Closed Captions Audio Described

Christy Harlow and Heidi present methods for using geography and maps to interpret cultural and natural landscapes, drawing on the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial exhibit experience. They demonstrate how spatial thinking, map design principles, and visitor-centered orientation can help interpret large-scale stories. The presentation uses Albuquerque geography and Ocracoke Island examples to illustrate how accurate, thoughtfully designed maps serve as powerful interpretive tools.

Transcript

0:05 He is our mentor and our teacher and is he here? He'll be here to be here tonight. All right. Well, if not, Tom, hi. From how from Candy? From Candy we traded out at West Virginia with the, thank you. There was like we did like a circuit of three days. We traveled around West Virginia with the,
0:28 the cultural or state lions, something like that. Oh,
0:35 you guys have a great program. Thank you. We appreciate that. We're trying to do our part talking up just ahead. Oh, good. Yeah, I think they're up and coming. Good research coming up. We've got a beautiful region and it's wonderful this. Thank you. I'm sorry not to be there right now. I gotta tell you, Omaha is a big different, but
0:59 I love it too. It's something about every place you get. What
1:05 you, what time do you have
1:09 is this?
1:13 It was nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too.
1:19 Yeah, I thought we were gonna be all right,
1:24 you,
1:29 I'm gonna
1:50 ok,
1:54 about us.
2:00 Ok.
2:06 Look like,
2:09 all right. Well, hopefully I get to stand now. Ok.
2:15 I'd like to welcome everybody. We're going to be presenting, give your visitors this spatial treatment. And um before I get into our name and everybody, I just wanna say thank you for coming. That means the world to us. And we have really poured a lot into this and we hope that comes through our presentation today. And also thank you for supporting A I and supporting us. It's really important to our field. We hope to be there, you know, for many, many years. And
2:40 thank you, thank you to everybody who has helped us in those secret ways, you know who you are, you are out there. So thank you a lot. And so with that, I'll um I'll start with just kind of a quick introduction. I'm Christy Harlow and I currently work for the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail
3:00 And so, I mean,
3:10 I'll let Heidi go ahead and introduce herself. Ok. Just a little bit [cough]. Excuse me about myself. First off, there's some more seats up here. If you would like
3:22 just there's three or four or five up here
3:29 There's more seats if you'd like to come on up. Don't be shy. My name is Heidi and I just graduated from West Virginia University with my master's in migration and parks. And I have a Bachelor's degree in Geography, which is what got me interested in maps in the first place. And I worked for a short time, uh summer seasonal at the Lewis and Clark interpretive Center in Great Falls, Montana. So that's sort of my interpretive background.
3:54 And I focused my master's thesis research specifically on geographic interpretation. And a lot of that in our presentation comes out of that. So I'll turn it back over to Christa. So um as you can see I'm pictured in front of our illustrious map of our illustrious mobile outdoor exhibit. The Corps of Discovery II which the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail has been um heading up for the past four years and just put to bed. But we'll talk about
4:19 a little bit about me. Um I grew up in Louisiana. I've got a, BS in renewable resources from the University of Louisiana. So I'm a ragin' cajun and then I did my master's work at West Virginia University. I'm also Rec and Parks. And, um, we, we got through that together. That, that's something that is really cool. That's how we kind of established our friendship. And I'm the, theme junkie
4:43 Heidi is a maps junkie. I'm the theme junkie. If, if you're trying to do something without a theme, I get really weirded out by that. That in here quite a bit. But, um, just to give you a little bit of background of where we're coming from there, that's, that's our story. And where do we come up with all this? Walking around the gym at the Student Recreation Center at West Virginia University. So exercise can lead to some really good things.
5:08 Um And with that, I want to talk just a hair about the uh recent Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail exhibition that was going on. Um We just put this to bed, but the point of it is I'm gonna use it for an example and a touch point um throughout this program. So let me give you a little background. Um 200 years ago, Lewis and Clark traveled across the country and came back.
5:30 There's a really huge key of what they came back with. They came back with a map, but we're gonna see that later. This is what our exhibit looks like from a birds eye view. And the thing about Corps II which is really special is that it was a mobile national park. We actually went to different communities, set this thing up. We experienced the landscape of the Lewis and Clark Trail, which is no easy feat being that it crosses 11 states with its uh Western legacy.
5:54 And if you want to talk about Eastern Legacy, well, it gets bigger. This exhibit was actually set up in Albuquerque in 2005. So uh we've been here before and it is heralded by that potato chip looking in tent right there called The Tent of Many Voices. And inside there was something going on that was pretty unique and pretty special for the National Park Service. We invited speakers from all different cultures, all different walks of life,
6:18 all different agencies to come in there and speak freely about their connections to the trail, to the story, to the landscape and to their little town.
6:28 That's pretty amazing. We're putting our name on something and yet we did not have [inaudible]
6:34 And so with that kind of is a little feel for what Corps II was. We traveled for four years, which just ended in September. And then at the end of the day, we hit 93 communities across the US. And we also heard over or nearly 5000 presentations on them. So you want to talk about getting spatial geographic, go to the source, go to those places.
6:58 And with that No good presentation is possible without it. And so I didn't wanna hide ourtheme, you know, sometimes you don't just write out, bring it out and say, but this is what we're striving to do today. And here, um We wanna kind of encourage you to think about geographic interpretation. We want you to take this home to your site, to your place where you work and your doing these things.
7:19 Um We want you to think about the power of a map and we're going back this up. We're gonna give you some good things that will really bring this home and really, it's about stories. And for NIW here we are sharing the stories. We want to help you share the stories.
