The Challenge of Communicating Nature Information to the General Public

By Mike Dennison

Abstract

A major challenge facing organizations who run natural areas such as parks is how to deliver nature information to visitors in a timely and cost-effective manner. This is made especially difficult in these times of budget constraints and staff shortages. It is not helped by the fact that most visitors know little about nature and require a lot of help.

Most visitors to natural areas are non-specialists; we use the "family of four" as an example. They are motivated to visit a park but may have little natural history expertise. They likely visit a natural area perhaps once or twice a year, and their visit probably lasts an hour or two at most.

As naturalists know, it takes much more than simply walking a trail to find and identify species along the way. Chances are, then, that unless the casual user gets help, they will see little of interest on a hike and will learn even less.

The "family of four" --- a personal experience In my capacity as a nature education specialist, I have given considerable thought over the years to the problem of how to engage people with a casual interest in nature and make their visits to a park a rewarding experience, and one which leads to a deeper interest in nature. A defining moment for me came a few years ago when my wife and I visited a small conservation area near Windsor, Ontario. This experience convinced me of the need for a radically different way of communicating natural history information to the general public who visit natural areas. We had attended a Federation of Ontario Naturalists conference in Windsor and, en-route home, stopped at the park, which was well-known as a migratory bird staging area and an important wetland. We paid the $7 entrance fee, which got us a parking spot, access to public washrooms and the trails. There were no brochures---the extent of the information about what we might see was a bird checklist posted on the building. There were no interpretive staff present so we were on our own. Fortunately the park layout was simple, and the trail circling the marsh well marked. We set out with binoculars and camera. Although trained as a biologist, I would hardly consider myself an expert in Ontario natural history, but together with my wife, who is an excellent naturalist, we managed to find and identify a diverse array of plants and animals as we circled the marsh. The party that followed us was not as lucky. The family of four wandered about 150 metres along the trail before turning around and heading out. Although I did not talk to them, I think I know what happened. Without any help by way of interpretation, the marsh probably looked much the same everywhere. While we had stopped at a milkweed patch and looked for Monarch caterpillars which we found under the leaves, the family had walked past unsuspecting. The weird calls emanating from deep in the cattail marsh told us that there were rails living there, but meant little to the family. The waterfowl were hard to miss but probably all looked like ducks to this family, when in fact there was a diverse mix of cormorants, grebes, terns and ducks. I felt sorry for the family. They had probably driven half an hour to get to the park, had paid their entrance fee and then struck out boldly, coercing the kids into following along. What to us appeared to be a fascinating marsh full of weird and wonderful sights, probably looked like a muddy pond with a few ducks in it to this family. Not knowing where to look, or what to look for, how could they be expected to experience the hidden rewards of nature? What they needed was a guide---but I realized that this was not practical given the small size of the park and its, no-doubt modest, budget. More troubling was the possibility that they would never bother to return to this park, and perhaps any park. Had we just lost a potential group of supporters for natural areas? But then why would we expect them to support the park given the miserable experience they had just had? At best, we could hope that they were sanguine about the experience, resigned to the fact that this park had no money, and so they should not expect to get help finding things. Worse still, if they realized what I knew---that in fact a wealth of useful information about the place already existed, could be packaged up and delivered to them cheaply, and which would enrich their visit immensely---they would have been justifiably angry. The image of the family pausing on the trail, lost for what to do and look at, then traipsing back to the car after only 5 minutes at the park, remains with me as a clear reminder of what we are trying to fix.

Only at a few parks, and at certain times, is there a real person guiding the visitors along the trail, so we are left with having to provide users with published information. For the casual user, information about common and distinctive species is needed, not information on rarer species which they are very unlikely to encounter. While there is a wealth of published information about the common species for most regions, how do we get it to our family of four?

Much of the information that visitors might want is not readily available to visitors to parks, for a variety of reasons. It is in the wrong format, is too expensive, or is not easily available.

