitate, and return to the wild thousands of injured and orphaned wild animals every year. Hope has an absolute passion for helping every single animal she can and won’t stop trying to help an animal until she has tried every possible thing she can. I admire her strength and her will to keep persevering, even in the face of some pretty heartbreaking obstacles. Someday I’d love to visit her and see the work that she does in person.

Image 2 (above): Hope and Gretel the Pine Martin! Gretel is one of the ambassador animals at Hope for Wildlife (and my favourite!), which means that when she was rescued, she couldn’t be released back into the wild. Now she helps to teach people about the Pine Martin! Image from https://myhero.com/hfwa_mdss_ca_2011_ul

All of the science heroes I mentioned above all have two things in common: a passion for their jobs and enthusiasm to teach the people around them about wildlife, which I admire as I don’t think I could ever address as large of a crowd as they have. However, if I could influence and teach even 0.5% of their audience about wildlife over my lifetime, I’d be overjoyed to do so.

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For every one human, there is about 2.6 billion animals. And they’re all cooler than us.

One of the things I spend a lot of my free time doing is looking up new animals to obsess over. There are approximately 8.7 million species of animals on Earth. That means that if I found a new favourite species every day, it would take me 23, 835.6164 years to get through every species! And that is only species! There are approximately 20 quintillion individual animals on Earth. The means that for every one person (about 7.7 billion in the world), there is about 2.6 billion animals. I think that it is pretty mind blowing to think about how many creatures live with us on Earth. To me, this is the coolest thing about nature! There are so many different creatures on this Earth and on average, we only see a small percentage of them. I think one of the reasons it is so important that everyone takes some interest in the creatures we share our home with, is because we lose about 10,000 species every year. And a lot of the species loss is due to human impact and himan activity. I think it is so important to get people interested since interested people make the most change. 

As a kid, I always loved learning about animals. Shows like Zoboomafoo and, weirdly enough, a lot of national geographic, were my main focuses. I still to this day love to learn things I didn’t know before. In fact, my most frequently visited webpage on my laptop is dailyanimalfacts.com. It’s so cool that I get to learn random facts about the most interesting animals! I honestly love being that person at a party that jumps into conversations with “Fun Fact!”. 

Since my main goal is to get people interested in some of the amazing creatures we have on this planet, I think it would be best if I shared some of my favourite animals and why I think they are so interesting!

1. Fossa 

Image from http://animaltheory.blogspot.com/2015/07/fossa.html

The Fossa is probably one of my favourite animals ever. Especially since they had a pretty big role in the film Madagascar. Funny enough, a lot of the information contained in that movie was correct! Fossa are group hunters that prey mainly on lemurs (about 50% of their diet). Although they look similar to cats, they are more related to the Mongoose (group of several species that are all small carnivorous animals). They are only found in forested areas in Madagascar, which means they are excellent climbers and are great at finding places to hide. Interestingly enough, the reason they can prey on lemurs is because they are faster and swifter than a lemur, even in trees!

2. Wombat

Image from https://zooaroundtheworld.wordpress.com/australia/wombat/ (this image is also my desktop image)

On to my next favourite animal. Wombats are probably one of the cutest things on the planet, mainly because they look like giant teddy bears. One of the coolest things about wombats is that their poop is cube shaped. It is probably the first thing anyone will tell you about them, just because it is such a strange phenomenon that we aren’t used to. Although they look small and sweet, they are great at defending their habitats and can actually run up to 40 kilometers an hour! So if you ever happen to see one walking around, maybe try not to piss it off. 

I could go on forever listing all of the animals I find so interesting and some cool facts about each one but I think the spark in interest must be personal. Everyone will have a different favourite animal, and everyone will connect with nature in different ways. I like the animals listed above because to me, they are a mix of adorable and dangerous and both animals have such interesting features that are unique to them. I think these kinds of animals are what peak my interest the most. 

I encourage you to go out and look for different things that will spark your interest in nature and all of the cool creatures we share this planet with. I truly believe that change can only happen when people care about the cause. Hopefully, we can spark some more interest in these cool creatures and help save them and the planet they live on!

