Technological advances have made it relatively easy to trace wildlife habitats across the National Park System, to track reclusive wolverines, and even to recruit moose into the study of climate change.
But how much should the National Park Service rely on technology to connect visitors to the national parks once they reach a park?
That's a highly relevant question not only in light of the growing number of "apps" that are turning smartphones into pocket guidebooks, but especially in the wake of a recent address Park Service Director Jon Jarvis gave to architectural students at the University of Virginia. It was a talk, coincidentally enough, that came on the heels of a Park Service study into "live interpretation" in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
In discussing the role of landscape architecture and architectural design in national parks with the students, Director Jarvis raised the question of how useful and pertinent visitor centers, with their shelves of guidebooks, maps, and park memorabilia, rangers and volunteers ready to answer questions, and orientation films, are in the 21st century.
“We have long believed that the visitor center was
the gateway to the park; the first stop to learn all that the park had
to offer – where to go and what to see," he said.
"But maybe that’s not necessarily the case today," went on a Park Service release that described the director's talk.
“Today’s visitors are more technologically attuned than ever before. Many people – and not just those under 30 – plan their visits online, using the National Park Service’s website and other sources to find interactive maps, watch videos of the trails they will hike, listen to podcasts about the wildlife they will encounter, and study online exhibits on the history of the place," said Director Jarvis. “They download everything they need to iPhones, iPads, Droid, devices that also tell them where they are and where they want to be, and allow them to share the experience in real time with friends and family anywhere on the planet.”
While the director, according to the release, wasn't offering a euology for visitor centers, he did wonder if the current model makes sense in terms of connecting rangers face-to-face with visitors.
“The visitor center as we know it today was born in the 1950s,” he said. “After World War II, returning U.S. soldiers found a patriotic country with a strong sense of national identity. America had prosperity, cars, and a new interstate highway system. Veterans saw in the national parks their heritage and their birthright; the national parks saw a surge in visitation. We had a building boom in national parks called Mission 66 to meet demands of unprecedented visitor numbers.”
The director did not describe the visitor center of the future, leaving that issue dangling. However, in the news release he sounded convinced that the Internet is one of, if not the, key to connecting people to parks.
Today the National Park Service is five years away from its 100th anniversary and U.S. soldiers are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. When they return home they experience the same desire to visit these powerful American shrines.
“While we don’t have a new federal highway system, we do have the Internet, which may bring us closer together than our father’s Chevy ever could,” Jarvis said. “America remains a prosperous nation, but the demands on our federal budget are many, so the likelihood of an ambitious national park building program are dim, especially in light of our now $10 billion maintenance backlog."
Perhaps it is time to reassess some long-held assumptions, Jarvis said
Ironically, a few months before Director Jarvis talked about technological advances that make it easy for visitors to get park information without meeting a ranger, a study published in PARKScience, a Park Service publication that integrates "research and resource management in the national parks," underscored the value of human connections between rangers and visitors.
Using interpretive ranger programs at Great Smoky as a case study, the authors of The Benefits of Live Interpretive Programs to Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- Marc J. Stern, Robert B. Powell, and Cathleen Cook -- noted that such programs:
...help to reveal to park visitors the deeper meanings associated with parks’ cultural and natural resource. They can enhance visitors’ enjoyment by providing entertaining experiences or better orientation to the available sights, resources, and activities. They can effect emotional connections to landscapes, to animal or plant life, and to the history being interpreted. They can influence visitors’ attitudes to the park they are visiting, toward the National Park Service, or toward an ecosystem, a historical event, a social movement, or the environment or nature in general. Research and theory also suggest that interpretation can influence visitors’ behaviors both during their visits and after they have left the park.
According to the article, which was published in February, more than 80 percent of the visitors who responded to a survey said ranger-led tours and programs "were important to the mission of the National Park Service."
More significantly, in light of the Park Service's desire to connect visitors to the parks and make them more aware of environmental systems and threats to them, the study also found that "(N)early 90% of respondents reported that attending a ranger-led program increased their appreciation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the National Park Service. More than 60% of respondents indicated that their awareness of environmental issues and this country’s cultural heritage increased."
(As a side note, the survey conducted for this research indicated that a greater percentage of park visitors -- more than 26 percent -- attend ranger-led programs than was previously thought (roughly 9 percent).)
So what are we to think?
Is today's smartphone technology as vital to the future of the national parks as are on-the-ground, walking and talking rangers?
Perhaps before we can definitively answer that question another study is required, one that examines the habits of smartphone visitors once they pass through a park's entrance gates.
