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
This is a national park topic about which I get pretty excited. Thanks for covering it, Kurt!
Technology (be it websites, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, iPhone and iPad applications, and etceteras) and real-life interactions (via visitor centers, interpretive programs, the conversations that result from roving rangers, and etceteras) are absolutely inclusive of each other. The National Park Service has given every indication, both on the service-wide level and on a park-to-park basis, that it will continue to embrace this mutual inclusion, as well as new opportunities to connect with visitors that present themselves in the future.
This has been the case in national parks before the technology boat started floating to shore. The Smokies study referred to in this article shows that less than 20% of folks in the Smokies at a given time attend a formal interpretive program. This statistic is not unlike similar studies that have been conducted in national parks throughout the service. That this, the formal interpretive program is meaningful to a select demographic of folks visiting our national parks. This kind of statistic is what has and is inspiring a diversification of national park interpretive programming to that which extends beyond the formal interpretive program to Spanish interpretation, roving interpretation, staffed interpretation stations at popular user areas, and etceteras. That is, before there was stuff like computers, the National Park Service was already adapting its ways to meet the changing needs of its visitors.
I hear a fair bit of polarization talk in the comments here, that the options for connecting with visitors in national parks are either/or/this only/that only. Anyone who has spent a season serving as an interpretive ranger in a national park probably cringes at the thought of such polarization. The idea behind connecting with people is, as always, to meet every kind of visitor where they are. Doing this means that the National Park Service works to do so in always-evolving ways.
It's unfair for those of us who take a traditional stance toward the way we interact with a national park to judge folks who use technology to do so. That a person is on a trail with their iPhone is perfectly acceptable, y'all! Many birders I know today key out birds using Audubon's iPhone application, as just one example of the on-trail usefulness of technology.
And, we who work best with the most modern forms of technology, we cannot judge those who want to talk to a real-life ranger to get the scoop on a national park. Some folks want their information from the living, breathing source!
Great discussion! I think the NPS needs to adopt a rule that they use some sot of Parkitecture that cell towers need to blend in to their surroundings. I have seen places in Colorado where the cell phone towers looked like Pine Trees. If they adopt a policy that reviewed placement and style of each tower, they could minimalize most unsightly views. New Technology reaches out to the younger generation more so than retired set; my kids are way more advanced with their cell phone capabilities than I am. Guide books, maps, trail and road closures and google are all things that can enhance my trips(all on my phone). They could easily put bar codes on signs for links to more info (My phone has a bar code reader) These are not things in the future, they are now. If those in charge are living in the past, maybe we need some younger people working for the NPS. I am all for keeping the visitors center. I enjoy the history, dispays, ranger talks etc... Do not get rid of them, but just enhance them. They need to help the old timer with lots of info...but they can help the wired people with where the info can be had and they can go back to helping the unwired.
Dave Crowl
About that Grand Canyon audio tour sign: it's along the South Rim in the area where most of the nonhiking tourists take their photos before tracking down lunch, not on the hiking trails below the rim.
This speaks to another issue -- there are those of us who are hard-core Park users, and then there's the majority of visitors. Technology will most enhance the visits of those who never go off the beaten path, who arrive via bus, who plan to visit 6 Parks in 7 days, etc. Anything that makes the Parks more intriguing to that crowd, and encourages them to stay longer, learn more, and return, is a plus in my book.
Park visitors have differing perspectives, interests, and needs. If technology makes any group or groups of visitors appreciate the Parks more, it helps meet the greater goal of expanding their appreciation of the importance of the NPS and the Parks in our culture.
I love all the new technology despite the fact that I don't have a cell phone for personal reasons ( I worked on developing the stuff and got quite sick of it). However, I download podcasts, videos, audio tours and whatever I can find for the parks I am interested in. I visit many parks via their webcams and love it. Most of my bookmarks are for parks and associated information.
There is at least one park who has either installed or plans to install webcams outside the normal visitor area - but they aren't going to let the public view them. I really resent this. Number one, I helped pay for them. Number two, I can't visit the parks as often as I would like and really enjoy viewing them.
When I do get to physically visit a park I rely on maps and books for getting around - but I have already made my plans and done my research via the internet. The day will soon be here when I can't physically visit parks anymore. I hope that I will always be able to visit via the net.
I'm with those who point out that this is not an either/or issue ... use technology appropriately, use personal services appropriately. I have to smile at the comment somewhere above about leaving technology out of the park but preserving visitor centers ... visitor centers are already a mediation of the park experience, with exhibits, books, videos, etc. It's just that we're comfortable with them and many of us are not so comfortable with digital technology. And part of what we're comfortable with is a linear way of telling a story ... start the exhibit here, open the book to the front, come in at the beginning of the video, all of which have been linearly designed by their creators. The Internet allows user-directed, random-access, multi-directional access to information and there's a growing population of young people who are accustomed to gathering their information that way ... their way, not our way.
Most of all, I think we should use electronic resources as supplements to the on-site experience, either replacing it for the many who will never get to a site or providing pre- and post-visit information to those who do visit. Plus, like the books on the shelves in the bookstore, this is a way to add more dimensions to the value of the park's resources ... no visitor ever gets ALL the stories a park has to offer.
Finally, online information, whether accessed in the park or a thousand miles away, is an inexpensive way of letting the public understand the importance of the park's resources ... building a constituency to support the preservation of those resources.
It could be that information is over rated! REAL experiences are under rated ...and even to be avoided, it would seem. Let's give both the attention they deserve and let humbling be a part of the experience:). I'm with REAL INTERACTIVE on this.
Some results are better looking than others:
I understand that the majority of phone towers at NPS sites are disguised as trees. However - it gets somewhat complicated. I remember when there was a proposal to put a tower near Grant Grove at Kings Canyon NP, there was resistance. I think part of the reason was to serve the inholding community of Wilsonia. The NPS even put up a fight when there were proposals to put up a phone tower in Gardiner, Montana. That's a place with real people living ordinary lives, and who might actually want decent cell phone coverage. I thought that the reason given for NPS opposition was the proximity to the Roosevelt Arch entrance. Of course I recall one could stand at the Arch and see the electronic scoreboard at Gardiner High school.
Excellent topic! I think an important part of this conversation is the youth. These are the digital natives; the young adults who are, for better or for worse, growing up in a world in which they are always connected via the Internet and have multiple devices to interface with (i.e. laptop, smartphone, iPod, etc.). They experience much of their world and life via technology.
If the national parks are to be relevant in the minds of the youth, NPS must develop a better means to interface with them, using the mediums which the youth are most comfortable with. This by no means diminishes the need for children to "unplug" and to feel-see-and-experience the natural beauty the parks have to offer, however the "bridge" for these experiences with the youth is increasingly found in the palm of their hands.