After all, I think Dr. Suess said it best: 

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not”

- The Lorax by Dr. Suess 

References:

https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/

https://www.dailyanimalfacts.com/animal-facts/

https://animals.mom.me/number-animals-earth-3994.html

http://wwf.panda.org/

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Hey Katie, as a fellow animal lover your blog post really stood out to me this week. It also makes me really sad to see that we lose that many animal species a year, especially because this is due to our own actions. I am also one of those people that loves to learn cool, and sometimes really odd but interesting facts about animals all over the planet. I had heard and learned a little bit about the Wombat before, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the Fossa, so thank you for introducing me to this really unique creature!

One of my own favourite animals is the Pine Martin, who can be found throughout Canada in mature boreal forests. What is really crazy is their lifespan in captivity, as they can live up to seventeen years! They are also really great at survival, as few predators can match the quickness and agility of the adult marten. However, they are unfortunately they are classified as threatened under the federal Species at Risk Act and the Newfoundland and Labrador Endangered Species Act. This is mainly due to the collection of pelts and habitat loss due to forest product access and extraction. Luckily the combination of forest management practices, re-introduction of martens in certain areas, and fur harvest management have helped this species to return somewhat, but we still have a long way to go. Hopefully, we will soon be able to draw more attention to species at risk and convince people to do more to help!

References:

https://naturecanada.ca/news/blog/get-to-know-the-pine-marten/

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The “Key” to Ecosystems

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” – Animal Farm by George Orwell

Going through elementary school and high school, we were first taught that ecosystems worked like a pyramid; with the grasses and plants being the lowest and largest tier, the herbivores being the middle tier, and the carnivores being the smallest but highest tier. Some of us were also taught later, that ecosystems work more like a food web, as species can have varying amounts of connections to other species. However, it always seemed to be put more simply than what was truly occurring, as it wasn’t always made clear that if you were to remove a specific species from the environment, the whole environment could collapse. So, what do we call these incredible species? Well, they are called a keystone species! 

Image 1 (above)= A food web that might look familiar from elementary or high school. It certainly does get more complicated than this! Image from http://eschooltoday.com/science/ecosystems/what-is-a-foodchain.html

A keystone species has such an important role in their ecosystem, as a keystone species is a species that has a disproportionally large, positive effect on its environment relative to its abundance. These species help to maintain biodiversity within a community either by controlling populations of other species that would otherwise dominate the community or by providing critical resources for a wide range of species. Without a keystone species, the ecosystems would look so much different. The change can even be as drastic as an ecosystem disappearing altogether! 

My favourite example of a keystone species is the sea otter! Not only are they so dang adorable, but this species is present in kelp forest ecosystems along the Pacific Coast of North America where its major role is to keep its roommates the sea urchins in check, as the kelp provides food and shelter. Without the presence of these sea otters, the inconsiderate sea urchins would decimate the kelp by eating it at its roots. This then causes the population of fish and shellfish to decline, and eventually force them to move out and find food and shelter elsewhere. When scientists looked at a few kelp forests near remote islands where the otters couldn’t reach, sea urchins covered the ocean floor, with kelp and other species nowhere to found! How rude!

Image 2 (above): A cute sea otter! They are just one of the many important keystone species that help to keep ecosystems in order. Image from https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/10/sea-otters-global-warming-trophic-cascades-food-chain-kelp

Image 3 (above): This is a normal kelp forest when sea otters are present. Image from https://biodesignin.wordpress.com/

Image 4 (above): And this is a kelp forest without sea otters - an urchin barren! If you thought holy cow, what a difference, I did too! Image from https://adlayasanimals.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/sea-urchin-class-echinoidea/

A keystone species isn’t just a carnivore either, there are also examples of a keystone species being a herbivore, and even a plant! I think it’s important for schools to start teaching that although each species has a role to play in its ecosystem, there are some species that have stronger ties to other species and that the conservation of these species should be of the utmost importance. In short, it doesn’t always matter how many ties a species has to other species, but the strength of those ties is more important. The kelp has many more direct ties to other species than the sea otter does, but the otter has a really strong, single, direct connection to the sea urchins. If we continue to conduct research that determines the keystone species in each ecosystem, we will be able to save our ecosystems much more efficiently!

If you are interested in learning about more important keystone species, I recommend the documentary called NATURE: The Serengeti Rules. It has a very in-depth explanation of how a handful of keystone species were discovered all over the planet!

References: 

National Geographic Society. (2019, August 29). Keystone Species. Retrieved November 2, 2019, from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/keystone-species/.