7:36 And so where are we going? I'm gonna give you that little outline. I understand what we're gonna do today. We'll start with the virtual tour of Albuquerque. It's gonna be geographically based,
7:47 but we're gonna give you a little of the nuts and bolts and science of the case for geographic interpretation. We'll go over a little bit about how we learn from maps and then we'll talk about map design. So when you go home and you look at the map at your site, you may pop up with some.
8:03 So um with that, we turn over to Heidi our virtual tour guru. This is a collaboration. We've had a few more people come in. So please come forward. There's a couple of seats here and a couple of seats are here. I want you to be comfortable. OK
8:23 I know it's after lunch. So if your neighbor starts to fall asleep, just give me more elbow and run. OK. I'm gonna start off by giving you a little virtual tour of the Albuquerque area. And part of the reason that I'm doing this is to let you know that this is a resource that you can use at your site. I used a program called NASA WorldWind Has anybody heard of this before? One person? All right. Well,
8:47 good. Two people were introducing something a little bit new. It's a lot like Google Earth. How many people you are seeing Google Earth? OK. A lot of you. The problem with Google Earth is that it's a commercial application and so many of you, if you work at government sites, you may use it. NASA WorldWind is very similar, but it's a government application and it's completely free. And so you're welcome to use it at your site.
9:13 I'm going to use this initially to orient ourselves within the landscape. And then we're just going to quickly explore how the geography of the Albuquerque area has really made this city what it is today.
9:29 So while I am
9:33 going out with this, I'll just share a little bit with you about this program that I used.
9:40 You can use it interactively right on the internet. So if you have a computer terminal set up in your site, you can use this real time. I had to record this video actually because they don't have internet in these classrooms. So it gives you both those options. Whereas Google Earth, the free version, you're not able to record any of the images that come on the website
10:02 since we're from all over the country. Is anybody from outside of North America? One person? OK. Lets go. A couple of, I apologize then that this doesn't encompass everybody, but the most of us came from somewhere in North America
10:23 All right,
10:28 here we go. We're going to zoom in to this lovely planet that we all know is planet Earth right into North America and to the desert. Southwest. That little star right there in the middle is centered right on where we are at this moment. The Albuquerque Convention Center, you're gonna see the colors change. We're gonna be looking at some high resolution images of that city of Albuquerque
10:49 and we're gonna zoom from outer space all the way right down to the Albuquerque Convention Center.
10:58 Anybody recognize this place
11:03 right. Just to orient you a little bit. This is the Eastern complex, the Western complex, which is where we are, right? And the plaza that's outside. So now you can kind of get an idea of what it looks like from the bird's eye view and we'll even see some pictures kind up close here.
11:24 You know what these pictures are all from the WorldWind. And um the satellite images are the ones I just showed you, I inserted from a website called local live website. You can, what's it called? Local live? And we're going to be handing out um, something later that will have these websites on it for you.
11:46 So as we're zooming back out again, kind of get your bearings. Do you see maybe the hotel you're staying in or the road you drove in on to get here today?
11:56 Perhaps you can see where
12:00 these images aren't real time. So you wouldn't be able to actually see your car, the road across the top. That's Lomus anybody have any idea what this road is? Route 66 right? Ok. So that gave you a little overview of the city and now we're gonna travel down to old town. How many people have been to old town right now. Several people did. Why don't you get out of here today? Go down there.
12:23 Have a margarita kick back and enjoy it. Old town. When was the old town established?
12:30 Ok. 300 years ago. This is the birthday of Albuquerque this year. So please wish it a happy birthday. Now. We'll get a few shots of the San Felipe church at the plaza there in the front. Have y'all seen that the ones that have been down there? Ok. If you go down there, remember these pictures
12:52 as we zoom back out again. I want you to notice where old town originally developed on the left here you're going to see in a minute, the Rio Grande river which flows through here. There have been many, many cultures in the Albuquerque area from the Pueblos who Spanish to the American and many, many others. They've all shared one common need and that's water.
13:15 If you haven't noticed already. We're in the middle of a very hot, dry desert. It's not so hot right now,
13:21 but it can be. Look at the size of Albuquerque now quite a bit larger than old town originally was 300 years ago. The Rio Grande River does not supply enough water for the people of Albuquerque. What we're going to look at now is we sort of zoomed out to a different scale. Here. We're looking at a landscape scale and we're gonna see how the geography
13:43 of this area has enabled all of us to be here today. Albuquerque wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't the geography in this area.
13:53 So right now what we're gonna do, we were looking at a bird's eye view of the landscape, we're gonna sort of rotate that up
14:00 and we're going to see the landscape from sort of an oblique or a side view. Does anybody know what this feature is here? Sandia mountains
14:12 I'll see if how many people were at the presentation this morning. Um Do you remember what Sandia means? Watermelon in, right? Just to the south of that down here in the Manzano Mountains. What does that mean? Apple, Apple, I encourage you this week to catch a sunset and look at these mountains at sunset because that is how they got their name, beautiful color that they display at sunset.
14:36 The Sandia Mountains I talk, I said we're gonna look at the geography of this area. They are essentially a big block of granite that popped up out of the earth's surface and formed kind of a lip or rim to the valley here. It's just like if you were to walk around your patio and you had a loose brick, you stepped on one side, one side pops up in the other sinks. It's kind of the same effect. It's just a big block of granite that's popped up out of the earth's surface.
15:01 You can kind of see why the city has developed here because that side that's raised up is very dramatic and beautiful because it's so, um, steep you can see on the back side that it slopes away much more gently. So again, I want you to think of this as sort of a rim or a limp on, maybe like a big sink or a big tub.