Take fieldguides as an example. First, the family of four doesn't own a field guide, let alone the set they would need for a trail guide. Second, even with one, chances are they would be confused and intimidated.

The brown blur that looks like a sparrow could be one of 30 depicted in most field guides. Chances are the rare Californian species would be picked, not the common Ontario species. In short, traditional field guides are no answer---they are too big and intimidating, too expensive for casual visitors, and even misleading in the hands of a novice.

Checklists and atlases are not much help either. While these give distribution and abundance information, they are not suitable as trail guides for parks. It would require the user compiling the list of species for an area from the checklist or atlas, then compiling identification and interpretive information from somewhere else.

Many parks do publish a generic trail guide. But, apart from the map which is essential to find the route, these typically do not have specific enough information on where to find species, or identify them, to be of much use to the visitor.

Trail signage, while helpful, also suffers from the same lack of specificity as the generic brochures. Depending on the time of year, the content on the sign may not be useful to the visitor.

Is there something in between the large field guides and the generic trail guide that can help the family of four? Is it possible to produce a guide which has specific, rich content and yet is still small enough to produce economically and distribute to the casual user?

As any naturalists will tell you, on any given day on any given trail, an observer, particularly a novice, is likely to see just a fraction of the species found in an area. Take wildflowers on a woodland trail in spring in Toronto for example. The Peterson guide to Wildlfowers of Northeastern North America boasts over 1300 species. But the list for Toronto region is closer to 400 species. Now, exclude the rare and inconspicuous species (unlikely to be seen by casual visitors) and the list is down to 160 species. If we select wildflowers of woodland habitat which flower in spring then we are down to about 15 species which can be reliably seen on any woodland trail in Toronto in May. From 1300 candidate species we have narrowed down to a handful which can be easily and thoroughly covered in a small brochure or booklet. And by taking the guess work out of the guide, we have increased the value for the casual observer.

Not only must the content be local and custom, but the publications must be distributed in a variety of ways so that the widest possible audience is served.

The ability to distribute guides over the Web in addition to at the park is essential. A user should be able to go to a Web site before they take a trip and download the necessary guides. Visitors who turn up at the park gate should have the option to purchase a value-added version of the identical guide available on the Web site.

In addition to the traditional print guides, we need guides which can play sounds. Many birds and amphibians are first located and identified by their calls and songs. What about spoken-word tours? Some visitors may prefer to listen to interpretive information while they watch nature. The capability to deliver audio tours based on the same content in print or Web guides is becoming a necessity as parks gear up for non-traditional audiences and disabled access.

So now instead of one guide to all areas in a large region, or one guide encompassing all seasons of a trail, we are looking at the possibility of producing several guides--- season or locale-specific and possibly in different formats. A number of questions can be raised about whether, and how, this can be done. If there are hundreds of different areas to produce guides to, are we talking about hundreds of different pieces of content?

Before we get worried about how much unique content we might need, we should look at how these guides will differ. Each natural area differs in the exact species composition and the relative abundance of those species. What is common at one site might be absent at another. Importantly, however, the inherent characteristics of the species themselves (e.g., appearance, behaviour) do not differ significantly among areas. A male Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) has the red wing epaulets whether it nests in west Toronto or east Toronto. Hence, while we need unique species lists for each trail or season, we only need one description of each species to service any guide for the region.

So, we will need unique checklists for each area/season we propose to produce a guide for. And we will need descriptive and interpretive content (text and images) for each species. Fine, but where do we get this content?

Most, if not all, natural areas likely to be visited by the general public have been inventoried and checklists exist. While these may not have details on all rare species, they will document all the common species---and it is this group that interests us most. Checklists are available from Naturalists clubs, consultant reports, and from individuals.

For all common species, both descriptive and interpretive content is readily available from published sources. In addition, many parks have already created some of their own content which can be used in identification and interpretive guides.

Images, sounds and video of plants and animals are readily available for common species. Many naturalists have slide collections. Images and sounds can be purchased where necessary. For most species, a range of images will be needed to cover key life history stages. For Common Milkweed (Asclepius syriaca), an early summer guide would show the flower, while a fall guide would have to show the seedpod.

