Justin's Interpretation of Nature

ENVS*3000, Winter 2023

[cwenvs3000w23]

Unit 10: Where do I stand?

Before I decided to take this class, I had never really heard the term “nature interpreter”, nor would I have ever used such a term to refer to myself. However, throughout my journey in this class, I have learned a lot about what it means to be a nature interpreter and the multitude of different tools one can employ to help educate and spread our shared passion for nature. With each blog prompt, I have been challenged to critically think about my own experiences and how they have influenced my journey in regards to studying the environment. During the various blog posts, I have learned to unpack my “invisible backpack” of unearned opportunities I’ve had that have helped guide my value for nature, and see how different circumstances may have led to a different outcome (McIntosh, 1989). Through analysing my own life and experiences with nature, I can better understand why I have gained a passion for connecting to the nature around me. Keeping that in mind, it further enables me to think of how someone with completely different life experiences may not share the same passion as me, and through this understanding I can better learn how I can educate and spread my passion to people of all walks of life. 

Of the many topics the units of this course have covered, a common theme that has been enforced throughout the units is to understand your audience, how they learn, and what they may best respond to. Whether it’s through a simple engaging conversation, stating fun facts, or using aspects of art such as music or visual art; all these serve as different tools that can help engage an audience and perhaps ignite the same sense of passion for nature that we have as nature interpreters. When I first heard the term nature interpreter, the only thing that came to mind was the stereotypical guide at a conservation park, but after 10 weeks of this course I know there is so much more to it, and that educating others about nature is very crucial when it comes to protecting the environment for future generations.  For me personally, I grew up going camping trips with my family, and doing things such as visiting a provincial park, or going out hiking or canoeing was a crucial part of my life that defined the value that I have for nature at a young age. This helped me define my interest for nature, and helped aid my decision to study Environmental Management here at the University of Guelph. However, hundreds of millions around the world do not have access to nature in the same way that I did, and due to this most of their views when it comes to nature are guided by the media and the plethora of different arguments when it comes to things like climate change or habitat conservation. Due to this, it can create a sense of disconnect to nature for many people, which can lead to the mentality that human civilization is so separate from nature. However, I personally see us as a part of nature, as not only do we rely on it to provide us with necessary resources, it is also a crucial part of the human soul. Due to this view, I believe that it is my role as a nature interpreter to share the values I have to as many people as possible so those who didn’t have the same opportunities as me can truly feel the same sense of connectivity to nature that I was able to discover through my life experiences. 

Thinking about where I stand as a nature interpreter still leaves me with a bit of uncertainty when it comes to what form of nature interpretation suits me best. When I try to think about where my future stands I find it important to think through my past and what brought me to study the environment in the first place. One of the major conclusions that I found throughout high school as I thought about what I wanted to do in university, I knew I was the kind of person who wanted to avoid spending my career sitting in an office chair. I have always been more of a hands-on learner who enjoys actually going out into nature, and experiencing the sights, smells, and sounds so I can better gain inspiration in a way that a computer screen could never provide. So this is why I think I can best educate others on nature in a setting that allows me to guide others through the same physical experiences that ignited my passion from a young age. Through guiding others in hands-on experiences and using some of my knowledge, and storytelling skills to instil a sense of connectivity and passion in nature is currently where I see myself as being the most effective as a nature interpreter. The people who receive your nature interpretation will be able to sense how passionate and genuine you are pretty quickly and this will influence how much they take your message seriously. It is for this reason that it is best as a nature interpreter to be in a role that you are truly passionate about, as passion is one thing that can’t be faked.

My ethics in regards to nature interpretation has changed, and been redefined as I learn more about environmental issues and some of the misconceptions I had before beginning my studies. I have always valued nature, and seen it as something that is worth preserving, however my values in regards to what the current losses in biodiversity means to us as humans, and how we can best go about protecting nature has changed quite a bit through this course. I have learned the importance of educating others not only so they know facts about nature, but so they know more about the spiritual and cultural aspects around nature that make people feel a stronger connection to nature so they will view it as something worth preserving for future generations. In my view, losing nature is much more than just losing pretty landscapes or important resources, it is akin to losing a part of ourselves. It is very important to guide the general population into understanding why we dedicate our lives to protecting nature, and why its importance is much deeper than what's on the surface. This is because it is only through a better-educated populace that we can influence political, and business decisions regarding the environment, as with more people advocating for nature with a passion, decision makers will be more inclined to move towards more sustainable practices. Given the current state of the world, it may seem like a very uphill battle for us as nature interpreters, but through reading everyone’s discussions throughout this term I have gained a lot more confidence in the future by seeing how passionate many others are in this class are for protecting the nature around us so future generations can enjoy the same passion and awe we find in mother nature.    

References

McIntosh, P. (1989). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Peace and Freedom, 10-12.

[jprenvs3000w23]

Hi Carson,

I enjoyed reading this post quite a bit. You explained something I’ve always considered in the way that I personally do things, but never really put into words the way you did.

You mentioned what got you to where you are now in your study of the environment. You knew what you liked, what you didn’t like, and by knowing these things about yourself, you selected a study which applied well to those. I guess this is often where we lose people’s interest when trying to describe something such as nature in a way that we aim for people to relate to. We have things we like about nature, we explain it in a way that we believe others will relate to, but we sometimes fail to consider what it is someone else will like about nature. With the unit about music in nature, there were many posts about enjoying the sounds that nature has to offer, and how those people out into nature to relax and appreciate it. Either I’m rather pessimistic, or I have a relatively holistic view of the world, but there are a lot of times when I'm out in nature that I wish some birds and such would quit yapping. As I’d said in my post, I enjoy a good silence in nature.

Ultimately, I think we ought to take better consideration of what people like in general before we try to give our thoughts about nature. Nature is complex, people are complex, and connecting the two isn’t always simple.

[fhenvs3000semesterw23-deactivat]

Unit 10 :) 🦋☘️🐢

The past semester along with the blog posts have taught me alot about being an interpreter in nature, specifically. The blog post prompts in particular have made me unlock the level in my brain regarding how I view nature, and how it has impacted me in my life. I have learned a lot about myself, but as an interpreter, I would say that I believe in respecting nature and what it has given us as people. Now, I know that may sound so generic that anyone can say it easily because we all love nature ( hopefully), but as mentioned in my earlier blog posts, it's not about liking it or not, but appreciating the actual beauty and this gift we have that a lot of people look down upon. The past blog prompts have made me delve even deeper into the idea of being a nature interpreter, because this can be done in so many ways, from music to art, and more.

I personally have never had a great connection with nature growing up, because I enjoyed the comfort of staying in, away from the scalding heat or extreme cold temperatures. I would see people outside going for walks in any temperature, and it would shock me why people would put themselves out like that. I would be in awe, but growing up my perspectives about nature kept changing, and eventually led me to my current program. My parents are one strong pillar behind my enthusiasm and role in the nature interpretation part of my life, because they would always encourage us to go out in nature, and appreciate and love what god has given us. From a small walk, to a far away trip to a beautiful ocean, any of this made my parents make it a teaching experience because they would tell us about the small things within what we saw outside. The plants that we would see would make my parents teach us about them, like herbal remedies, and how some plants could be used medically. I slowly have begun since then to appreciate what we have in the outside world, even though it is being damaged. By damage, I mean climate change, and this is something that has been on the radar for so long because it is getting worse by the moment.