15:24 Now, we're gonna rotate our view. Look out across the valley, you see the Rio Grande river snaking through the middle there and then out to the west on the other side, there is what's called the West Mesa.
15:36 If you've been in say the Doubletree Hotel and you've looked out the window. Can you see the West Mesa, the rim of it?
15:44 Take a look. If you get a chance to get up high, you can actually see the rim of the West Mesa. So it doesn't show it well in here. But this is it,
15:54 this area has also been lifted up not as dramatically as the sand is. Have you seen any other evidence over on the west side of uplift or moving of the earth's crust? Right? There's five volcanoes that are along the skyline of Albuquerque and those are right here. They got shot very well in this imagery. But so if you get up into the Doubletree or someplace, high
16:19 take a look at those five volcanoes. They are now extinct. So don't worry. Yeah, what happened now is you have the lift on the right or on the east. And then you have this lift on the west that was formed by the West Mesa. So as the earth lifted up and pulled apart, what happened in the middle, That's it right kind of collapsed and sank down. Now, you probably think look, Albuquerque is really not all that deep.
16:44 That's because of the Rio Grande river. We have the Rio Grande to thank for that. We normally think of rivers flowing through an area and gouging out of deep valley. The Rio Grande has done the opposite. Its main function through history has to been to come through here and deposit sand silt gravel and it filled up this great big trough or hole in the in the earth that formed here.
17:09 The reason that's important is I want you to think again, we were talking about this like a big basement or sink. Imagine now laying a towel or a big sponge in the bottom of that sink. There's lots of little porous areas and air holes and what does it do? So it comes up with water, right? It trickles down from the Rio Grande and fills up with water. It formed a great aquifer beneath Albuquerque.
17:35 So this the reason I wanted to show you this was that it's the geography or the arrangement of these features, the mountains, the mesa, the Rio Grande River that has allowed that aqua aquifer to form Albuquerque receives 100% of this water from this aquifer. So next time you take a shower, turn on the tap. Think about that it's the geography of this area that allows you to do that.
17:58 Otherwise, there just probably could not be as many people in the city as there are with that in mind. It's not an unlimited resource. It's renewable but not unlimited. So please, I should conserve a little bit if you can. So that's the end of my video here. We've looked at how the Sandia Mountains on the east,
18:19 the West Mesa and the Rio Grande River, how their particular spatial arrangement has created this very valuable resource for the people here.
18:29 So with that, go back to the powerpoint and I don't know if we mentioned at the beginning, but if you have questions during the presentation, if you could jot them down and we'll address them all at the end, that way we can make sure we hit everything and just to check if you're listening, who here remembers what uh Manzana means. OK. All right. Somebody raised their hand and screaming because I have giveaways.
18:54 All right, Apple, Apple, you're just gonna unique things, right. OK. All right, Sandia?
19:01 Watermelon there. OK. There you go. You got it right home about you for um OK. Um What's masa mean?
19:16 Table OK. We'll be, we'll be, we
19:19 got one more
19:22 [person in crowd] Route 66.
19:28 Yes.
19:34 So what we're trying to get across in this presentation is that geography is important because what happens wherever you guys are, what happens is directly related to where it happens. And this is just a little side view. If you're having trouble visualizing the aquifer, there's the West Mesa, Sandias, and the Rio Grande and the aquifer.
19:55 All right. So at that point, I will turn it over to Christa.
20:06 So me,
20:09 OK. Well, thank you for coming and of course, giving us a chance to give you a little bit of that spatial treatment. We wanted to promise to be a little spatial today. So there we go. Uh That's kind of part of our goal there. But we've got to get into the nuts and bolts. So we gotta make the case for this um with that research background, we're trained to do it. So we gotta do it. And uh we wanna start with the big picture and that's just geography is an idea.
20:31 Geography is related to everything. It doesn't really matter. And so I love the look at this and think of um, the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon, how we can all somehow find a relationship with Kevin Bacon. We can, but we don't have that time for that today, but we can, well, geography is like that, but it's even better. It's like seven degrees like quadruple. So remember that this is a good thing for you and everything is going to come back to this.
20:53 I don't care what site you're looking at. Geography has played a role there. It's really important because so many of us are trying to interpret large landscapes these days. Try to talk about these really big scale ideas and, um, particularly, you know, habitat corridors, a fire regime. I mean, if I'm just, you know, a regular visitor, that's really hard. I'm not a regular visitor, I guess anymore. And it's still really hard.
