Environmental Sustainability and My Role as a Nature Interpreter (Unit 10)
Nature is unequivocally important and I believe our role as interpreters is to communicate, demonstrate and connect our target audiences to support and follow in that belief. I postulated at the beginning of this course that everyone has the capability to be an interpreter, because of the transitive nature of our medium we are able to instil motivation, direction, and motivation to our audiences. My own personal ethics about nature interpretation resides heavily alongside environmentalism and ecocentric viewpoints. The reasoning behind my stance that ties into the theme of this final blog post, is that nature is unable to advocate for itself, and therefore deserves to have a voice on its behalf because of how much of our world is possible because of it.
Through my personal development as a student of nature and an interpreter from this course, I think the most important techniques to bring with me into the future of nature interpretation are the inclusive communication tools regarding learning styles, managing diverse audiences, appealing to the masses, and the strength of the written word in interpretation as expressed in Beck et al. (2018). Other supplementary materials that are worthy of note in my development as an interpreter are the activities and cultural barrier awareness provided by Gallavan (2015) in address of our "invisible knapsacks". The incorporation of the arts and music from Gary et al. (2001) and van Boeckel. (2015), in providing techniques for audience connectivity that transcend the complexities of verbal and physical categories by evoking emotions and experiences within our own personal identities. The final approach I think is significantly notable is the use of science, technology and citizen analytics to invigorate, diversify and intensify environmentally sustainable strategies, surveys and concepts as explained in Merenlender et al. (2016).
The responsibilities and duties I bring to the role of nature interpreter is to motivate, educate, communicate, and direct my target audiences to become more knowledgeable, involved, passionate and conscientuous of their decisions, lifestyles, communication, and promotion of environmentally sustainable, conscious, and supportive concepts for current and future generations. These challenges when applied to us as interpreters, requires us individually to be educational "chameleons", a term I use to describe our capabilities to act, behave and conduct ourselves to the respective situation and demonstrate the key principles I have outlined irrespective of the variability of who we are addressing. All of the photos I have attached throughout this post are to give you a semblance of the world, how we have come to exist, and why it is so important to prioritize and preserve it for those now and those to come. I feel it is my responsibility as an individual who has chosen to pursue environmental studies that I must to the best of my abilities been an advocate for the voiceless aspect of nature as it has provided safe and successful life to myself and those I care for. A reciprocative mindset I hope to promote within anyone and everyone in the world.
Overall, my personal ethics in nature interpretation are to advocate on behalf of nature because its voice is drowned-out, its important ignored and misunderstood. I aim to bring a realistic and raw viewpoint to interpretation, because nature has become romanticized and we can no longer rely on that stance as our singular major foothold. Instead I want to bring attention to its indisputable strength to progress without failure, perseverance despite the adversity of humanity, greed, and ignorance. Humans possess the ability to be better than nature and should be incentivized to consciously make the decisions that facilitate its success. When the world thrives, we all thrive as a by-product and we become more connected to the planet as a result. As described by Beck et al. (2018), the proper result of good nature interpretation is reflective in the ability of the interpreter to transfer their passion for the environment to their respective audience so that they leave with a reinvigorated and elevated mindset in their approaches and perspective towards nature. The goal is to educate through scientifically credible information, and personal motivation, so that the conflict and ignorance is no longer an option. The political, societal and natural climate of the world need to be aligned for the betterment of our planet and it starts with us as interpreters, so I choose to be the change I wish to see in the world. I hope that those of you have followed along with me do the same, and we begin to or already have begun to effect change for the single most important aspect of our lives. Our earth!
Interpret for those you love, so they can spread it further and beyond, to the point where we have a collaborative and sustainable perspective on nature and that it never has to be point of tension ever again. The difference starts with all of us!
References
Beck, L, Cable, Ted T., Knudson, D. M. (2018). Interpreting Natural & Cultural Heritage. Sagamore-Venture Publishing. 2018
Gallavan, N. P. (2005). Helping teachers unpack their "invisible knapsacks". Multicultural Education, 13(1), 36. https://link-gale-com.subzero.lib.uoguelph.ca/apps/doc/A137921591/AONE?u=guel77241&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=9fe2f151
Gray, P. M., Krause, B., Atema, J., Payne, R., Krumhansl, C., & Baptista, L. (2001). The Music of Nature and the Nature of Music. Science, 291(5501), 52. https://link-gale-com.subzero.lib.uoguelph.ca/apps/doc/A69270354/AONE?u=guel77241&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=fb9366a8
Merenlender, A. M., Crall, A. W., Drill, S., Prysby, M., & Ballard, H. (2016). Evaluating environmental education, citizen science, and stewardship through naturalist programs. Conservation Biology, 30 (6), 1255-1265. https://doi-org.subzero.lib.uoguelph.ca/10.1111/cobi.12737
van Boeckel, J. (2015). At the heart of art and earth: an exploration of practices in arts-based environmental education.Ā Environmental Education Research,Ā 21(5), 801ā802. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2014.959474
Hi Cameron!
I really appreciate the approach you took for your final blog post. I initially got into science for the same reasons everyone else did, that being that science is super cool and has so many fun facts for me to learn about. However, I stayed in science because like you said, nature is unable to advocate for itself, and needs a voice, or in most cases many voices, to speak and act on itās behalf. There was only so long I could stand on the sidelines while nature fell apart around me, and I dove into science to understand what I could do to help stop the pain inflicted on the environment every day.
Like you, the biggest lesson I took away from this course was that of the āinvisible knapsacksā presented by Gallavan (2015). Ensuring that a diverse audience not only has access to nature but also has the ability to utilize tools of understanding is crucial in helping nature heal in the long run, as the more people we get on the same page about what needs to be done, the more we can do to help heal nature, and in the end heal many problems effecting humans as well.
The responsibilities you listed are also very close to mine, motivation and communication are extremely important to nature interpretation as without understanding no lesson can ever be truly learned. I really liked the pictures you posted with your prompt, it really solidified the message you were trying to tell and added a personal touch to an already great end to a semester of blof posts. I hope you have a great rest of your semester and lead a wonderful future in nature interpretation!

