My favourite place to visit in the summer with my parents is the beach. It has opened so many learning opportunities for me, because it grew my love for nature even more! (NatGeo)

I see my role as an interpreter is to appreciate nature and love it, and to take care of it as if it were our own home. I believe that every leaf, blade of grass, rock, is to be appreciated, and respected because it is what builds the earth, and makes it a home for other animals that we also need to respect and care for when the opportunity comes. I see it my responsibility to get other people to love and respect the outside world. It is not something to run away from or pass and not care about, but something to respect.  There are a variety of ways to help encourage oneself and others on how to love and appreciate nature, and make it feel like your own home rather than something boring. This has been showcased through the blog post prompts we have had, like through art and music. My favorite one was music, because nature being incorporated in sounds and rhythm is something very interesting to me. It can make one appreciate the naturalistic sounds more when you hear it in famous singers' songs. It can make one realize that nature can be that beautiful that is being used in some famous songs with millions and millions of views. This is one way nature can be loved and appreciated more in my opinion. What's great about these prompts we have had over the semester is that it can open more doors in one's mind and knowledge about the deeper side of things, like nature in this situation. It is so much more than what we see, it's delving more deeply, and understanding it from an artistic or creative lens almost.

The approaches that are the most suitable for me as an individual when it comes to nature interpretation is getting people together to appreciate what we have in the outside world and the environment, and to make them appreciate nature as much as I do or other people that share their love for nature. I obviously am not referring to a forceful way, but in a nice way where someone can learn something. This can be like joining community center programs like helping clean up a certain place in your neighborhood. Another example is a program to plant plants around your city, and this can be something for all ages. Having youth based programs or getting togethers are a great way to appreciate and love nature, and in a fun way because that's how it's supposed to be. Overall, there are just so many ways one can imagine in order to connect, appreciate, respect, nature and make it as their own. I have learned so much in this course, especially the blog prompts allowed me to do, and I never thought there was so much more to nature and outside world in a critically thinking manner.

Good luck everyone with your future endeavours :) 🦋🌊

Beach. Education. (n.d.). Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/beach/ 

[jprenvs3000w23]

Hi Fatima,

I liked how you described “making” people like nature, but in a “nice” and not “forceful way.”

I find the best way to educate others is to present a subject in a way that is approachable, and I guess a bit versatile in ways that it can be approached. By doing so, a learner can take an aspect of the subject being taught which they most relate to and use that aspect specifically to further their understanding of the greater subject.

As a personal example, I became extremely fascinated by ants through the university’s field entomology course. A major component of that course is identifying different families of insects, a part of the “biodiversity” component. I found that in looking to collect different specimens, I always came across a wide variety of ants, and made that my own little side project within the course. I ended up collecting enough different subfamilies of ants to count each towards my 20 different collected/photographed insect families, and I got to know them quite well. Now, I volunteer in the university’s insect collection identifying different ants, and I’ve probably ended up making myself one of the top few (maybe ten…) ant experts on campus. The course had both an experimental design and biodiversity component, and I ended up finding a small aspect of the latter component to take my own deeper dive into entomology overall.

Hopefully that’s at least somewhat in-line with what you meant. I just really relate to the idea of guiding learners rather than “teaching” them, because allowing the learner to think and find something they like on their own tends to be the most impactful teaching style in my opinion.

Justin

[jprenvs3000w23]

Nature Interpretation's Role in Environmental Sustainability

As a nature interpreter, I do feel that I have to be careful about how I conduct myself. Ultimately, the intent is to guide people towards understanding why they may relate to nature more than they thought they would, but also to allow people to realize on their own that they should go out into nature to develop this opinion for themselves. Perhaps my own interests are rooted in the well-being of my surroundings, in the sense that I am interested in nature and everything it encompasses, but not everyone necessarily relates to that. So, I consider this rooting to ultimately be of my own interest, that way I can express this belief in a way that presents it as an interest like any other person would have. I simply think nature should be allowed to exist, for it brings me great joy in many ways simply by existing in its unmanaged state, but if I were to express in an objective manner that my audience also allow nature to exist in its unmanaged state, then it might be hard for me to keep said audience. 

One of the beliefs I have that I still struggle to get across in a way that people can get behind is vegetarianism. I’ve been avoiding animal products for over six years now, because after informing myself of how they are obtained and what the costs of doing so are, it made sense to me that it was not something worth being a part of. So, without much hesitation, I simply decided that I was going to stop being a part of animal product consumption. At the time, I had no idea how people would react to how I was now going to conduct myself, though I was in for a bumpy ride. As a pretty typical white male tenth-grader in a suburb of Boston, I hadn’t really had much in the way of insecurities, and I’d just opened myself up to a wave of criticism from people who come from a plethora of backgrounds. To make that long story short, I was often questioned about my choice to become vegetarian, in ways that made me less open about it. I felt people wanted to talk civilly about things they were able to relate to, but once the topic became something they already had in their mind as something so preposterous, they became more defensive and uncivil in conversation, and it started to become a bit of an insecurity. However, despite all the insecurity I felt around doing what I believed was right, I never let up, and I think it’s helped me to express myself in general more confidently.

Something I learned here at the University of Guelph from keynote speaker Payton Head, a queer black man with a history of strong leadership, on the topic of interdisciplinary inclusivity, is that everyone grew up with their own set of environmental conditions, and are only able to shape their thoughts and beliefs. While we may see another person’s views as ignorant, we can still only empathize with a person if we want to discuss their thoughts and beliefs in a way that we may see as benefiting from change, regardless of how different these thoughts and beliefs may be.  I only see the need to dismiss one’s self from an interaction if there is a lack of common respect coming from one or more of the individuals interacting. So, with all that in mind, I feel my best approach for perhaps being influential as a vegetarian is to simply lead by example. People tend to look up to others who have shown they can conduct themselves in a calm and collected manner, and do well by themselves, even if not necessarily doing so at all times. I think that as long as I can continue to conduct myself in such a manner, while still doing things the way I see as right and respectful towards other people, then I may be able to keep myself approachable to someone intrigued by it, and possibly influence how they choose to conduct themselves.

If we are to take a more collaborative approach to it though, I think the best change should start with children. As Jacob Rodenburg put it in this week’s reading, children are disconnected from their natural surroundings, and not by their own choice (2019). Young children, for the most part, are restricted by their parents/guardians as to where they can be throughout most of their early life. If we want to allow people to make their own choices as to how they want to conduct themselves, starting in their younger years, I believe we owe it to them to show them what exists, including nature, how we operate society and its food supply, and so on. Nature is full of different plants and animals which we have learned to appreciate throughout the course of life. When one takes their kid to a farm, they often want to pet the farm animals, as they perceive the world as being friendly; uncorrupted. Hunters often say that if most people had to kill their own meat, then people would eat far less meat–not for the effort it takes to track down an animal, take its life, then prepare it so that it is both edible and palatable, but simply because they become aware of what takes place when they eat meat. I think the same would absolutely be true with children. If Children, who often learn to love and adore animals, saw how they needed to be treated in order for them to eat, they might resist eating them in the first place. In one case, a farmer even decided he would resist such after having lost his cattle to bovine tuberculosis, by going vegetarian himself (Bearne, 2022). Considering the environmental impact that agriculture has on our planet, I ultimately feel responsible to make it a part of our knowledge pool.