21:17 So this is the kind of stuff that we need to talk about how do we do this better. Um, this is not just limited to natural phenomena, cultural landscapes, all the new heritage areas popping up. How are we gonna sell this idea because it's hot right now. So we got to think about this and battlefields are totally included in this ecosystems. It doesn't matter, seashore, you name it, we are all part of this really big landscape
21:40 and it has contributed to why our sites important. That's basically we preserve the sites for. Um And so with that thinking back to that geo, you guys have probably all seen this when there's something that's a really hot term, you attach it to everything kind of like, um you know, x extreme Excedrin, Fedex. Well, that's backwards. But still, you know, there's, there's these things where there's these catchphrases. Geo is no different. We put that little prefix
22:05 on there and oh my goodness, we've invented a new term. And so geo tourism, I like to put this definition up there. It's really nice. National Geographic sums it up quite well. And I, I think to me, this is the kind of stuff we really want to talk about. You gotta have local buy in. And I love how this definition encompasses that idea get that local landscape flavor going on
22:26 And so we thought we would be bold enough to propose a new term because, you know, that's what interpretation means geo interpretation. Um But really, it's, it's a good idea. It's a good idea to think about this. We are in the business of fostering connections, that's what we do. And so we wanna propose, OK, let's keep doing that. But for particular attention to geographical aspects, landscape aspects,
22:49 let's take a look at maps and some other tools that you can use today. We're gonna concentrate on maps. Almost everybody here has got one, we've all seen one, we're gonna go in that way, but there is, there's a strong need for this and really you didn't think I could get this in there, but I did. Oh Yeah, Lewis and Clark have a lot to do with a map. Um I love this. This is from a rest stop in North Dakota. But
23:15 the story of a map really does start it off. Think about where you are when you don't have one, put yourself in those shoes. Um That's a bad place to be. And so really just a little info about Lewis and Clark here when they were kind of beginning their planning for the journey and they're getting ready to leave and it's 1803. And they're putting us all down. This is the best available map they have to look at at the time. I know it's kind of tough to see,
23:39 but I'll give you a few little landmarks there on your, uh, far left there. You've got the Pacific Coast. Um, right here we've got a range. Anybody know what mountains, those are rocky mountains. I want you to remember what those rocky mountains look like. And then right here we've got the Great Lakes. What is glaring at you on this map? You know, that whole like lack of uh
24:02 information there uh no big deal, right. Well, that's really important. Um And so Lewis and Clark have a huge amount of things on their plate. But one of the big things that come out of this expedition is a map and so, um Clark is the token cartographer of, he is a man who makes maps and he's doing all this very, very simple tools. He's got a sextant out there.
24:23 He's got five compasses because he keeps breaking them. He's got a chronometer that well, it just kind of blows up in the North Dakota area So it's, you know, he's got problems but he perseveres. And if you notice right here, once you get on the far left hand side, you've got the Pacific Coast, what happens to those rocky mountains? What a difference it makes when you think about the landscape you actually go out and experience and then try to translate that back.
24:48 I can't believe those guys ever forgot going over them and coming back over those guys again. and you see a lot of other information on their waterways. If we had a magnifying glass, we can even see the names of tribes that they met along there. And we would also see the reputable X number of souls on this map. What's really special is how accurate this is and this
25:10 is something we still need to strive for today. This map is accurate within 40 miles of today's redone GPS version of the Lewis and Clark trail. OK. That's what, that's what I was thinking. I'm not gonna try to do that with a sextant. But um, with the map, once you have it, you've got this great place. You can, you can go there, you can find the treasure
25:34 and think about it once we have the map, where can you go? And so we're gonna go there a little bit about how maps and visitors are gonna interact and I will turn it back over to Heidi.
25:45 Right. I have a quick question for all of you. Most of you just arrived this morning maybe a day or two ago. How many of you have looked at some form of a map that you've been here? Oh, my most people in here. OK. Now, how many of you have already excluding these uh programs that you've been to? Because this is an interpretive conference. How many of you have gone out and sought an interpretive exhibit or program so far.
26:11 OK. Very good. You'll probably notice most of the room raise their hands at maps. Not that many people have seen a programmer exhibit yet.
26:22 I promise this is the only graph we have in this slide show. But I wanted to make a point. This was done at Yosemite National Park. You guys have all seen these National Park events that they hand out. 90% of visitors say that they use this resource. Now look all the way down to the bottom 8% of people say they go to talk or programs,
26:45 24% say they go and look at exhibit 90% look at the map. OK? So this is an interpretive opportunity that we should not be missing. This may be the only thing your visitor looks at
27:01 and maps are everywhere. They're tacked up on every trailhead. They're in the brochure rack. Maps are everywhere. They're on the, on the website. They're in the uh the local tourist guides, maps are everywhere. So we should really be focusing on them as an interpretive tool.
27:18 So let's just look really quick at what a map is. Now, this may seem a little simplistic, but this is gonna be important a little bit later. So bear with me a map is basically just a picture and it's made up of a bunch of little dots, little lines and a bunch of shapes and those dots represent places. The lines represent roads or trails. The shapes tend to be areas of land covered like a lake in the middle of that one.
27:45 What we're trying to get across here is that landscape has a meaning of its very own large landscape. It has a meaning. You probably wouldn't have mapped it in the first place or you wouldn't have preserved it in the first place. If that landscape didn't have a meaning, it could be cultural, it could be historical, natural. Even an urban area could have a meaning to it.
28:07 Has anybody ever heard of a droodle?
28:10 One person, one person,
28:14 these are commonly made for kids, but a droodle is a picture that just, it's made up of a bunch of dots, lines and shapes and it doesn't make any sense until you get a clue. Like a puzzle. Oh, she got a prize for
28:30 that. This is an example of a droodle, it's hard to tell what it means just looking at it. Does anybody have any guess?
28:39 Oh, you got it.
28:43 It's a skier standing at the top of a ski jump.
28:50 Very good. Very good.
28:55 What do you think? Number one is?
29:00 Any guesses? Yes. [person in crowd] It's like, is it a shark and Mickey Mouse?
29:08 Yes! Whoa. It's a shark in Disneyland. Very good. Alright how about number two,
29:17 do you think? Yeah. But these guys are good and they are, they're hard core.
29:25 All right. It can mean something different to everyone. But we're looking for the meaning that the artist had when they drew it. This is a bear climbing a tree.
29:38 See its paws.
29:43 So we're trying to say a map it's like a, it's got all these, the lines and shapes and colors or whatever, but people look at it. They don't know what it means. You gotta give them a clue to what that map means. They will make more sense if you provide visitors with clues to their meaning. So this kind of begs the question, well, how exactly do people learn from maps? How do they learn about large spaces?
