Interpretation and Education Renaissance Action Plan Excerpts

Haleakala National Park, Sliding Sands Trail, Photo by Amy Seidman ©

National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior Interpretation and Education Program

Standards • Access • Technology • Partnerships • Evaluation

1.0 Develop Core Operating Standards and Measures for Delivering
Quality Interpretation and Education Programs

2.0 Provide Staffing and Operating Resources Necessary to Achieve Program Standards

3.0 Expand Interpretation and Education Partner Training and Credentialing Program

4.0 Adopt a Program of Evaluation to Achieve Greater Accountability and Program Improvement in Interpretation and Education

5.0 Improve Interpretive Media to Meet Twenty-First Century Standards

6.0 Encourage and Adopt Innovation in Interpretive and Educational Technology

7.0 Design Interpretation and Education Programs to Serve All

8.0 Enable Interpretation and Education Partners to Effectively Support the NPS Education Mission

9.0 Create and Support Organizational Change

Action Plan

The care of rivers is not a question of rivers, but of the human heart.
—Tanaka Shozo, Nineteenth-Century Conservationist

The National Park Service stewards more than the places, systems, and objects core to the heritage of the United States. The National Park Service also cares for intangible meanings—beauty, health, wonder, democracy, and struggle inherent in the nation. Abraham Lincoln knew how the tangible and the intangible linked together. When Lincoln was a U.S. congressman in 1848, he visited Niagara Falls. Lincoln recognized the falls themselves were simply water falling over rock. “There is no mystery about the thing itself. Every effect is just such as intelligent man knowing the causes, would anticipate, without it.” Yet Lincoln knew Niagara also contained the intangible. “It calls up the indefinite past . . . Contemporary with the whole race of men, and older than the first man, Niagara is strong, and fresh today as ten thousand years ago . . . In that long—long time, never still for a single moment. Never dried, never froze, never slept, never rested.” So too does the tangible provide access to the intangible in National Parks.

At Gettysburg, in November 1863, Lincoln explained the connection between the national cemetery he was dedicating, and the intangible meanings it would represent. “We can not dedicate —we can not consecrate—we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated far above our poor power to add or detract.” The meanings of bravery, sacrifice, and freedom transcended the place. Yet the battlefield, Lincoln knew, has tremendous importance as evidence of what happened there and as an icon providing access to those meanings. “That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Lincoln was an interpreter. He knew that the tangible resource had to link to its intangible meanings.

Intangible meanings are the engines that originally created national parks and continue to foster their stewardship. To preserve only the tangible is to abrogate the power of the parks. ■ Without our access to meanings, the Martin Luther King home is an old house ripe for urban renewal.

■ Without our access to meanings, wolves in Yellowstone would just be the way things used to be.

■ Without our access to meanings, the Liberty Bell would be a cracked piece of alloy metal sitting in the wrong place.

■ Without our access to meanings, invasive plants would be another way to see green.

Interpretation and education are fundamental National Park Service activities designed specifically to help people understand and identify with the intangible meanings inherent in the National Park System.

Caring for the tangible and intangible in the twenty-first century presents new challenges. Since 1950 our population has grown from 152 million to 300 million people and is predicted to double by 2050. In spite of this, recreational visits to national parks have remained almost constant since 1990 and we have severely reduced the workforce assigned to serve park visitors. Approximately 75 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban and suburban areas. People are becoming increasingly separated from the natural landscape and children are often more inclined to play indoors than go outside. Minority groups represent an ever growing place in the population—we are becoming a minority majority nation. However, park visitation and park staff do not reflect the face of America. Advances in technology have changed the way Americans communicate, find community, learn and think—yet NPS interpretive media are outdated by an average of 20 years. The work of conservation has changed as well. It is impossible to build walls around ecosystems and expect them to survive. The very existence of parks depends on an American public who values their collective natural and cultural heritage and wants to preserve it. Yet many fear society is becoming less civically engaged, less committed to community, shared values, and an understanding of the lessons of the past.

Now is the time to take action, laying the groundwork for an Interpretation and Education Renaissance as we approach the centennial milestone of the National Park Service. This Action Plan recommends a renewed focus and change in the following five areas of Interpretation and Education:

Engage People to Make Enduring Connections to America’s Special Places: In order to connect all Americans to the recreational, educational, and inspirational power of national parks, we must equip interpreters and educators with the knowledge, skills, and approaches necessary for community and civic engagement for the whole of America. This must include ethnic, socioeconomic, and disabled groups that have, for a variety of reasons, not been well connected to national parks in the past. Programs must be created in collaboration with communities and partners rather than for them.

Use New Technologies: Technology offers new and tremendous opportunities—not to replace national park experiences, but to make intangible meanings available in ways never before imagined. To remain relevant to today’s visitor, the NPS must be a leader in the use of technology applied to informal learning.

Embrace Interpretation and Education Partners: As many as 70,000 volunteers, concessioners, and other partners provide interpretive services. The NPS ranger must increasingly facilitate partners in the attainment of excellence.

Develop and Implement Professional Standards: In the last decade, the NPS has begun to develop professional standards, but their use has been inconsistent. Now is the time to apply these standards to all who deliver interpretation and education services.

Create a Culture of Evaluation: We have very little scientifically valid information about the direct outcomes and impact of interpretation and education programs. Evaluation must become an integral part of program design and delivery to ensure ongoing program improvement, effectiveness, and efficiency.

Investing in and expanding the NPS Interpretation and Education Program draws on the legacy of Stephen T. Mather and Horace Albright. These early leaders knew the National Park Service could not preserve parks alone. It is only the larger community and society who can preserve that heritage. This renaissance in Interpretation and Education will serve millions of additional visitors, helping Americans engage with relevant meanings, and come to care about parks so that they might support and care for parks.

Click to down load the entire National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Interpretation and Education Program

Partnerships

Currently more than 70,000 partners, concessioners, volunteers, and park staff from other divisions provide interpretive services (the interpretive ranger provides less than 10 percent of direct services). The National Park Service should fully embrace and support these partners in a collaborative effort to provide quality programs that reach broader audiences. To enable greater collaboration, the role of the interpretive park ranger must evolve to include facilitating partnerships and sharing standards and best practices. Accomplishing the following tasks will enable and encourage more Americans to actively participate in the stewardship of the nation’s heritage.