Literature Cited:

Jacob Rodenburg (2019). Why Environmental Educators Shouldn’t Give Up Hope. Journal of Environmental Education in the Cascadian Bioregion. https://clearingmagazine.org/archives/14300

Suzanne Bearne (2022). The meat and dairy farmers who are going vegan. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61565233

[csaenvs3000w23]

Making Sense of Nature Interpretation

Choosing one topic to discuss for this week's Blog post was a little challenging, especially since I have learned so many different intriguing facts over the duration of my studies in biology at the University of Guelph. Choosing one amazing fact about nature did not come easily to me, since nature is full of interesting aspects.

To me, I find every aspect of nature to be breathtaking. Whether it is plants, animals, landscape, etc. Although, I will say I particularly love learning about every area of nature, I especially love learning about animals.

As many of you may have already heard the tragic story of the MarineLand orca Kiska, who recently passed away in captivity. Kiska swam alone in a tank at the theme park for over a decade.

This situation has been on my mind and has encouraged me to think about the effects of animals in captivity versus in their natural habitats, especially on large marine mammals.

Unfortunately, the orca population has been rapidly declining, in which the Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) have been declared as an endangered species. As of October 2021, there are only 72 living SRKWs (University of British Columbia, 2021).

I want to use this opportunity to discuss this beautiful species and shed light on their amazing qualities, bringing focus to the importance of healthy environmental conditions and resource availability for this species to thrive in.

So, let’s share some cool facts about these remarkable creatures!

Orcinus orcas (more commonly known as the killer whale) are marine mammals that can swim as fast as 50 km per hour! S P E E D. They often travel with their pods and matriarch lineages, averaging to approximately 120 kilometres each day (Whale Trail, 2018). Each orca has specific markings referred to as “saddle patches” which are located behind their dorsal fins, making them identifiable from others – kind of like fingerprints for humans (Whale Trail, 2018).

Also, orcas have the second largest brain weighing in at roughly 17 pounds!! (Whale Trail, 2018). No wonder they are so smart ;)

To put it into perspective, the average human brain weighs around 3 pounds (Winston Medical Center, 2023).

Female adult orcas average 5.4 – 6.1 meters in length, weighing between 6,000-8,000 pounds. Whereas males are typically 6.7 - 7.3 meters and between 8,000-10,000 pounds. The life expectancy for this large marine mammal can be anywhere between 30 to 100 years (Whale Trail, 2018).

One fact that is exceptionally interesting is that orcas can use echolocation to help detect their prey! Killer whales can use echolocation to detect fish in areas where they cannot visually see, up to distances as far as 500 ft (NOAA Fisheries, 2015).

These wonderful organisms and their surrounding environment must be preserved. More effort needs to be put towards protecting this species. We need to think of ways to provide organisms with the resource availability to allow them to live safely in their natural habitats.

Everyone can do their part in being conscientious when it comes to:

Recycling / disposing waste

Using plastic materials / hazardous materials - 78% of marine mammals are at risk of choking on plastic (Fleshman, 2021).

Refraining from over-fishing / resource availability

Boycotting captivity (ie SeaWorld, Marineland etc)

References

Fleshman, R. (2021, September 7). Environmental Fun Facts. KPWB. Retrieved March 18th, 2023, from https://kpwb.org/environmental-fun-facts-2/

NOAA Fisheries (2020, June 15). Sound Strategy: Hunting with the Southern Residents, Part 2. NOAA. Retrieved March 18th, 2023, from https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/sound-strategy-hunting-southern-residents-part-2#:~:text=Echolocation%20allows%20killer%20whales%20to,see%20in%20the%20dark%20water

The Whale Trail (2018). Southern Resident Killer Whale. TheWhaleTrail.org. Retrieved March 18th, 2023, from https://thewhaletrail.org/wt-species/southern- residentkillerwhale/

University of British Columbia. (2021). No apparent shortage of prey for southern resident killer whales in Canadian waters during summer. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 17th, 2023, from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211012112222.htm

[jprenvs3000w23]

Hi Cidalia,

I really appreciated reading this post.

I feel like our (people’s) perspective of animals has become rather perverse in a capitalist society, and I found your interpretation of orca whales to be rather heartwarming. I think if we are going to try to take a holistic approach to improving society–and the world in general–then we ought to really consider animals as more important than we currently do. In North America, we (speaking as a white man) have looked back at having kept people of a different skin color locked up to use for our own convenience, and denounced those actions because they were wrong. People are people, so the idea of treating another person as if they innately are valued as less being wrong just makes sense, especially since people all have so much in common which they can relate to. You explained the orca dying in captivity to be suffering mentally from the way it was treated before ultimately dying, and I think this shouldn’t be overlooked now that we are looking much more closely into mental health. If we are going to have pets because we take comfort in their presence as they do with ours, then we should realize how selfish our actions are on other animals, ones which we only enjoy looking at, and consider revising how we interact with them.

[jprenvs3000w23]

Amazing Nature - Nature as a Garage

As I’ve discussed in my previous posts with music in nature, I tend to enjoy music that is relatively loud and is a bit less relaxed than most. Perhaps I’m just an angry person, or perhaps it’s just more stimulating to be, but it is ultimately not music I bring with me when I go out into nature. What I enjoy about nature, rather than listening to all the subtle sounds that are being bounced around from various sources throughout the landscape, is actually the lack of sound when compared to the sounds that occur within society, regardless of whether society has more harmony or more dissonance within it. Happy emotions and angry emotions are both nonetheless emotions, but nature allows me to bring myself to a neutral centerpoint between each.

As one could probably guess, I find great satisfaction in how quiet nature is. I can go out into nature, and for the most part, nature is a bit disinterested in me. Nature isn’t disinterested in a malicious way though; it just has its own things to do, and this is pretty mutual. I’m not always out in nature with the intention to directly interact with it, per se, but oftentimes just there because it will allow my thoughts to unravel so I can put them back in my head more tidily than before going out. It’s hard to keep your thoughts organized in society because it never wants to give you a proper break, but instead a bunch of different distractions that keep you happy enough to keep with it. As wonderful as society is, one cannot ponder the deeper aspects of it clearly without taking themself apart a little to do some maintenance, and not while under operation. In a more intuitive example, a car will not run well over the course of 100,000+ miles if it is never taken apart to be maintained. Every so often, you have to take the car to the garage and turn it off, take some nuts and bolts out, then put it all back together once you’ve made sure that everything in there is something that will help it run well. In that sense, nature is my garage, and I can think of no better place where my mind can be taken apart for maintenance.

So, while nature is full of so many interesting things that the mind can hone in on, my favorite thing that has always kept me interested is the quiet it has to offer–if it even is offering it, let alone trying to offer anything. I feel that the quiet in nature is so overlooked, so underutilized, yet is easily the most basic thing that separates nature from society. As someone who believes that we should truly understand and experience the basics of something before looking into the greater complexities it may have to offer, I feel that we as people should have a greater appreciation for silence in nature and have an interest in preserving it.