30:10 It's basically a three step process. These are fancy terms that geographers have come up with, but it's, it's really pretty simple. We talked about, about having dot lines in areas. Well, the process that we learn about large spaces is kind of similar to that we learn landmarks first, then we tend to learn routes and only over time do we develop what's called survey knowledge
30:34 And that's just sort of the knowledge of a landscape or an area as a whole. And I know some of you are furiously taking notes. And just so, you know, a lot of this is in the uh article that in the source book as well. So if you miss some of it, it's in there. Yeah. Where does sense of scale put into this? Sense of scale? Yeah as far as your knowledge of
30:58 maps? Because I always found that
31:01 deserts [inaudible]
31:05 [audience member asking a question]
31:08 correct uh part of what we're, we advocate with using um maps and interpretation is the fact that people don't have map skills, they do have a hard time of the scale. And this is one way geographic interpretation is one way that you can get, encourage people to uh to look at different scales. So that's a very good question because there's very small scale and very large scale.
31:30 So to, to define those a little bit more landmark knowledge, simply your ability to recognize places or landmarks and the church on the corner, that type of thing, you're able to describe what is and why it's meaningful or significant
31:47 route knowledge. And I'm gonna test you on this so pay attention, right? This is knowledge of routes or paths. It's very simple. That just means that you know how to get someplace, you know, how far to go and where to turn to get there.
32:02 This is the one that's harder. This is where you comprehend the overall layout of an area. You understand the different spatial patterns of the relationships of different places to one or another. You're able to give people directions, you're able to figure out shortcuts. This is the tough one
32:20 now I said that I was gonna test you. What level of knowledge does this challenge you?
32:27 Route knowledge
32:35 OK, good. She's achieved landmark and she achieved one higher route college. Someone said route knowledge who said it?
32:45 I, I think I heard there first. That was our sort of our grand prize in
32:53 honor of being on route 66 and, um, guessing the word route correctly. We would like to give you the proper traveling gear for all your adventures along the road
33:07 You can sell it
33:12 the most important thing to remember about it.
33:17 The important thing to remember is that this is a step by step process. We usually identify landmarks first and we do this quickly. Generally, we identify a few landmarks and then how to get between them. Think about when you got here to Albuquerque, you probably figured out where the airport is, the hotel, the convention center and the local bar, right? And then you figured out,
33:39 ok, maybe the bar,
33:43 but that survey knowledge is really tough to achieve. And so geo interpretation can help you get there because it gives you more experiences to help you learn that landscape in that large scale place.
33:55 So turn it back over to Christa. So let's get into this. Let's start creating our maps in an interpretive way. And so the map design process, we are adapting it from Sam Ham's environmental interpretation Bible much used. We love it. And uh he has a great method in here for planning. He said it's very simple. And so there are just a few steps and we'll
34:19 do it real quick and then we'll get into them. One get a theme before you design, have a theme in mind. Take that home with you. That's a good start. Um, the type of map that you're trying to look for here, is it handheld? Is it something big? Is this a little? There's, there's a lot of things to talk about there, the levels of information that you're gonna include the design. Again, we'll see more about that when we get to it, the text, do you include it? Do you know where to
34:42 put it? What do you want to do with that visuals? What kind of graphics are you gonna go with here? And uh there's several different styles and then finally the interaction you really want to plan for this, you know, it doesn't just happen on its own. You guys know that in life, I mean they say luck is preparation meets opportunity. So you gotta prepare and so we're gonna rock on to here and we'll start out with theme and I can't believe this is my slide. Oh my gosh, like no,
35:07 this is it. I like this. Um example right here give Saint Helen's a little um props there. This is one of their waysides and um it's got the thematic title. At the very very minimum, put a thematic title on your map. Take a few extra minutes, come up with a good one because if a person, if all you're looking at is the map and they're trying, you know, the dad's leading the family around and the mom's leading the family around,
35:31 then they have something there to key, key, key in on really quickly. That's great. Give them that three second advantage there. Um I like it, it shows the landscape, it shows it from an oblique view and if you've actually been to Saint Helen's, you would recognize this because it's on the viewing deck. So you're standing on the patio, you're overlooking it. We can't do this with all, you know, things, but with the wayside particularly important, make sure that's a part of it.
35:55 Um Themes are something that we can sometimes get muddled up in and argue about because there's a lot of different little schools of thought if they're all related. So I've got a few different ideas on here. Essentially, you need one sentence, a complete sentence that's concise and to the point, if your theme is like ordering on like, I don't know, 22 words and you want two sentences re-evaluate what you're trying to do
36:19 and you'll get a clearer picture with that. You've got that orientation that there you can go. Um These are all related though, you know, Ham NPS Lewis, anybody. The big idea there too is I try to include a universal concept, try to include something that everybody can key in on and I know that um repeat, but it never hurts to hear.
36:40 So I wanna encourage you. Please, please get enlightened here. Put a thematic title on your map. Fight for that. And you know why we had an incredibly hard time finding an authentic fold out map. The thing that you're handing out left and right front and backwards with a thematic title on it. We looked, we looked, we looked, I had the privilege of being at the Midwest regional office and access to a billion brochures.
37:06 It wasn't there guys. So finally somebody read my mind and I was so happy and it was Glacier Bay National Park up in Alaska. So we have some fans out there and they just went through this holding process where they developed in that. They went through Harper's ferry and you know what they said, oh my gosh, we're gonna have a theme of this, map and even better. Um They pulled out some little vignettes to kind of give it a little more
37:29 in depth and they got a thematic title on there and I was so happy because they thought I work for this agency. I really hope we have one map in there with the thematic title on it. So I think Glacier Retreat and the Land Abounds. Hey, that works for me because that's a step in the right direction. So try to include that please. And mammal. And then with Lewis and Clark, we've found some different things, different ideas about this.