Thompson, J. N. (2015, March 19). Keystone species. Retrieved November 2, 2019, from https://www.britannica.com/science/keystone-species.

The Serengeti Rules. (2019, October 9). Retrieved October 13, 2019, from https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/serengeti-rules-dhbtnm/19906/.

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Music and Nature

I worked at an outdoor school in Toronto this summer. Every weekday, I would gather in circle with about 10 other adults, and my co-worker would have a new song for us to sing. Frequently we would sing in rounds, which would add another layer to the song. It was the part of the day that I’d look forward to the most.

We would use song to address different topics and engage the kids by bringing them together. For example, we had a death song, for whenever we encountered a dead animal. There’s also a poison ivy song:

Leaves of three let them be

Don’t you get too close

Poison Ivy you protect the forest the most

And you can be itchy

And you can be scratchy

Thank you poison ivy you protect the forest well

It teaches the kids that although poison ivy is harmful in some ways, we can learn to identify it, and really it grows where the forest needs to be protected. Each song has its own message, and nature songs pull us deeper into the spirit of nature.

One rainy day, all of the kids were trying to huddle under umbrellas, and some people were getting agitated by the rain. I got about 20-30 children to gather close together, and sing a song repeat-after-me style.

Feel the rain reveal the truth

Hear the thunder crack and use

Your heart to hug a crying cloud

I love it when the sky gets loud (x2)

And the second part is a repeating of “Boom, clap, rain fall”. One group of people would sing the first part, while the other group would simultaneously sing the second part. Just by getting people excited and increasing the anticipation of the song by building up the intensity, can bring people together. Nature and music have the similarity that they can bring people together, they put people at ease, they provide a space to express how we are feeling to others. Nature is rhythmic as music is. Songs can inspire a sense of peacefulness, of gratitude for those around us. Personally, nature does the same for me.

Song is powerful. In all of my camping years, including working as a camp counsellor/coordinator and going tree planting up north and in BC, music and singing has always been a constant. Some of my most peaceful memories are sitting on a beach, or around a fire, singing songs or listening to friends sing together. I think there is so much that nature has to teach us, or that we can teach others about nature, and music is a great way of engaging people and building community.

I’ve also been told that some people go and do plant sits, plant meditations of sorts, and ask the plant for a song, and some message or teaching will come to them once they allow themselves to relax in nature.

One of my goals, probably after graduation or maybe after this semester, is to learn how to play guitar. The question I will leave you with is: How does singing in nature create community for you? Do you have any goals in regards to music?

- CJ

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Your blog post was a very interesting read! I like the idea of singing different songs under different situations, and I can definitely see how this would engage the kids and bring them together. I’m definitely not one to step out of my comfort zone too often, and if you told me I’d have to sing a song, that would be a recipe for instant anxiety, but there is something about doing things together as a group that really helps to alleviate that. That’s why this week’s lab wasn’t as intimidating as I thought it was going to be, as we were able to collaborate and do things as a group, instead of everyone being pushed out of their comfort zone individually.

           I also really liked the idea of the Poison Ivy song. Normally when you recite information to another person, it doesn’t always stick in their head. However, there is something about joining words with a beat that makes it easier to remember, especially if it is important information or it is giving another perspective to an idea. I’ve never been in a position similar to a camp leader or a nature interpreter, but I can definitely see the benefits of using music to engage your audience and getting people to connect with nature through music. I personally don’t have any goals as far as learning music. I played piano for a decade before it became more of a chore than something I enjoyed, but I can always appreciate someone else’s passion to learn a new instrument!

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Nature’s Soundtrack

Music can have a role in nature, just as nature can have a role in music. To start off, I’ll begin by explaining my thoughts on the role music has in nature. When some people hear the word music, they only think of the combination of instruments and vocals to form harmony, and usually, portray some form of emotion, but I think it is important to consider that music has many more elements to it. It also usually includes pitch, rhythm, dynamics, form and timbre. I also have a feeling that when some people go out into nature, they don’t consider the noises around them to be music, and I disagree. I think the combination of birds chirping, leaves rustling, and a river flowing can be considered music. Still not convinced? Well, for example, there are many radio stations and Youtube channels that are dedicated just to combinations of natural sounds to help people relax. Whether it is sounds coming from an instrument or a sound coming from nature, they all can have pitch, rhythm, dynamics, form and timbre, especially when multiple sounds are combined you also get harmony. To be honest, before this week I didn’t stop and think that all those sounds I heard on a nature walk were really music, but the more I think about it the more I realize that it has the same basic elements as any other type of music would. Just like you can have different combinations of instruments to make a song, different combinations of sounds found in nature can also make a song.