[jprenvs3000w23]

Free Write - Digital Sales Receipts

Something that recently popped into my head was how there is no universally-accepted form of digital sales receipts.

Think about it–we can buy things online, we can use a microchip embedded in a conveniently sized plastic rectangle to pay for those things, and you can even pay for things in-store using your smartphone if you prefer. However, the one thing that gets in the way of transactions being returned smoothly is the possession of your proof of purchase. You either threw it away, deleted the email, or simply weren’t handed one by the cashier. However, if there was one database that contained all of a country’s purchases, we would be able to refer to this database whenever the need for a proof of purchase arises. 

Particularly in Guelph, we no longer have single-use plastic bags for retail settings. The thermal paper used for receipts also contains plastic, yet has seen significantly less change over time, throughout the world, in retail than has the material of our carrying devices (bags). Yet, in most cases, the bag gets more use than the receipt–a “single-use” plastic grocery bag can be used as a trash bag in a household washroom trash can, it can be used to separate clean clothes from dirty clothes when traveling, among other things. The receipt, on the other hand, often gets thrown in the trash once the purchaser gets home, assuming they took the receipt in the first place. Considering we believe we have a solution to plastic bags, and we want to go paperless in most cases when possible, I think it’s time we definitely moved onto receipts.

I think the best way to implement them would be to start using them in the self-checkout lanes. Self-checkout lanes are often cash-free anyway, so implementing them here would get around the lack of a tie to digital databases that cash would have. In terms of tracking your purchases, this is no greater an issue than using a credit/debit card, which tracks your purchases to exist in the first place. Perhaps even create a receipt card, similar to a credit card, but scanned after payment to digitally retain your receipt. That way, it wouldn’t matter whether you paid cash or credit/debit since the receipt card would be its own scanned thing. For how many purchases the average person makes in just a month alone, I think the amount of plastic (or paper, if viable) the card would be composed of would be offset by the amount that is used in printed receipts. The challenge would be making sure there’s no sort of fraud existing within the card system, but most cards tend to have reasonably good fraud protection.

This was maybe a bit random, but if it piqued your interest at all, then I’m glad to have written it.

[mkpenvs3000w23]

I never really thought about digital sales receipts not having a universally accepted form. When it comes to buying products, technology has advanced so far, that we are able to pull out our phones and pay for almost anything, however the payment proof that we need to use to show in taxes and etc. are nowhere close to as advanced. People like myself have multiple different emails so even when I do get my receipt sent to my email, I do not know which one it was sent to and even if I do, I ignore it. Do you think there is a better way of keeping a consistent system, where we can store all our receipts?

In terms of plastic bags in grocery/retail stores, I live in Brampton, and we no longer use these bags as well. Something that I noticed is that plastic bags (some are recyclable) at some stores were completely removed, however, last week I noticed some places have brought them back. Although the plastic bags are recyclable, I found this to be interesting. Going back to the receipt issue I had no idea some receipts contain plastic.

You do mention the use of a receipt card. In today’s day and age where everything is about convenience, do you think people will use a receipt card? Even if this card can be attached to the wallet on your phone, in certain situations I do not think it will be as useful as we would want it to be. In cases like Tim Hortons drive thrus, we know they are trying to move very quickly. When I scan my point on the app, it does take me a minute to use face ID for my method of payment, having to pull up my receipt card on my phone would take me even longer and I am sure you know people are running out of patience now days so this can be seen as an inconvenience for the workers and the Tim Horton Corporation.

Overall, I loved reading about this as it is not something we would talk about in this course!

[jprenvs3000w23]

Hi there,

Upon thinking about your statement regarding an age of convenience, I realized that, with the receipt being more for the customer as proof of purchase on their behalf, I think it should fall on the customer to decide whether they choose to carry a receipt card. It is already optional to take a receipt after a final sale, so giving the option to carry a receipt card, just as a the option is given for a customer to carry their own reusable grocery bags, makes perfect sense to me. Perhaps a kiosk can be set up in stores as well for issuing a new card just like they sell their own branded reusable bags.

[rmkenvs3000w23]

Unit 7 - Music in Nature

I got about a hundred words into this post and had to start over. I was taking it a little too seriously, and overthinking one of my favourite topics until it wasn’t fun anymore. I actually take music very seriously. It’s important to me. I need it like I need water. I find they have similar restorative properties after a long day. Playing and listening to the music I love has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. But, the most important thing about music for me is that it’s fun! 

For me, when I think about music in nature, my first thought is the kind of thing investigated in the essay by Gray et al. (2001). Whale songs, bird songs, and most germane to our particular point of view, human made music, are all examples of the natural world creating music. The species Homo sapiens has been on the planet for about a quarter of a million years, and I am willing to wager that for at least most of that, we and some of the other hominids were humming to themselves, and maybe singing around a campfire, telling stories and making music. 

This display is not so different from that of the whales or birds mentioned in the Gray et al. text, plus a myriad of other species that use sonorous calls to communicate. Wolves howl, bees buzz and dance, horses whinny, other primates make all kinds of vocalisations. The difference, I think, is that those calls and songs are mainly utilitarian. As far as we can tell, only us humans make music because we like it, because it’s pretty. That being said, a bird’s song having utility doesn’t make it any less lovely, and some of their songs are truly beautiful, so nice in infact that I have written this post listening to some of them.  Music can also be found in nature in less obvious ways. Water flowing in syncopated rhythm down a stream, the wind making the pine needles sound like a snare being played with brushes, even the steady 1-2 march of… a march. If you are listening for it, music is there.

Nature can be found in music in all kinds of ways. Like I said, wolves howl, but so does Warren Zevon in Werewolves of London. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed Flight of the Bumblebee to mimic exactly what it says, and my roommate spent enough time in elementary and high school practicing this section of Sleigh Ride that he got startlingly good at it. As the lesson for this unit mentions, there are plenty of artists and music traditions that incorporate nature into their music. Indigenous cultures specifically have taken cues from the natural world in composing the songs which have been passed down generation to generation. Given that music seems to be in our nature, it is unsurprising that nature is in our music.

Finally, I’ve talked before about the late great Stan Rogers, and specifically about his song Northwest Passage. Here performed by his son Nathan, the song like many of Stan’s lyrics tells the story of the Canadian landscape. In this case, he wrote it after driving across the Prairies and thinking of the many explorers who “discovered” the land we now live on. It puts in my mind pictures of the explorers mentioned in by name, Kelsey, the Franklin Expedition, Fraser and Davis (by way of the bodies of water named for them), but it also brings to mine the real first people to travel across the land.

I wonder what it looked like when they arrived, what they thought as they travelled further and further across the landscape, from the frozen tundra, the rolling plains, the cliff faces of the Rockies and the Canadian Shield, across the thundering river now known as the Saint Lawrence, and further down across the Americas. How different were their lives? How were they similar to us? I can’t be sure, but I like to think that while they walked across land that had never been tread before, they probably hummed or whistled a tune to themselves.

[jprenvs3000w23]

I really enjoyed reading this post, especially after the part about taking music seriously. I can very much relate to that.