37:52 What are you really trying to do with your map. Um This map right here, take a look at it, take a look at the one on the wall. They are the same map. There is a difference on them though and the difference results from some input from people who were visiting our exhibit. Um Many of our American Indian partners were kind of concerned that we didn't really highlight their culture and that was a big problem.
38:15 And so you wanna talk about the landscape and you wanna talk about the scale of things and yet we, we missed out the people. That's a huge problem. And so Lewis and Clark said, well, what can we do? We can't redo our whole gigantic tent, but we can make a patch map and we hung that out over it and there are some words out there. So don't be afraid to use text on your map. Um There's nothing wrong with that. So here's a ranger Trent pointing to where we were Warm Springs,
38:40 Oregon when that switch happened.
38:42 And so with that, we'll throw it back over the Heidi, give you a little bit of info on map types. And once you have your thematic title in mind, then the next decision we have to make is what type of map am I gonna have? Am I going to have a, a flat map? Am I gonna have a model, a topographic model? Maybe some sort of a, an animation that uh is on a computer screen, that type of thing.
39:06 And you decide the size of your map
39:09 I know you've all seen the brochures where the map is like two inches by two inches. Ok. It's very hard for a visitor to take that and to translate that into a huge landscape that it represents. Now, I understand that there are budget constraints, but here's an example of a map that attempts to do that. This is the Columbia River Gorge in uh Oregon.
39:33 And they've taken that and they put it on a great big piece of paper. It's beautiful. It gives you a much better sense of the landscape than some little tiny two or two inch by two inch map can do.
39:44 We need to decide how the map will be oriented. It does not take very long for visitor to look at a map and get confused.
39:54 The key is to orient it to the visitor and the landscape you do not have to put north at the top of your map. OK? Now notice that these two are standing in a building that's kind of t shaped. One of these is oriented to the environment and one of them is not which one is oriented? The right one. See how it's shaped just like the area
40:16 that that other person has to look at that map and mentally rotate it or kind of do one of these things to figure out where they need to go right here in the Convention Center. I've seen this, they've done the Convention Center map on both sides and I know I've been lost all week. So
40:33 here's an example of an upside down map. This was at a trailhead. The parking area is at the top. Ok. We've got the map oriented to the north.
40:45 What happens? You get out of the parking area, you walk across the street and you're standing here at the trailhead, you are now facing south. This map was hanging on the trailhead and I stood there and I thought the trails were behind me because of the way this map was oriented. So think about that, when you make a map, it might just be a matter of hanging it on the right wall
41:09 printing in the right direction. You do not have to put north at the top of your map
41:15 here is a map from Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
41:19 It's the northern entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains. And so they've made their map oriented to the south because people are coming in from the north. And that really, uh I guess the point I wanna make here is that people associate the top of a map with forward movement.
41:36 When you have a map, you think of the top as being forward. It's just they've done research on this. It's, it's a fact that people associate that with forward movement. So think about where your visitor center is, that's probably where the person's gonna get the map. So put the visitor center at the bottom of the map and then have them go out into the landing. Couple other cool things about this map.
41:59 Most maps are birds eye views where you're looking straight down. If you can get a little bit of a leak or slanted view, it gives it a real three dimensional effect and that's how they think. So you can see these buildings are drawn sort of three dimensionally. You can actually see the physical shape and size of the buildings.
42:18 And we'll have I have that map here. So if you wanna look at it closer afterwards, you can.
42:24 So once you've got your theme and you finally decided the type of map you wanna have, how big it's gonna be and all that you need to consider the levels of information that you're going to provide with your map. I think of a map as an exhibit with too much text. We've all seen those exhibits that have huge long paragraphs and you just walk right by those, right. A map is very similar.
42:46 You're putting tons of information all jumbled together and people are just like it's way too much information, break it down just like we do, we chunk that information in little bits and pieces, for people break it down, show location, then show routes, then show whatever geographic concept you're trying to get across a watershed battlefield, et cetera. Here's an example from Lewis and Clark
43:11 of just a simple route map.
43:15 So moving along to design, I'll turn it back to Christa. OK. This is um a a real life situation here. Um This map what really what you want to know is this is Ocracoke Islands, barrier island off uh North Carolina or Cape Hatteras National Seashore. I got to be seasonal there. I also found out a really big problem. Um We need to be accurate. Remember how William Clark was accurate within 40 miles with that map. That's amazing.
43:38 This map as best as we can tell, we've been handing out since 1978. As best as I can tell, we've been copying it since before that. And um, the problem was we would give this to a visitor and they would instantly say, but you know what, when I came in on the ferry, I didn't see that hook on the end and then you had to be like back pat on the side and you go. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that doesn't exist anymore. Ok.
44:02 So you're thinking, oh my gosh, I had this big problem and maybe my site doesn't change as much a barrier island to really take a look, things change all the time. I mean, we know it's a constant and that's a very universal concept. We can't think of anything that wouldn't change. It's good, safe, but this is a problem. So we didn't have a budget. We had two seasonals and then I leave there. That's it. Ocracoke Island is basically unstaffed during the rest of the year.
44:25 And so what we, what we did, I took it into Photoshop. I cleaned it up. I took out all those nasty little marks all over it and I took off the hook and I made it a fist, which is actually what it looks like. And you know what? That was a lot better. You, it's hard enough being a visitor in a new place. It's worse when you hand them a map that's wrong. So make sure take a look at things and do it and clean it up.
