This week brings us to our final blog post of the semester. I have to admit I was not really sure what to expect when I enrolled in this course, but I definitely enjoyed it much more than I originally thought. Blogging is something that I have never really done much of before, so when I first saw how many marks our blogs were worth I was intimidated. However, it did not take very long to learn how to blog and they kept getting easier every week. I am excited to share my final thoughts about what I have learned about being a nature interpreter.
I would like to start this blog off by sharing a quote from the textbook that really relates to this week's blog prompt.
"Interpreters help people to develop an ethical sense of their place and role in the world. Interpreters offer understanding and appreciation of our place and role in the world. They give people facts and experiences so they care enough to help make the story turn out right” (Beck et al., 2018, p. 54).
This quote is saying that in order for an interpreter to help others develop a sense of place in nature, they first need to develop their own. Throughout this course, I really feel like I have developed as a nature interpreter and I would like to use the remainder of the blog to discuss how this course has helped my development.
I would like to talk about my beliefs when it comes to being a nature interpreter. I think that my main goals and responsibilities as a nature interpreter would be to engage, educate, and connect with my audience.
Personally, I think that the most important responsibility an interpreter has is to engage their audience with nature. A quote from our course textbook says it best, “People are out for recreation and need restful, intellectual visions, and not dull, dry facts, rules, and manuals” (Mills, 1920)". This quote is saying that the reason people come out into nature is for a break from their everyday life activities, so they do not just want boring dry facts, they want to be excited about what they are learning. I am fortunate enough that throughout my life I have gone on many different family vacations. On these vacations, we would often partake in day excursions and this gave me the chance to experience many different interpreters. The best interpreters were always knowledgeable, funny, passionate, and very interactive. They did not just act like it was a job, they would show true love for what they are doing and this would always make my family and I love it that much too.
I also believe that educating my audience is one of my biggest responsibilities as a nature interpreter. I personally feel like I have a very strong connection with nature and I have always felt the need to do whatever I can to help protect it. Expressing my feelings about how I feel about nature with my audience would hopefully help to educate them about environmental issues and also inspire them with things they can do to help. I feel like this is especially important if the audience is kids because they may be the generation that has the chance to reestablish a healthy relationship with nature and stop the loss of biodiversity. I would like to use a personal experience as an example. When my family went to Costa Rica we did a day excursion to go snorkeling. The interpreters were very knowledgeable, but they did not just feed us dull facts. They educated us about the importance of our ocean ecosystems by sharing feelings instead of facts.
Connecting my audience is also an essential responsibility as a nature interpreter. It’s one thing to engage and educate your audience, but if they do not feel connected to the topic are they even going to care? With so many people losing touch with the natural world an interpreter needs to connect people with nature. This is not done through sharing dull facts with the audience, but by allowing them to develop a deep personal connection with nature and making them understand why nature is so important to everyone in the world.
The final thing I would like to talk about is how a nature interpreter needs to know their audience. In unit 2 of this course, we learned about the different learning styles an individual may have and how that affects nature interpretation. The three different styles we learned about were, auditory, visual, and tactile learners. Therefore, as an interpreter, I would make sure to include all of these styles so everyone in the audience is able to learn in their own way. We also learned in unit 3 how privilege plays a role in nature interpretation. In this unit, we learned about “invisible backpacks” and how not everyone is equally privileged. Someone who is very privileged is more likely to be connected with nature than someone who is not as privileged because of the opportunities they have. This is why as a nature interpreter I will do my best to be accessible to everyone and to make sure everyone has a similar experience regardless of how privileged they are.
In conclusion, this class had many different benefits for me. One benefit I did not expect was how educating people about nature has reminded me how much I care about the natural world.
Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018). Interpreting cultural and natural heritage : for a better world. Sagamore Venture.