I think, whether one considers themself to take music seriously or not, different kinds of music have different degrees to which they can be taken seriously. For example, one would likely not listen to stoner rock music and sit there trying to work out technical complexities. At the very surface, music stimulates the ears in a way that gets the mind thinking in accordance to the mood that is set. With lyrics, the mood is then built upon with a clear message, and perhaps has the listener being introspective with the piece of music. Sometimes the piece of music is intended to trick the reader with setting a mood that is not in accordance with the message within the lyrics. I believe that one who considers themself to take music seriously is someone who enjoys a generous serving of food for thought.

I also appreciate your use of quotation marks around “discover” when talking about the North American landscape, without immediately elaborating upon why that word is in quotation marks–solid use of show, don’t tell. Following that up with the imagination of what it must have been like musically for European explorers treading across the landscape then made me envious of the early settlers. They got to be a part of the foundation of Western music culture whether they realized it or not.

-- Justin

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Nature Interpretation through Music - Easily Relatable with Great Complexity

As I discussed in my post about the use of art in nature interpretation, art is a means of communication, and can be used to interpret the workings of nature on its own. This is nature in music. How one interprets music is a subjective matter, which is why nature on its own can also be seen as a form of music without anthropogenic supplementation. Thus, this is music in nature.

Music is very complex and can therefore be used in many ways to interpret nature. Music may contain lyrics sung by the human voice, it may contain no parts of the human voice, or it may use the voice in a way that is meant to derive a meaning rather than understand an intended message (i.e., no words are spoken, but the voice is still used instrumentally). The voice is often supplemented with other instrumental sounds, or vice versa, which may aid in conveying the mood that is suggested by the lyrics, or the instruments are used to convey the message on their own.

A lot of the music that I personally listen to tends to have an angry mood–the instruments can be rather shrill and/or dark sounding, the vocals are quite noticeably aggressive, and the message is often to the point and of a serious matter. As someone who feels very strongly about leaving animals alone, in nature, this is perhaps my way to feel defensive about nature. I think it would be hard to argue that it creates a deep connection between myself and nature, as I see a connection being formed through something rather unintimidating and more friendly in appearance, but it definitely creates some sort of mutual alliance.

I think indigenous music is a good place to look when considering the presence of music in nature. Many different sounds occur throughout nature: birds, bugs, water, wind, and occasionally a falling tree. From my observation, indigenous instruments in music try to mimic these sounds in a way that can be exaggerated to highlight certain aspects of nature’s music. A rainstick mimics the sound of rain as it hits the ground, and can be used in a variety of ways to make the rain sounds appear more intense or more mellow. A beating drum can be used to imitate a herd of cattle that rush heavy-footed across the landscape, or it can be used to mimic a heartbeat of a prey species as it tries to escape a predator. The question of whether it’s music in nature or nature in music becomes less straightforward, as the sounds are meant to be natural.

One song that takes me back to nature is the In Dreams song created for the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. As an absolute fanboy of Tolkien’s work, hearing that flute makes me want to pack a bag and go on an adventure of my own. It has been suggested that Tolkien was a bit of a conservationist in ideology, but was never noted to have ever explicitly said so. I personally think this was not an accident, as he may have had enough confidence in his work to display nature as something worth conserving without added commentary.

[jprenvs3000w23]

Free Write - Digital Sales Receipts

Something that recently popped into my head was how there is no universally-accepted form of digital sales receipts.

Think about it–we can buy things online, we can use a microchip embedded in a conveniently sized plastic rectangle to pay for those things, and you can even pay for things in-store using your smartphone if you prefer. However, the one thing that gets in the way of transactions being returned smoothly is the possession of your proof of purchase. You either threw it away, deleted the email, or simply weren’t handed one by the cashier. However, if there was one database that contained all of a country’s purchases, we would be able to refer to this database whenever the need for a proof of purchase arises. 

Particularly in Guelph, we no longer have single-use plastic bags for retail settings. The thermal paper used for receipts also contains plastic, yet has seen significantly less change over time, throughout the world, in retail than has the material of our carrying devices (bags). Yet, in most cases, the bag gets more use than the receipt–a “single-use” plastic grocery bag can be used as a trash bag in a household washroom trash can, it can be used to separate clean clothes from dirty clothes when traveling, among other things. The receipt, on the other hand, often gets thrown in the trash once the purchaser gets home, assuming they took the receipt in the first place. Considering we believe we have a solution to plastic bags, and we want to go paperless in most cases when possible, I think it’s time we definitely moved onto receipts.

I think the best way to implement them would be to start using them in the self-checkout lanes. Self-checkout lanes are often cash-free anyway, so implementing them here would get around the lack of a tie to digital databases that cash would have. In terms of tracking your purchases, this is no greater an issue than using a credit/debit card, which tracks your purchases to exist in the first place. Perhaps even create a receipt card, similar to a credit card, but scanned after payment to digitally retain your receipt. That way, it wouldn’t matter whether you paid cash or credit/debit since the receipt card would be its own scanned thing. For how many purchases the average person makes in just a month alone, I think the amount of plastic (or paper, if viable) the card would be composed of would be offset by the amount that is used in printed receipts. The challenge would be making sure there’s no sort of fraud existing within the card system, but most cards tend to have reasonably good fraud protection.

This was maybe a bit random, but if it piqued your interest at all, then I’m glad to have written it.

[etzenvs3000w23]

Interpreting Nature Through Art

As I see it – nature is art, and art is in our nature as human beings.

People interpret nature in a variety of ways – one of which is art. An integral part of humanity is its ability to interpret things through art. To me, someone who interprets nature through art takes their time to witness the beauty, chaos, serenity, and spirituality of nature. This could even include a child making a finger painting of a tree! In that moment, they are recreating the beauty of nature through their own medium and their own perspective.   

Interpreting nature through art does not only mean through visual art; it also means music, poetry, dance, pottery, film, storytelling, and many more! These art forms allow people to connect with nature in their own way, and in a way that is meaningful to them. For example, I play guitar and sometimes I sit with my guitar on a warm sunny day, or on a snowy white winter day, and write music in that moment where I feel at peace and connected with the nature around me. I haven’t done something like that recently, and I think that is because the fast-paced environment of the world I live in makes it difficult to be in the moment and connect my passion for guitar playing with my passion for nature appreciation. I’m sure this is the case for many others! This is one reason why I appreciate seeing other people’s art about nature. It shows me how they connected with nature in that moment and took the time to witness and appreciate nature as it is. This is how I would interpret the “gift of beauty”.

It is always interesting to see how others interpret nature through art because it lends a sneak peak into their mind and tells you a bit about their character as a person as well as the details they pick up on (ie. if two people paint the same tree, they may emphasize different features of that tree). This exercise has helped me come to realize just how integral art is to nature interpretation. This is something I have never considered before! Providing a space for people to practice using their “gift of beauty” in nature feels like very meaningful work! And writing this makes me want to do that for myself as well. I believe that allowing people witness nature and its beauty (even the beauty of seemingly gruesome things in nature!) will help people develop more compassion and care for the environment around them; and I think that is an extremely valuable quality to have!

[jprenvs3000w23]

Hi Edan,

I like how you touched on using art in interpretation starting from a young age. This got me thinking about the age demographics that people not only target with their art, but also choose to consume it with. Art, like any media, is something which we consume with some degree of bias. 