44:47 Don't hand out things that look like that. That's really bad. So just give you an idea. You don't have to be a guru. Maybe you should get an intern from a graphics arts college or something. Anybody can come in and do this with Photoshop or page maker and clean things up. It's not that hard. Um Is it geographically accurate? No, but it's meant to be a representation. So I think that's OK, at least for telling the truth. Um The other thing with maps is that
45:12 the colors of the features in the landscape can really lie to your visitor and you got to think about this. So here we go. We've got a nice um topo bandana of Glacier. What do you guys assume is green? There's a few trees. OK. Forest. Well, what if you didn't really know squat about glacier and this was just anywhere you might think that's grass field plants. I mean, you got no idea what about uh brown, um
45:38 blue water? Ok. Blue is pretty standard but then you have to throw in that little glacier problem here at Glacier. You know, there's no snow on this map. So be really um truthful about what you're doing and think about that and the relative size of symbols is very key. If you put the big old star next to something on there and make it a really big font. It does exactly what you wanted to do.
46:03 It draws the attention right there and somebody assumes that that's more important than something else. So be really careful and be really um be cheap about how you use that don't go overboard because people get confused really easily.
46:16 Um the other thing is we got a few things we need to talk about here. One is we need to talk. If you're gonna do a map, talk to other people about it, you need to show it to other people. So you need to test it too. So we're gonna talk, we gotta test it on other people. I mean, this is, this is really easy stuff, but so often it doesn't happen. And then finally we gotta think about text so often we just think, oh my gosh, maps are already overloaded
46:40 anyway, we're not gonna put text on it yet. There are times when that's truly appropriate and good to explain. A typical Park service handout. There is text included on here. Well, if you're writing about what you see on the map, depending on what culture you're in. We're, we're talking English here. We're gonna read left to right and we're gonna typically go from up to down.
47:02 So when you're describing something visually in the text, describe it that way.
47:08 OK. Um That's kind of a good tip there and don't be afraid to use it. I mean, I realized that the ginormous Lewis and Clark banner over there or it's a lot text heavy, but you know what? We got a little learning about the culture. So I'm willing to work with that. And so finally, we will get a little bit about visuals here. This is probably my favorite part. I really like to
47:31 encourage people to put the art back into cartography. If you've ever seen an ancient map, they were beautiful and they had um calligraphy and sea monsters on them and they were just beautiful works of art. There's actually people that collect these and frame them and put them on the wall. I'm sorry but today's maps are boring. You go and make something on MapQuest or you just pick
47:54 up a map out of a brochure rack it's probably pretty dull. Try using pictures. We always use symbols, little stars and squares and stuff. Why we don't have to do that. We're being interpreters here. So interpret that landscape, you can be funny. They used cartoons, um, kind of caricatures of the different places. Or in this example,
48:16 here's another kind of cartoony example. If you looked at this shape on, on a piece of paper, you probably wouldn't recognize it. But because of the illustration, I bet, you know what this is. Close Scotland. Take a look at that skirt or that Kilt. Sorry,
48:35 I'm gonna get beat up for that. Now,
48:38 you can make your map, eye catching draw want attention to it. This is a case where they were showing a route that was all right turns.
48:47 They made it into a spiral it is very eye catching.
48:51 This is the Napa Valley in California. They've made the road look like a [inaudible] to a grapevine.
49:01 Here's a case where they've taken topographic maps and looked for patterns in them. We've all done this to go out and look for patterns in the clouds. You could do that on a topo map and they've artistically rendered it so that it looks like an animal. This would be awesome if you were trying to interpret the landscape of a bear or a fox or some other animal,
49:23 you can even extend this right into the architecture of your place. This is the Yellowstone river flowing right through the visitor center. They've taken that map and just incorporated it right into the architectural site.
49:37 And last but not least we're gonna talk about interaction because that's really the heart of interpretation is getting a visitor involved.
49:46 This is kind of my pet peeve, but this is always what we do when we want an interactive map, push a button, light up, push a button, light up. You see this everywhere, there's a button, there's a button that lights up. It's the right idea. We're trying to get the person to touch the map and involved with the map. But we can do more than this. I know you are all creative people. We can do more than this.
50:10 Now, unfortunately, this would be a whole another hour presentation going through all the different interactive ideas that we have, but we're prepared a handout for you. That will start around.
50:23 There's an entire page of interactive ideas in here as well as the process that we went through. And there's also a page of different websites. I can email this to you. We've included a web or an email address on here, just email me and I'll send it to you. So you can just kind of click and go because you really don't wanna type all that stuff in
50:42 it has the resource that we talked about. NASA WorldWind the Local Live. There's even a, a map of Springfield which is where the Simpsons live. It's a really cool interactive map that I found online. So go check that out.
50:59 What we're trying to get across here is be creative, take your visitors on an adventure through your map and with that I'll just turn it over to Christa.
51:09 Really in the final idea. I wanna at least give you something that you can do next week. I want you to go home to your site and not fret over. Oh my gosh. We need to update our map. I want you to not fret over that. And that is just simply thinking about skill, which is really important. If you need a new idea, if you need a little jolt in your interpretative programming, Try to visualize or think about your site on another scale.