Clearly, in order to produce these custom, local guides in multiple formats we need to harness the power of computers to automate the process of publishing as much as possible. If we want to be able to combine and recombine species accounts into different guides, depending on season and habitat, then we need to be able to store the content so that the computer can search and extract content easily.

A key element to the management of nature content for publishing is the separation of style from content. For any given set of guides---take for example a set of wildlflower brochures for spring, summer and fall for an area---it is the content that varies, and not the style of each brochure. So, by storing the content in digital format separate from the style instructions for a document, we can search and compile the content efficiently, then integrate the style in a consistent manner. This streamlines the process of document creation tremendously.

For more details on content management systems for nature guides, please see About Guides-on-Demand (Dennison and Lynch, 2002). An online version is available at http://www.hopscotch.ca/guides-on-demand/about.html.

A content management system which stores the content as "objects" in a database, separate from the style, and allows for automated guide creation, allows nature organizations to produce local, custom guides. There are a number of benefits which accrue from investing the time to set up a content management and publishing system like we have outlined. Some of the benefits are:

All publications can be distributed simultaneously on the Web and in print and on CD. Each format serves different audiences and is suited to different types of publications. The Web guide has navigation menus and hot-linked list of species. It is ideal for off-site education and can include more content than in print guides, for example. The print guide can be produced with a stiff cover in pocket size with robust binding and can be sold. It is ideal for field use. The PDF can be downloaded from the Web, printed and assembled at home for free to provide a good facsimile of a commercially printed version. Checklists, which usually change too often, and are too small and simple to warrant commercial printing, are ideal as PDFs.

Some documents lend themselves to one format over another. This flexibility means the park can publish optimally and cost-effectively. They are not locked into one way of publishing. For example, if a user wants a checklists of the snails and spiders in spring at a park, why not? But it might only ever be available online---since a commercially printed version of this guide would likely never be warranted.

A park can publish a document online initially and later, if there appears to be demand, decide to produce and sell the printed version. But by using the "free" format first they can cost-effectively pilot each document.

Its easier for staff to maintain, update, expand nature information. Staff concentrate on the core content, and do not have to "fight" with style issues when creating new publications, since these are set up in stylesheets which are separate from the content. Content is kept "synchronous" between different formats since it is derived from a single database. The style is kept consistent across a series of related documents.

Somewhat paradoxically, the system allows you to publish more types of publications in different formats, but the overall costs are lower thanks to savings at all steps. Production costs are reduced, since what was often farmed out to graphics houses is automated and can be done in-house. Distribution of HTML and PDF versions on the Web is virtually free. Thanks to digital direct-to-plate technology, print costs, even for smaller volumes (e.g., 1,000) are cost-effective, and inventory costs are reduced as well.

We think that we have an answer to the challenge of helping visitors to our natural areas get an enriched experience. It entails publishing a variety of small, targeted publications specific to each area. It requires that content for these guides be set up in a database. If we have species inventory data for a park we can link this to interpretive content and automatically create publications for self-guided tours of local areas. These guides are small and can be published in different formats depending on need. In addition to immediate benefits, an organization that starts to organize its nature content in this way will be able to exploit new ways of distribution in future.

Mike Dennison, Ph.D., is a director of Hopscotch Interactive. Before starting Hopscotch with colleague Alejandro Lynch, Mike trained as a biologist and was involved with field research and teaching. Mike is passionate about helping to bridge the gap between research and education, especially in the areas of species monitoring and interpretation. He can be contacted by phone at 416-696-7230 or by email at dennison@hopscotch.ca

Hopscotch Interactive Incorporated helps nature organizations manage and publish nature information using new digital technologies. Services include consulting, software development, Web site and database management, research and writing, and publishing. One of the core areas is the publication of checklists, identification guides, and trail guides using the Guides-on-Demand system. For more information about the company please visit the Web site: http://www.hopscotch.ca.