Maybe I’m digging a little too deep here, but take your description of a child finger painting as an example. We look at the art of adults with more complexity than we do a child's finger painting, but we will also look at rather abstract art–which, sometimes, doesn’t even have a clear purpose of interpretation–with such great profundity. I think the child may be at an unfair disadvantage here. Having been relatively less influenced by the ideas of others, I would consider a child’s expression as perhaps being more “true” than that of an adult, yet the opposite is what is more often considered, likely because we are more easily able to relate to the work of a mind similar in complexity to our own. After all, toddlers appear to understand each other when what they say sounds like gibberish, and I think this highlights the use of language in interpretation. Everything is able to be translated to be interpreted in some way, but without a method to do so, the interpretation is lost.

[amvenvs3000w23]

Make Learning Fun!

As a nature interpreter, your role is to educate people about the natural world and its conservation. This is a skill not many people have, as it takes a while to develop. At the core of interpretation is communication. It is essential to communicate your knowledge and enthusiasm for the natural world, in a way that is accessible to everyone, despite their education level. For a general rule of thumb, writing and speaking at an 8th grade level is a good way to ensure that the information being presented is understood by the widest audience possible, regardless of their background or education.

Using clear and concise writing styles helps to simplify ideas, and makes it easier for people to grasp the concepts that you are presenting. Have you ever been to a lecture and all the material flew past your head? This is what many people experience when they listen to a presentation. Instead of a fun afternoon learning about the “Carolinian” for example, they get caught up trying to process all the technical information, which leaves the visitors exhausted. For people who want a relaxing afternoon this will make them not want to come back, and most importantly limits their ability to learn. When interpreting, ideas and jargon should be simplified so then visitors can easily listen and follow along without having to think too much about it.

Furthermore, using a more accessible language style can help to create a more inclusive environment for people who many have not had the opportunity to learn about nature in a formal setting. A huge barrier towards nature interpretation, is that many people feel left out or “not smart enough” for a nature program. For example, remember your first day of university. You may have felt as it you weren’t “smart enough” to be there as your surrounded by academics doing all sorts of interesting research. This same feeling is what some people feel when attending a nature presentation. They feel like they don’t deserve to be there, and it discourages them for attending programs in the future. If the information is presented in a simpler format, then these people will be able to understand the content and feel included in the discussions you may have. 

This doesn’t just apply to adults, many kids who attend programs have limited knowledge or vocabulary about the natural world, and simplifying your content will help them as well. It is important however to ensure that you aren’t “dumbing down” your program as this can make people feel discouraged about their knowledge, or reading levels. When creating a program, we need to simplify concepts and vocabulary, while maintaining professionalism, and focus. People like to be treated their age, a 40-year-old who had difficulty understanding concepts is still a 40 year and should be treated as one. Always maintain professionalism and never use sarcasm or act higher than the people you are presenting to.

The 8th grade level of communication is a good rule of thumb as it accompanies the majority of individuals in our population. For younger audiences, we can further adjust, and for audiences from universities or institutions we can heighten our content to better meet their needs. It is important as interpreters to always try our best to accommodate to everyone while making them feel comfortable and excited to learn. Your visitors shouldn’t feel like they are studying but rather having fun and enjoying themselves.

My "Find the Fishes" nature program where visitors and I seine netted for fish species so we could see the biodiversity in the bay. During the program I adjusted my vocabularly for the kids, adults and university students who attended.

[jprenvs3000w23]

Hi Andrew,

I found your post this week really cool! I also love your use of photography.

As much as we learn about nature, and as much as we learn about how to interpret nature through different lenses, I think being able to use nature--and anything, really--as an educational resource is criminally overlooked. As we discussed with art in nature interpretation, one does not have to be an "artist" to create art and to share it. We all, as nature enjoyers, have the ability to educate our fellow peers, and there is no better group of people to do so with than the youth.

For me, I started becoming more disinterested in school around grade 7, then regaining enjoyment for it in grade 9… so I guess I can say from experience that grade 8 isn’t a bad rule of thumb.

I think grade 11 was when it really clicked in my mind what it meant to “educate.” I remember having a final project in AP biology, and the topic was open-ended. As an arachnophile at the time, I naturally created a poster about spiders, describing their evolutionary history in particular. Maybe it was just the relative maturity of my brain at the time, but I remember just sitting there and thinking about how little people truly knew about spiders, and also how they are really cool and important.

I guess my point is that interpretation, art, and education all go together to some extent, and I think we should look at each as important factors in communication of ideas.

[jprenvs3000w23]

Nature Interpretation Through Art - Reaching Audiences, Naturally

Art is something with the capability of evoking many interpretations. A musician I greatly respect, Ian MacKaye, put it in a way that I think well-summarizes it: Two people standing side-by-side will be taking a picture of some scenery. However, when you look at the photos that each of them had taken, they will be completely different. The scene itself is present in some objective state, but the two photographers interpreted it differently from one another. Such is art.

Part of why I admire Ian's art in particular relates to the two views of risk, based on how he presents himself as an artist. He dresses very plainly and uses very plain language, but his message is what made him a “freak” when comparing him to other musicians. At the time, around 1980, many teens his age were using drugs and drinking alcohol as an act of rebelliousness, whereas he found that to be the antithesis of rebelliousness since these “rebellious” teens were just destroying themselves. He always made certain that it was clear that he was not trying to start a movement, but rather that he was just trying to tell people there was really nothing freakish about his sober lifestyle. This, combined with his plain and inoffensive image, minimized his loss of status quo while he interpreted his message which he perceived to be engagement in risk for growth. Whether this is objectively the best approach to art is not of concern to me, but I think it helps to capture a wider audience, and touches on privilege as discussed in the previous unit of the course–he didn’t flaunt it.

I intend, as perhaps an artist interpreting nature, to take a similar approach. My experience of nature is no better than anyone else’s experience, but possibly unique in that it may inspire someone who hadn’t looked at it in the same way. After all, art is a sharing of ideas, communicated through a broad range of different mediums, and communication will flow best if everyone involved in this transfer keeps a relatively similar level of open mindedness. In terms of the risks involved with interpreting nature through art, I think there have been many people throughout history who have overestimated their potential with risk of gain, having only further polarized broad audiences, while those underestimating remain non-noteworthy. The former would be considered “crazy” to most, having radical ideas and an interpretation which is hard to get behind. As noted though, radical ideas can be gotten behind if properly interpreted, in ways that one admiring a work of art can relate to. I definitely consider myself an idealist in a natural sense–ideally, everyone has such an eye-opening experience with nature as I have. But who am I to interpret nature?

[obenvs3000w23]

Hi there,

I really loved your post this week. You took an approach far different to the one I took in my response. I took an introspective approach, looking at how art shaped my interpretation and mine alone. However, you've acknowledged two different interpretations of the same scene, and I think that is a very important way of looking at it. Nature interpretation is so personal and no two interpretations are exactly alike. To me, this adds to its beauty.

This makes me think of abstract art. One person could be looking at a painting and see a river, while another person looking at the same abstract piece could see something entirely different. The interpretations of the abstract piece are based one ones personal experiences and perception of colour, light, and shape. Although interpretation of real nature is not abstract, one still takes into account their experiences while interpreting.