           Now, nature can also have a role in music (with instruments) as well. For starters, an artist may choose to put sounds from nature into their songs that originally feature predominantly instruments. As well, songs can be a great way for artists to convey a message about nature, such as the importance of conserving our planet, or just how beautiful a certain part of the wilderness can be. In this week’s lab, this is precisely what we did; we created a song that drew attention to how important clean water is to our planet, and how single-use plastics are a serious issue. In last week’s blog, I talked about the beauty of nature and how art can come in all sorts of forms, one of those being music. Just as drawing or writing can help us to slow down and notice the finer details about the world around us, music is also capable of conveying the beauty of nature or conveying the importance of nature. Normally, songs that talk about the earth and nature don’t get a lot of traction because songs that convey important messages never seem to resonate with a large number of people. That’s why when someone who is considered famous makes a song about the importance of the environment and it does get a lot of traction, it usually makes a positive impact as it inspires others to make a difference too.

Video 1 (above): The song Earth by Lil’ Dicky and so many other influential artists who banded together to raise awareness about climate change. All the proceeds from this song also went to various environmental organizations.

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Natural Beauty

          I interpret nature through art because I am attuned to the beauty that exists in nature and I find peace, elegance and joy in nature’s beauty. The way I perceive beauty in nature has developed with my relationship to nature that I described in my first blog post. I didn’t always notice the beauty in nature, but I learnt to pay attention to details as I developed an eye for nature’s beauty. Beck and Cable (2011) mention that people often need help to view beauty by directing their attention and helping them understand the meaning of nature. I had the opportunity to be involved in a photography workshop in high school that allowed me to recognize beauty in nature as Beck and Cable (2011) mentioned. The workshop is called “focus on nature” and it is offered in Guelph to inspire people to explore and connect with nature through photography. The workshop provided me with photography skills but also was the first time I really stopped to view the beauty in nature and interpret it through the art of photography. This workshop revealed to me the details that exist in nature and, changed the way I saw beauty in nature. I was truly inspired by this experience and I continue to notice details and feel at peace in the elegance of nature. Since, learning some basic photography skills from this workshop I have been able to apply them to capture the beauty that I perceive in nature.

Photo of a bee on a sunflower I took this summer at Terre Blue (2019).

Photo of turkey tail fungi on tree I took in Guelph/Eramosa (2019).

          I interpret nature through art with photography however, the beauty I see is personal and subjective. The subjectivity of beauty makes it difficult to describe. Beck and Cable (2011) explain that “[beauty] is revealed beyond the senses to the soul; an uplift of one’s spirits, a rejoicing in the presence of symmetry, elegance, harmony, grace” (page 136). Despite beauty being difficult to define because of its subjectivity everyone can enjoy some aspect of nature’s beauty. I think that the real beauty in nature is it’s ability to change throughout the seasons. Beck and Cable (2011) also mention this idea of natural beauty being dynamic and more beautiful than any painting could portray it, because nature is never the same from one instant to the next. Over the Thanksgiving weekend I was camping in Algonquin Park where I got to witness some of the most beautiful changes in nature, the fall colours. 

Photo I took over Thanksgiving weekend of the view of the lookout on Bat Lake Trail in Algonquin Park (2019).

          Walking through the immensity of the natural landscapes that is Algonquin Park I am reminded of the size of nature. Looking out over the lookout of Bat Lake Trail I felt like I was only a small part of a greater picture. Nature not only has beauty but the power to provide life. In light of Thanksgiving weekend I am grateful to be apart of nature and get to appreciate it. It is through my appreciation for the beauty in nature that ignites my passion to protect it for future generations to enjoy. Beck and Cable (2011) explain that connecting people with the beauty of nature inspires stewardship because it ignites people to care. This is where interpretation of the beauty in nature is important to connect people with it’s beauty to encourage protection of these landscapes.

Photo I took of an echinacea flower growing in my backyard (2019).

Through what medium do you perceive the beauty and art of nature?

