Welcome to the Final Show
This course has really opened my eyes to the eyes of interpretation in nature. Having the ability and opportunity to read about how nature has raised all of my classmates has helped me to reflect on how it raised me and all the things I missed about being in touch with nature. As an interpreter, I see myself as someone who wants to pull on their own experiences and teach through memories, rather than textbook materials. I’ve always been a firm believer of the notion that our impact on the environment is taking away from our children and grandchildren. As an interpreter, I think it is important to emphasize how our behaviour today is going to still be impacting the state of the environment for future generations; it doesn’t just go away once we are gone. With that being said, I guess my personal ethic as I develop as a nature interpreter is just a promise to myself that I will spread awareness and educate as many people as I can about our impacts so that my children and grandchildren can have a childhood like mine, filled with trees, birds, bugs, and any living thing I could get my hands on.
As this is the last blog post for this class, I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on some of my experiences as a nature interpreter and how I’ve practiced my beliefs as an interpreter to help better my community for the future. All of these activities were made possible because of people in my community I looked up to as teachers and nature interpreters themselves. Each of these experiences helped me grow into the interpreter I am today and provided me with the tools to grow and the knowledge I need to pass along the passion for environmental conservation.
Wetland Habitat Restoration - Alongside the Essex Region Conservation Authority (ERCA) and my highschool’s EcoTeam, I assisted in transforming an abandoned marina back into a fully functioning wetland.
Pollinator Garden Construction - planned and organized a pollinator garden “planting day” to attract different insects and pollinator species
TD Tree Days - every year I would partner with TD Bank and the Caldwell First Nations people for reforestation projects around Essex County
Food Waste and Climate Change presenter/advocate - after researching and collecting information on how food waste contributes to climate change, I delivered presentations to schools in my area as well as virtually to former Minister of the Environment for Climate Change for Canada Catherine McKenna for the Climate Change summit in Paris. This experience gave me the opportunity to spread awareness, information, and solutions we can implement into our everyday lives to help the cause and slow the effects of climate change. This was also a great experience as the presentations allowed me to spread my concerns and knowledge to a broader scale than just my community.
These experiences helped me to understand my responsibilities as an interpreter. They are as follows:
First: Understanding and adapting to different learning styles. Throughout planning the Pollinator garden and delivering the Food Waste presentation, it was important to consider the different learning styles of my audience to ensure they gained the most they could out of the event/presentation. This is an important skill for me as an interpreter to have because in different environments you need to pull on different styles. The Pollinator garden for example was very hands-on so I utilized the ability to teach through demonstration rather than simply verbal instructions.
Second: To educate honestly and passionately. It is one of my beliefs that when trying to explain the severity of issues like climate change (as an example), that sugar coating information is part of the reason why a lot of people don’t take environmental issues seriously. To make substantial change, people need to know the truth, so I believe it is my responsibility as a nature interpreter to make it clear how our actions impact our future and how we need change sooner than later.
My suitable approaches:
To play on my strengths, I think my most suitable approaches as an interpreter would have to be different types of visuals, as well as hands-on experiences. I would use visuals like photos and videos to (a) accommodate visual learners, and (b) provide context to concepts rather than just lecturing for long periods of time. Educational videos also allow for a change in pace from the main content/presenter which can be beneficial for different learners. After completing my undergrad, I have thought about being an Environmental Outreach Coordinator since I love sharing my passion for the environment. I am a very hands-on learner myself and so I think utilizing this skill of demonstrations and experiential learning for teaching will help me pass on my passion.
As nature has always been at the forefront of my personal endeavours, each day I wake up with the intention to do better. Whether it be for the world and the tangible ideal or nature, or the way I perceive nature. I hold an abundance of awareness that translates towards my actions each day. Whilst I go on walks outside, or discern certain ideals from the media, I make sure my actions translate to my core feelings towards helping this earth. I recognize the importance of trees as they provide the world with breath. I utilize my ability to focus on fragments of debris to make sure our earth and our surroundings are clean, like how it should be, before the toxins and pollution turned the vibrant blue sky grey. Each day, I wake up with the intent to do better for this world, and I can do this by being the interpreter I know I can be through what I’ve learned in school and in the field.
Hi Chloe!
You made some great points in your post! I really enjoyed reading about your personal experiences with nature conservation; the food waste and climate change advocate position sounds so cool!
I feel especially strongly about your responsibility to educate honestly and passionately. I’ve honestly never thought about the fact that maybe the reason people don’t take environmental issues seriously is because they feel as though experts/scientists sugar coat information. That is such an interesting point, but I definitely do agree now that I’ve had time to reflect on it. I think many people have a natural distrust of scientists and science in general, so I do agree that sugar coating information regarding environmental issues could be seen as somewhat “deceitful” on behalf of the scientific community, leading to further distrust. To add to this, and as an example, policymakers usually just take what the scientists say at face value when they are told information about things such as climate change (as they can’t know what is true or false themselves), so if the scientists are trying to make it not sound as bad as it possibly could be, then it is unlikely that we would ever seen any legitimate or significant changes in policy.
It is also interesting, as it seems as though many people try to push the precautionary principle as being something that we should be operating under based on current climate projections, and yet still there is no significant change being made to policy that is operating under that paradigm. It is something I hear about a lot but not see a lot, so maybe it could just be a disconnect between how the public thinks we should be dealing with climate change and how scientists and policymakers are actually dealing with it. Still, I do agree that a lot of the time people don’t take environmental issues seriously is due to the fact that there is largely a miscommunication between what we say is happening and what is actually happening. Very insightful observation!
You’ve written a great post this week! I’m glad I came across it, as it truly did allow me to consider a viewpoint I never previously had!
Good luck on your exams!
Lauryn




