You touch on the idea of being labelled an outcast or as you put it, "freak" because of certain interpretations of nature. You mention that it can be polarizing and radical. I would love to hear more about this. Can you provide another example of when artistic interpretation of nature has bordered radical? In my experience I have only noticed representations of nature through art forms to be inclusive, a way of bringing people together and inspiring ideas. Because of this, I would love to hear more about your views on it being divisive.

Great post this week! Again, I loved your point on multiple interpretations of the same thing. It highlights individuality and uniqueness, an important aspect of interpretation.

[jprenvs3000w23]

I'm glad you liked it :)

As a concrete example of radical interpretation of nature, I found this YouTube cartoon that my French teacher showed my class in grade 10. I think the lack of dialogue is a good artistic choice, potentially with the intention of adding abstractness. I believe that all art has political implications to varying extents, though this one is definitely very political in its extent and is also rather upfront about it.

The cartoon I linked may be seen as radical because of how pessimistically it portrays people within the natural world. It certainly paints a different picture of a person in nature than Claude Monet does (though I do love my Path in the Wheat at Pourville print), and I think that's what makes the cartoon potentially divisive, especially when put in the context of politics of the environment.

Justin

[jprenvs3000w23]

Nature Interpretation Through Art - Reaching Audiences, Naturally

Art is something with the capability of evoking many interpretations. A musician I greatly respect, Ian MacKaye, put it in a way that I think well-summarizes it: Two people standing side-by-side will be taking a picture of some scenery. However, when you look at the photos that each of them had taken, they will be completely different. The scene itself is present in some objective state, but the two photographers interpreted it differently from one another. Such is art.

Part of why I admire Ian's art in particular relates to the two views of risk, based on how he presents himself as an artist. He dresses very plainly and uses very plain language, but his message is what made him a “freak” when comparing him to other musicians. At the time, around 1980, many teens his age were using drugs and drinking alcohol as an act of rebelliousness, whereas he found that to be the antithesis of rebelliousness since these “rebellious” teens were just destroying themselves. He always made certain that it was clear that he was not trying to start a movement, but rather that he was just trying to tell people there was really nothing freakish about his sober lifestyle. This, combined with his plain and inoffensive image, minimized his loss of status quo while he interpreted his message which he perceived to be engagement in risk for growth. Whether this is objectively the best approach to art is not of concern to me, but I think it helps to capture a wider audience, and touches on privilege as discussed in the previous unit of the course–he didn’t flaunt it.

I intend, as perhaps an artist interpreting nature, to take a similar approach. My experience of nature is no better than anyone else’s experience, but possibly unique in that it may inspire someone who hadn’t looked at it in the same way. After all, art is a sharing of ideas, communicated through a broad range of different mediums, and communication will flow best if everyone involved in this transfer keeps a relatively similar level of open mindedness. In terms of the risks involved with interpreting nature through art, I think there have been many people throughout history who have overestimated their potential with risk of gain, having only further polarized broad audiences, while those underestimating remain non-noteworthy. The former would be considered “crazy” to most, having radical ideas and an interpretation which is hard to get behind. As noted though, radical ideas can be gotten behind if properly interpreted, in ways that one admiring a work of art can relate to. I definitely consider myself an idealist in a natural sense–ideally, everyone has such an eye-opening experience with nature as I have. But who am I to interpret nature?

[etzenvs3000w23]

Privilege and Nature Interpretation

Learning and reflecting on the role privilege plays in people’s access to nature has helped me put words to some of the situations I’ve witnessed and been part of throughout my life. But before getting into all that, it’s important to understand what privilege actually is. My current working definition of privilege is: the lack of barriers and/or the presence of advantages because of characteristics that an individual has related to race, socio-economic status, ability/disability, religion, native language, gender, sexuality, education, etc.

Access to nature itself is a privilege. I have a lot to say on this topic, but I will try to keep it short! I am a Middle-Eastern person who is a child of immigrants. Growing up, I was privileged enough to go camping with my family every summer. I almost used the word “lucky” instead of “privileged” in that last sentence. I changed the word to privilege because I was able to go camping as a result of my family being middle-class and able bodied; thus we were able to afford good camping equipment, a car, gas, cost of the campsite itself, cost of renting a canoe, and my parents could afford to take time off work to give me these amazing experiences. As someone who has grown up with these experiences, I now know that someone like me – Middle Eastern, brown, queer – can in fact go camping, even though those spaces are not always as welcoming to me as they are to white people. When I’d go camping with my family, I would rarely see racialized people, let alone openly queer people. As well, the media adds to this. We often see outdoorsy ads targeting white, middle class, able bodied people. The lack of representation of all other groups of people implies that camping and being outdoors is simply not for them, and in turn they may face more mental and physical barriers to interacting with nature. They may be more reluctant to participating in nature interpretation programs and the risk of feeling out of place or not knowing what to do may deter them further.

There is one specific example that comes to mind in relation to this topic. I worked at a camp for kids with disabilities and I saw first-hand how there are barriers that make it harder for disabled individuals to interact with nature. For example, my co-worker who is an amputee and a canoe tripper uses a custom-made paddle and prosthetic to go on trip. She explained to me that typical paddles disable her, but her custom paddle enables her. This shows how privilege plays a role in access to nature as that it is a privilege to simply be able to use a typical canoe paddle. I witnessed how kids with similar challenges saw for the first time that going camping is actually possible as a disabled person. However, sometimes it might be more costly and so your socio-economic status plays a part in whether or not you have access to nature at all. In relation to nature interpretation programs, I have been on maybe one guided hike that was wheelchair accessible.

I could go on and on but I am at my max word count. Overall, there are endless examples of the barriers that exist that may prevent/make it harder for people to access the outdoors, and that in itself shows that privilege plays a large part in nature interpretation.

[jprenvs3000w23]

Hi Edan,

I found your post very enjoyable to read :)

I like that you went into the targeted advertising of outdoor equipment and explicitly stated that it tends to be targeted at white people. I guess as a white person, I feel a little guilty doing so, as if I’m perhaps touting my white privilege, but reading about it from your perspective makes me realize I’m just censoring my thoughts without good reason. I also hadn’t even considered the “able-bodied” people in those advertisements. I just assumed the average person would be more interested in shopping where they see healthy people enjoying themselves, but looking deeper into it, it really is no different than race or gender in this context.

Also, maybe you mentioned it in another post, but I like the fact that you brought up being queer. I grew up in an area that wasn’t so open to being queer, so a lot of my time learning about it has come from living in Guelph the past few years. Meeting a lot of interesting people here who consider themselves queer has furthered my interest in the topic, and it pains me today that this is likely something that may have been expressed back home if it was not looked down upon so heavily.

On the topic of your kids camp work, I envy your experience having worked with people with disabilities and how mind-opening it must have been. I definitely took my privilege for granted growing up and never would have envisioned myself enjoying something like that, but now I look back and see how much I’ve undoubtedly missed.

[jprenvs3000w23]

Risk versus Reward in Interpretation - Boston Man's Nature

I would most certainly consider my positive interactions with nature to be a result of my privileged upbringing.