References

Beck, L., & Cable, T. T. (2011). The Gifts of Interpretation: Fifteen Guiding Principles for Interpreting Nature and Culture. Urbana, IL: Sagamore Publishing.

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Hi Emilia, I think your photos are really beautiful! I think interpreting nature through photography is quite valuable, as you can go really small scale and see many of the very fine details of nature, or large scale where you get the whole picture with many components. I myself am not much of a photographer, I’m more of a writer, but I can always appreciate different artistic mediums as they can all help to portray the beauty of nature and speak to different audiences. It has been really beneficial to see a different way of interpreting nature in each of our labs so far, as they have been portraying different mediums of how to interpret nature between the art gallery, the nature walk and the tour of downtown Guelph, and I’m sure one lab would have spoken to someone more than another.

I definitely see the benefits of connecting nature to art and vice versa. Those who really don’t connect to nature just by being outdoors, sometimes need a medium through which they can connect with in order to see some sort of beauty in nature, no matter what kind of medium that is. Although my preferential way to connect to nature is just by being outside, there are so many other kinds of mediums that can get us to slow down and notice the finer details of nature that we may not have noticed before on our own. Who knows, maybe people who aren’t that keen on venturing out into nature would change their minds simply by looking at a depiction of nature in (a) painting/drawing/photograph/story/music or even a videogame!

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The Gift of Beauty

               As said in Chapter 13 of The Gifts of Interpretation, “Beauty defies definition”, and I for one wholeheartedly agree. That’s because, in my opinion, beauty can look different depending on who you ask, and what makes something beautiful to someone may not be beautiful to someone else. To many of us, nature is considered beautiful, but some may only associate nature with unpleasant experiences and therefore would not give it the same title. I think nature is beautiful, simply based on the fact that so much of it is natural; the beautiful changing of leaves from green to oranges and reds in the fall, the way the sun can make a body of water sparkle, and how some animals can make even the harshest environment their home. 

           This past Thursday’s lab, we went into the Arboretum with Chris Early, where he took us on a small tour of some interesting points in the Arboretum. Although he gave us a lot of information about bird and tree species, he also let us come to our own conclusions about what we thought about them. He also found clever ways to bring the beauty of these topics to our attention, through games and jokes, which helped me to understand more of the meaning and significance of those species. That’s what I think it’s so beneficial about having an interpreter with you while you visit nature, is because they can help you to see the beauty in something that you may have originally thought as ordinary. In Chapter 13, they tell of a man named John Ruskin, who believed that “people can fully possess beauty only by first noticing it, and then understanding it.” and that the “most effective way to achieve this understanding is through drawing or writing about it”.

Image 1 (above): A picture of the Nature Reserve in the Guelph Arboretum, which is home to a diverse community of wildlife species including deer, great horned owls, flying squirrels and wood frogs. Found on the Arboretum’s page on the University of Guelph’s website here: https://www.uoguelph.ca/arboretum/

           I think that taking interpretive walks and or tours can be really eye-opening for people who have never seen certain things in nature before, but the downside can be that someone may only have a few short minutes in that area before the walk/tour continues. Sure, someone may realize the initial beauty of the environment around them, but it is unlikely that they would remember many of the finer details – which is why art and nature can go so well hand in hand. As mentioned above, writing about and or drawing the nature around you can really help to get you to slow down and notice the finer details of your surroundings. Artists that manage to capture the beauty of particular locations or phenomena in nature have already found and portrayed the finer details, and therefore it makes it easier for their readers/viewers to catch onto those finer details as well. In other words, more and more people would be able to realize what stands out to them to make nature beautiful, especially those who didn’t consider a particular place in nature beautiful before. In some way, artists are nature interpreters too, as they take what they see in nature before them and convey this information through different mediums to people, and  “point them beyond finding beauty only in obvious grandeur.”

Image 2 (above): The Oxbow (The Connecticut River Near Northampton) - Thomas Cole. The more I look at this piece, the more I notice some of the finer details. Image found on https://www.widewalls.ch/famous-nature-paintings/the-oxbow-the-connecticut-river-near-northampton-thomas-cole/

References:

“The Gifts of Interpretation” by Larry Beck and Ted T. Cable. 3rd Edition, Copyright 2011

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Embrace Uncertainty

The most common question I receive from friends, family and even strangers right now is “oh, you’re graduating this year? What do you plan on doing?” Well, let me tell you something…I cannot stand this question anymore! It’s stressful being pressured to know exactly what you want to do with your life and I think about it non-stop! My grad photos are coming up in a couple of weeks and everything is beginning to feel more real. April is coming a little too fast for comfort!