Comments
I don't accept the either/or construct but prefer a mix. Pre-trip research is an obvious use, but I'd love to see a few in-park applications. Up-to-the-minute weather updates are crucial for those of us going on lengthy hikes, for example, especially when we use secondary or tertiary trails. And when taking off on a desert hike at 7 a.m. -- well before the visitor center opens -- I'd like to be able to check some kind of device to see if water is still available at the rest stops or if I need to carry more of my own. Are there unexpected road closures? Trail closures? Animal sightings that affect Park use? I've encountered all of these things at Parks, and they weren't all on the newspapers we get when we enter the Park. Info on the "state of the park at this moment" should be available at kiosks in or just outside buildings that people are likely to encounter as they use the Park away from the visitor centers and during the hours that the centers are closed. This does not necessarily mean more cell towers and the like, it means making a free info system available where there is already electricity.
The ranger talks and the other information we can get from rangers greatly enhance visits to Parks. This is not mutually exclusive with tech, but technology is a tool and no substitute for human judgment. I'll give another example: in 2009, we took my then-76-year-old mother to Yellowstone. Mom is in good shape for her age, but she's afraid of falling. So we would go to the visitor centers and talk to the rangers about what a fit-but-not-athletic 76-year-old who's afraid of scree but not much else could do in the way of a 3-hour hike. The rangers talked to Mom for a moment, then gave us suggestions. As a result, we went on some great hikes and Mom had a wonderful time. Could a computer help us in the same way? Possibly, but it would be too formulaic IMO.
What Jarvis needs to do is sit down for an extended period of time with some of his 20-something rangers and pick their brains. The "technology generation" will likely have some great ideas the rest of us could never conceive of.
Well said, Lee.
As someone working with the NPS' websites and social media, I still would rather talk to a person at the visitor center then sit in the parking lot watching a podcast. I totally agree wih the earlier statements that the internet is a great resource for research ahead of time. When I reach the park or historic site, talking to a human and seeing a program is a much more personal connection.
Planning your trip is one thing, executing it safely and successfully is a completely differrent animal. If people get even the slightest notion that their techno-prowess is going to save them once "on the trail" and removed from the relative safety of the immediate vicinity of the visitor's center you had better start expanding the number of SAR units across the system. That's why I'm still and always will remain vehemently against the availabilty of gadgets within park boundries. People lose whatever minimal sense they came with and believe that some beacon exists to salvage a poorly planned or executed (or just plain boneheaded) stroll into nature. The parks are truly a wonderland but should NEVER be treated with anything less than the utmost in respect, lest evil befall ye. And it will. Happens every year. Too many times. And mostly due to carelessness, over-confidence and just plain poor judgement. All of which are nothing but encouraged by the use of most hand-held technology in the parks. Quite certainly there are good uses of specific program formats, including descriptions of flora and fauna and GENERAL trail information. But it just appears that people don't understand the limitations that are inherent to technology and thus they expect (even rely upon) their gadgets to supercede the use of common sense and observation that are required while even casually visiting our park system.
Case in point......during the past 5 or so years you wouldn't even begin to believe the number of idiots I've encountered texting (or maybe emailing, whatever) while hiking. If your personal contacts are that important, stay home. Or at the very least have the decency not to endanger the rest of us with your ignorant behaviors. Or better yet, just get it over with quickly and fall off the trail at the top, not half-way down.
Nothing beats a live NPS ranger giving a live talk outside in the National Park. They are the best most lively talks - professors (and I was one of them) could learn from them. Rangers should be teaching education courses.
Still the Park website are very informative. I remember that before the web when I used to write a letter to each park I wanted to visit for a park brochure and any other information I could wring out of them. It's not difficult now to come prepared with some information about the park and not ask the perennial question.
"What is there to do around here?"
Danny Bernstein
www.hikertohiker.com
This sign popped up on the South Rim of Grand Canyon NP about the same time the most "interactive and meaningful " experience to visitors of the Park was diminished by 75%. Like so many things today, we're headed in the wrong direction and a correction is needed, I believe.
These devices augment the NPS experience for many visitors, especially those who are considered part of the digital native generation (those born after 1996 who do not know a world without the Internet). Just as you can choose to skip the park film and go for a hike, you can choose to turn off your cell phone. For many, the value and convenience of checking out weather, trail conditions, and names of wildflowers through their smartphone is a great way to experience and care for a place more deeply. If the NPS is to remain relevant, it needs to welcome the digital native generation through the tools it is comfortable with. If an interactive map and brochure makes an experience more rich and encourages someone to share this experience through photos posted on Facebook, why would the NPS shy away from this?
Question, Ranger 01101011100: For some of that data to be viewed -- weather reports, trail and stream conditions -- wouldn't a cellphone signal be required? And if so, will the NPS soon be permitting more cell towers throughout parks to ensure signals are available in areas currently off the grid?