Growing up in the Boston area, I wasn’t sure whether or not I should consider myself “poor.” Being such a big center of business in North America, it’s easy to take the privilege of growing up in the Boston area for granted. Boston is home to multiple world-renowned post-secondary education institutions, has some of the most competitive national sports teams in multiple sports leagues, and has a bit of everything when it comes to natural features. Cape Cod is a great place to spend the day if you enjoy oceans and beaches, the Appalachian mountains are a great place for a hike if you travel a little west, and in between the two is a rather broad stretch of farmland if you fancy that. For me personally, I got to spend my entire youth there, and I also had loving parents who were willing and able to support me financially throughout it. I didn’t really have much I could complain about, other than weather and traffic like everyone else around Boston. If we define privilege as an advantage we have that was given to us rather than earned through pure merit, then yes, I as a white Boston man with both a US and Canadian passport am privileged.

When I think about my privilege in terms of my relation to nature, I think about the fact that I am a Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) customer. REI is mainly an outdoor store with high-end camping equipment. If you want to have the most comfortable experience doing a backpacking trip with lightweight gear, and you have a higher than average budget to do so, then no place is more superb than REI (although Eastern Mountain Sports is a worthy contender). Every time I shop there, it really does make me feel like a suburban white man, considering the fashion choices they make and the customers I see shopping there with me.

The question I think everyone with a generous amount of privilege should ask themselves is: What should I do with this privilege?

In high school, I was required to complete 80 hours of community service–20 hours per year–in order to walk the podium during graduation. During my first couple years of high school, when I was a bit more entitled and naive than I am today, I had no idea why we would be required to “give back” to the community other than that it made people feel good about themselves for some reason. As I’ve matured over the years, I realize they were trying to get us to recognize how much privilege we had as adolescents in a financially stable and well-educated area. Having an attachment to nature, and an understanding of what privilege I had, I would feel best by somehow making nature accessible to those, who may not have the same kind of privilege I had/have, in a manner similar to what I was able to experience. As a 21-year old, I believe I can accomplish such if I start early and continue with it.

[tbenvs3000w23]

My Ideal Nature Interpreter Experience

Growing up I have been exposed to a variety of environmentalists that deliver information to the public in a fun way. Steve Irwin first comes to mind as someone who always showed his enthusiasm for the environment and all of its creatures. Not only did he possess a deep knowledge and love for all wildlife, but he had a certain charisma and passion that allowed him to catch the interest of many people worldwide. Alongside Steve Irwin, I would credit my love for animals to Chris and Martin Kratt, specifically when they hosted their television show Zoboomafoo. What these people all have in common, aside from their love for animals, is their ability to engage an audience. And while ‘environmental interpreter’ may not be any of their official job titles, they effectively engaged me in the biological world, so I strongly believe their skills overlap.

In tandem with these skills, I think an important skill to have as an environmental interpreter is the ability of storytelling. When trying to engage an audience, It is incredibly beneficial to tell a story that encapsulates information rather than simply spewing facts. The first professional environmental interpreter I can recall talking to would have been when I was around 9, when I was on a camping trip to Killbear Provincial Park. I took a late-night tour with a small group and a tour guide. The tour was a search for owls, we listened for owl calls, and visited a couple of the known nesting sites. This tour guide could have easily read off of a pamphlet of owl facts, or wrote some lazy script, but instead he chose to share his experiences with owls at the park. Throughout his stories, he worked in explanations of the morphological traits of owls, as well as their other habits such as their thrown-up pellets of indigestible materials (which younger me was very fascinated by). These stories not only helped me remember the information, but provided me with fond memories, and an interest in the subject matter.

I believe based on my experience, that my ideal role of environmental interpreter would be working with kids and talking about the environment. I think telling kids exciting stories about the outdoors would be the best way to catch their interest in the field of environmental science. Leading tours at provincial parks would be very exciting not just for them, but for me as well. Although the information I would be presenting in my stories might be broken down into its simplest form, reiterating these points to kids who are hearing it potentially for the first time would feel very rewarding. I’ve considered teaching in the past, and teaching what I love in a place I love being would be an incredible experience.

[jprenvs3000w23]

Hi Thomas! Yet again, you included something I wish I'd mentioned. Great read!

I wanted to comment on the storytelling aspect you wrote about. I’d mentioned having a deep admiration for the thing one should wish to interpret, and I also mentioned my past with podcasts as a way of teaching myself. One thing I should have mentioned, though, is how the storytelling of people’s personal experiences always seems to be the thing that has me in awe of the topic at hand. For example, when considering whether I should have taken part in the university’s field entomology trip, I watched the video they had posted with students talking about their experiences on the trip. That took me from slumped in my chair while I was on the fence about it, to the edge of my seat and eyebrows raised. Upon going on that trip the following semester, I heard even more stories from some amazing entomologists that ended up driving me in the direction of ecological studies that I’ve been pointed to today.

I also just generally find that the most interesting people to me tend to have a great sense of storytelling. My grandfather, for example, could go on for hours about topics that weren’t really all that interesting to begin with, but the way he went about it was extremely engaging and it didn’t matter all that much what it was he was talking about. I feel like that may be an underestimated aspect maybe not just of interpretation, but teaching in general.

[jprenvs3000w23]

Teaching Learners - Ants & Ears

As introduced by my first post, I have made myself into someone who deeply appreciates forests and mountains in particular within nature, through both incidental and intentional exploration. I believe that, in addition to setting me up with a sense of place, exploration of mountains and forests has helped me develop my perspective on nature, which I feel is a key element in being able to interpret it. Without a firsthand look at nature, I would not have anything meaningful to derive from it, and I would be a rather poor interpreter as a result. However, as I have learned through activities such as music and athletics, there is no way to escape practice as a means to excelling in something. Understanding nature is no different. 

I feel that in order to interpret something unique and meaningful about nature, one must practice their understanding of nature–whether that be through academic studies, independent studies, or even whimsically wandering about, one ultimately needs to spend a fair bit of time in nature. For me, that has more recently come in the form of taking a closer look at the small invertebrates scattered throughout the landscape. Of these invertebrates, ants have really caught my eye as something quite interesting, and I believe they are the lens that I would like to continue looking at nature through. Ants are a family of invertebrates that I find most relatable: they are social, they are combative when necessary, and there is such a broad diversity of them that we do not yet have them most accurately categorized. Their diversity partly comes from their success throughout the world; they are one of the more dominant taxa–some species of jumping spiders even mimic them!

I’ve been spending a couple hours out of every week identifying different genera of ants in Dr. Steve Marshall’s lab, and something I tend to think about as many of my peers do, is what I will be doing with myself after I receive a bachelor's degree. Regardless of my professional life, I definitely want to work with children. Not only is there a lot to learn about ants, but I feel like there’s a lot to learn from ants, of which we can teach to children. Podcasts have always been my preferred way to learn about society through different lenses. In high school, these podcasts came through the lens of the history and culture of skateboarding, as I found it absolutely fascinating. Perhaps that comes from my strong auditory sense of learning; in grade school, I was always noted as doing well despite not seeming to pay attention as much as other students. I couldn’t explain this to teachers as well as I can now, but I was ultimately not using my eyes as much as my ears. Perhaps podcasting about ants will be my way of interpreting nature in a meaningful way to children who lean heavily on their auditory senses as I did.