I have a few different ideas of what direction I want to go into for the future, maybe that’s why I’m struggling so much to make a decision. Nutrition has started to interest me in the last couple of years, especially pet nutrition. I’ve always had a love for dogs ever since I was little. Currently, I have a 3-year-old Golden Retriever named Ceilidh (pronounced “Kailey”-my family is Scottish), who I am super excited to see this weekend! I came to Guelph, thinking “I want to be a vet.” Well, that changed as soon as I came to the university. I realized there is so much more out there then just vet school if you want to work with animals. Even coming out of grade 12 I wasn’t exactly sure if I wanted to be a vet. When I came home after the first couple weeks in first year, I remember telling my mum, “Mum, I’ve always liked the idea of becoming a vet, but these people REALLY want to be vets.” That’s where I decided to turn to another route.

(Photo of my dog Ceilidh, taken by me)

Making a decision for your future career is not an easy one! I’ve decided to do a Master’s program in the future (don’t ask me in what, I am not too sure!) I was going to go right into a Master’s, but recently I’ve decided to take a year off. I realized “what’s the rush?” I feel like as young people we feel we have to always be on “the go” and have a plan. This year I’ve understood that sometimes not having a plan is actually a good thing. You should enjoy yourself and do things that interest you, before pressuring yourself into a job, schooling, etc. I plan on going traveling next year, volunteering and working abroad. I haven’t really gone travelling around by myself before, so I am a little nervous, but super excited! I would really like to volunteer in a wildlife centre, dog kennel, or somewhere I can work with animals.  

(I would really like to visit Italy!) 

I took this class to explore my interest in environmental science. Working in a provincial park has got me thinking about working outdoors. Recently, honeybees and pollinator conservation has also peaked my interest! I like trying new things and discovering what is best suited for my future.

My blog ties into what we have talked about in class in terms of risk. We talked about how society has gone towards becoming more cautious. I think this is how people act about graduating and looking into the future. We don’t embrace risk very much anymore and are too afraid to take that leap of faith. I do think that sometimes taking that risk is worth it.  

So, as you can see, I have lots of interests to pursue and see what is the best fit for me. Who knows where they’ll take me? I am one of those people who likes to have a plan and know each step along the way, but I am here to tell myself, and you, that we need to embrace uncertainty! 

(A quote by Jodie Foster) 

Question: Do you think students tend to rush into finding jobs after university? Is it worth it? Why or why not? 

References:

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/524072 

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/sgp/en/cruise-to/venice-italy?country=SGP

[ekenvs3000-19-blog]

I’m glad to hear that’s it isn’t just me who constantly is asked that question every time I am at some sort of family gathering! I have definitely been pressured to stay “on the go” as you call it, and I absolutely think that students tend to rush into finding jobs after University. As for the reason for this rush to get a job, I think there are a few different reasons as to why. Some people need to get a full-time job ASAP just to pay back student loans, while some people might just be eager to get a job in the field they love. While taking a job immediately after University might be the right decision for some people, I don’t think it is the right move to make for all people, and each student will only know what is right for themselves. Taking a year off might be a great idea and beneficial for some people, but those who need a full-time job to pay those darn student loans may feel like they have no choice but to go straight from being a student to working. Another reason students may feel like they have to rush to get a job is that that path has been adopted as the norm. Students are often told that “it doesn’t look good on a resume to take a year off” when in reality it all depends on what you do in that year off. Volunteering in your future field of work and working abroad would look appealing on a resume if you ask me!

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All You Need is Passion

I’m not going to lie, having no prompt this week somehow actually made it more difficult for me to talk about something. I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had to act as a nature interpreter. I’ve never worked at a park or led a group of people on a walk through the woods, nor showed kids the magic of interacting with the natural world around them. The closest I’ve come is throwing out some random tidbits and facts to my family while camping or travelling.

I was lucky enough to volunteer at a local wildlife rehab center in the summer of 2018. I got to aid a few different species of wildlife in Canada, including raccoons, opossums, squirrels, skunks and minks. Although this is not the typical position someone would think of when mentioning the title Nature Interpreter, I think it still can have an impact. Although I wasn’t the one who was directly telling the public information about the wildlife that we rehabilitated, I still managed to tell some people around me information that might change their perspective on how to help/interpret wildlife.

Image 1 (above): The front webpage of a well known Wildlife Rehab center located in Nova Scotia. I have learned a great deal from their show, Hope for Wildlife and I’d love to visit someday.

Before I volunteered for the center, I liked opossums, but they were far from my favourite animal. When I got to work with the young opossums whose mothers had died, I learned so much about them that they quickly became my favourite animals to feed. I had no idea that they were gentle and chill animals (especially compared to feeding a baby squirrel – trust me). After I had seen their behaviour, I told my family about them, and sure enough, my family started to see them in a different light. My impact on others may not be as big or reach as many people but it still was nice to see that after sharing some background on different animals, some people I knew changed their perspectives.

Image 2 (above): A handful of interesting facts about opossums! Although they look scary, the babies are absolute sweeties to work with, and overall badass creatures: possums are immune to snake bites, bee stings and other toxins, according to the National Wildlife Federation!

Some of you may be asking then, if I don’t plan on becoming a nature interpreter, then why did I take this course? I took this course because, in the future, I could be in a position where I can influence the perspectives of people just by telling them what I know about a subject related to the nature around them. I think it would be awesome if I had an idea on how to not only engage them but if I was able to get something to stick with them, even if it’s only one single idea. I’m not always great at conveying my ideas, and if this course helps me to connect with an audience, no matter how small, I feel there is value in that.

As said in Chapter 15 of The Gifts of Interpretation “In addition to being passionate for the interpretive site, the interpreter has a passion for sharing his or her knowledge and wisdom with others.” So, I think that a nature interpreter can come in all kinds of forms. If you have a passion for nature and you want to inspire those around you to care as much as you do, you might just be a Nature Interpreter.

References:

“The Gifts of Interpretation” by Larry Beck and Ted T. Cable. 3rd Edition, Copyright 2011

[hayleypreeceandtheenvironment]

Blog 3: The Time to Act is Now

This week’s prompt confused me a bit at first, but I was able to make out deep meaning in the second part of it. It conveyed a very important message to me, which helped me break down the first half so that it made sense. The prompt overall depicts how it can be easy to forget history or believe that it doesn’t have any relevance to the present day, when it completely does. 

While walking downtown during our lab on Thursday I had the opportunity to learn about the history of Guelph and it changed my perspective. I had been to downtown Guelph many times in my last three years of undergrad but had never realized or known its significant history.The stories our interpreter told were very interesting and brought a lot of perspective to the tour, but what made the tour significantly better was that pretty much all the buildings were still standing. A lot of them were also easy to depict from their pictures in the pamphlet too since they were stone so they didn’t have ,amy exterior changes. It made the history stories he told us ever more exciting as I stood at the same site where everything happened. The first stop where I really felt connected to the interpreter’s story was the one where he talked about the Albion Hotel and how Al Capone stayed there with his mistress. Even though I had heard the story before, being there made the experience very real. 

Photo taken by me of the pamphlet.

Relating the prompt back to nature and the environment, it’s important to remember all that we have done in the past for environmental activism. The Keeling Curve is a well-known graph of CO2 emissions for climate scientists and dates back to 1958. Scientists knew our climate was drastically changing due to our emissions since as early as the 50′s and yet it has take so long for people to finally realize how much we need to change if we want to save our ecosystems and future generations. In 1992, David Suzuki’s daughter Severn Cullis Suzuki made a speech to world leaders at the Rio de Janeiro Earth summit in 1992 to urge them to take action to prevent global warming and species extinction. It is now almost three decades later and Greta Thunberg is following in the same steps as Severn, but there is more back up from citizens and Fridays strike for the future has become a fairly big movement. So why didn’t this happen sooner? We can say that social media has become a big part in helping youth connect. I will insert a video below of Suzuki’s take on the subject. 

Thunberg on the left and Suzuki on the right.

Photo from: https://www.tpi.it/ambiente/greta-thunberg-severn-suzuki-discorso-onu-20190924455735/

Overall, we must take into account the history of climate change that the older generations grew up with in order to hopefully further progress this movement and educate more youth. If we don’t act soon or big enough in this upcoming election, history will continue to repeat itself. 

My question to you guys is do you think our own pasts depict our future?

References: “The Gifts of Interpretation” by Larry Beck and Ted T. Cable. 3rd Edition, Copyright 2011

Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOp5ATk_rlM

[ekenvs3000-19-blog]

I really liked the way you tied the quote to not only the lab this past week but also about current environmental issues! I am not native to Guelph and I had only been downtown a handful of times, but everything that the interpreter told us about the significant locations in Guelph made me cherish being able to go to school here even more. I’m from a town where many of our buildings are old and still standing as well, and I agree that this can really help someone who doesn’t know much about an area, to imagine what everything must have been like at that time. Taking a quote from Chapter 7 of the Gift of Interpretation “Every place has a history. Interpreters can bring the past alive to make the present more enjoyable and the future more meaningful”, I really think this can apply to the lab we had Thursday. If anyone of us had toured the same location except this time with all the information simply written in the pamphlet, I don’t think it would have had the same effect.

As for the environmental activism, I agree that taking into account everything that has happened, good and bad, in the history of climate change is important for the decisions we make now and in the future. If we don’t take this into account, we are doomed to continue to make the same mistakes. I think in some ways our past does not depict our future, but it depends on what we choose to act on and what changes we choose to make. I hope that any major issues of the past we are able to consider changing in the future, and instead that our view of the future is shaped by our past.

[ekenvs3000-19-blog]

History: Library of the Past

“Every place has a history. Interpreters can bring the past alive to make the present more enjoyable and the future more meaningful” – The Gifts of Interpretation, Chapter 7

           As the quote stated above, every single place on Earth has history, and people such as nature interpreters can really help the people who visit these places understand why the places are what they are in today’s world. Many could argue that without knowing the previous history of many places, there is no way you would understand everything about how a place has come to be in the present.

           A quote by Edward Hyams from The Gifts of Interpretation states that “There is no peculiar merit in ancient things, but there is merit in integrity, and integrity entails the keeping together of the parts of any whole, and if these parts are scattered throughout time, then the maintenance of integrity entails a knowledge, a memory, of ancient things. …. To think, feel or act as though the past is done with, is equivalent to believing that a railway station through which our train has just passed, only existed for as long as our train was in it.”

           In this blog post, I will be trying my hand in unpacking what Hyams was trying to convey to his readers. He states that “there is no merit in ancient things”, which to me means that there is no merit in our history, and although people are unable to change the past, it is important that our history has some sort of context. Our history is how we learn from our mistakes, and how we work to be better in our future. If history was never documented, many mistakes would be repeated over and over, which is why people such as nature interpreters (as well as historians, archeologists, and so many more) have very important jobs every time they step out in front of a group of people to speak about an event or place. It isn’t simply to teach them about all the occurrences of the past, but it also helps to inform them for the future.

Image 1 (above): An image of a library. Libraries are fantastic, as they hold so much knowledge and history all in one place and are normally so accessible. Image free to use from www.pexels.com, the license can be found here: https://www.pexels.com/photo-license/

           In the second half of the quote, where Hyams discusses the railway station metaphor, I believe he is saying that we are never truly done with the past. In our lives today, everyone will be making decisions based on what has happened in the past, and one day people in the future will be making decisions based on what we did today. In one way or another, history will perpetuate thinking that hopefully helps humans to make more decisions that positively benefit us so we can avoid repeating the tragedies of the past.

           One example of how understanding/knowing history has influenced my own path has to do with my mom’s decisions. My mom’s parents are originally from the Netherlands, but my mom was born in Canada. They moved back to the Netherlands when my mom was 2 years old.  If my grandmother had never told my mom that she was born in Canada instead of the Netherlands (or at least never expanded on what living in Canada was like), my mom might never have been influenced to return to Canada at nineteen or ever meet my dad. Therefore, I might never have been born or be where I am today. I’m very grateful she did decide to come back to Canada as I love having a family I can visit in a whole other country!

Image 2 (above): A Google map of where my grandparents on my Mom’s side currently reside in the Netherlands. We’re actually going to be visiting them during Christmas for the first time!

References:

“The Gifts of Interpretation” by Larry Beck and Ted T. Cable. 3rd Edition, Copyright 2011.