51:31 It's a really good trick to get a little bit of umph in your program. It's also really cool if you have some beginning interpreters who aren't quite finding what they wanna do, tell them well, you know, but look at it from this angle and this is a really nice trick. Um So we've got the little VW um van there and I was so lucky to get this picture I can't believe it, but we've got the full size VW van
51:53 on the far left there. You see the little tiny VW bus, inside the big one, we often get stuck in that little VW Bus world. This is our site. This is our place, this is what we do, and we are stuck in that box. Let's take it out bigger. Let's go and tell the whole story of a full size van. We can make that impact. And that's just a matter of thinking about scale there and infusing a little geo interpretation into
52:18 your story. And so we want to be good inspectors. So we wanna go over just what we told you, right? Um We did do a virtual tour of Albuquerque. Does anyone remember that? Ok, good. All right. Uh We did give you a little bit of reasons why we think interpret geo interpretation is important. You're gonna be at the forefront. Um And then we talked about how people learn from maps. So that's always key. And then finally,
52:41 a little bit about map design and where we want you to run and make your own creative ideas on that. We're kind of just um in a final closing. Thank you for coming. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk about this with you. Um We really do appreciate it. We wanted to do something to take home and um with that, I think uh Heidi and I will be able to entertain any questions that you may have and uh
53:06 we have about eight minutes of questions. OK. Yeah, [applause]
53:16 thank you very much. Is there enough water coming into the Albuquerque aquifer to support this population or are they drawing off of it? Yeah. There is a lot of debate over that, they used to think the aquifer to be much bigger than it actually is. So they're still doing a lot of research into that. Uh They, they do address this in city planning. Um I think currently,
53:40 as long as there's not a severe drought then I think that it's ok, but,
53:45 um, carefully control that and conserve water and there's a lot of active conservation programs going on because they are on a fine line there. So, definitely not the unlimited resource they once thought it was.
53:58 Yes. And you probably know more about it. Um, yeah, but I, um, I work at the Natural History Museum here and just a little plug. I brought two maps that are called Albuquerque Geoscape that I added to the auction upstairs. So keep your eye out and good for them. It gives uh the whole uh ge geographic picture of the Albuquerque area.
54:19 Thank you. I'd just like to point out that if, if you ever get a chance to go to the top of the Sandia Crest, you get that bird's eye view of these mountain ranges and it was almost like your satellite pictures. It was amazing. I, I was lost until I went to the top and I really understood where all these mountains are. Did you take the tram or is that the best way we drove,
54:43 the tram was broke down. I think there's multiple ways to get there. All right in the far back I have a mapping question for you. Um That's just, you know, scale when you're dealing with large areas like this and a handout map paper size. How big is too big? This I would not want to be handing out. No, no. Yeah, they're gonna be trying to unfold it in their car and cause a wreck.
55:06 In the park service. They have a certain size and that is the max limit that they go to. So I know our Lewis and Clark Trail one is an accordion one like that and it goes out about the width you know, your arm spread to me, that's kind of a dizzy limit. There don't want to get much bigger than that.
55:24 I haven't seen any actual research on uh what, what's too big. Um, I would just experiment with different sizes to see what your visitors preferred. This one is made to be sort of arm's length
55:38 like she said, you wouldn't want it any bigger than that because then you wouldn't be able to hold it. So I don't know, uh an actual answer or a scientific answer to that. For a ballpark arm's length is a good one. Right. Yeah, this one's arm's length, I think, I think it is very similar and I don't know, the Park service, Harper's Ferry get on there. They can tell you everything about this and there are certain templates that you can work with.
56:03 Uh Well, wait, let me go first. OK. I just wanted to uh add a kind of a thought for this concept of geo interpretation that for those of you who are also working with educators and the formal education system, the fourth grade level is the level at which almost universally across United States geography is taught. So if you're doing a curriculum
56:28 based interpretation in your site, um geography is a great place to bring students into capturing the landscape approach to interpretation. And then I just also wanted to mention I happen to work at, at NASA with the Landsat satellite team, which is what underlies WorldWind. And we're very, very interested in partnering with interpretation and education.
56:51 If you're interested in that and talk to me or just visit the Landsat website, if you google Landsat.
56:59 So I just wanna add to what she said, that massive WorldWind site I just really discovered it last week when I realized I couldn't use Google Earth. So I played around with it and it's a little confusing at first, but once you get it, it's pretty easy to use. So They're working on making that available on the map as well. Are they? next question
57:21 Well, in your research have you found any site guests taking the map,
57:28 my thought is you got a theme on your map. You got a text that fits into that theme and then going a step further and actually doing an organizational or interpretive program, I'll follow the map of your site. Do you find anyone doing it? Tetons supposed to be doing it.
57:44 We took an interpretive class um at West Virginia University and we were shown a video actually of a woman using the sort of the topographic model as the basis for a program. And that's an excellent way to get people involved in that map. There's also living maps. They may have that's, uh, where they take sort of a base map and paint it on,
58:07 on the floor or on a big sheet or a big piece of canvas and spread it out and then you actually can crawl around on the map and add little, uh, landmarks and use yarns to make streets. So there is some of that going on in programming. But we think there could be more like, yes, if you, if you read about
58:29 you build up on because you've already got to have a plan for your interpretive process and use it there with those things that you know, and I know that most of you don't have the money to go redesign your map, build around the one you have. If you have one in your visitor center put a thematic title with it, um try to add some visual elements to it, try to work with what you have in the meantime, until you can design that.
58:53 Or if you, if you park service, generally you're on a two year rotation to, to do an update demand that you want this thematic process. It's, it's starting to happen. So how do you want it?
59:07 Well, and before I let you go, I want to know that the pins on the back table are pretty special. Uh One is of course the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail The second one is the Corps of Discovery II pin You guys are getting a really special thing with that, that is something that we only gave to presenters who talked inside the Tent of Many Voices. And so I begged my boss, could I please have a whole bunch of those? And I wanted to share that with you. So please uh
59:29 kind of wear that with some pride is a pretty special thing. And one more thing, somebody here at the conference, Lent me that other map there. It's a 3D map that you use 3D glasses with. So take a look at that on your way out of. Thank you.
59:47 [applause]
59:50 Yeah. Come on.
59:54 Ok. Yeah.
1:00:00 And
1:00:04 I might go, I,
1:00:13 are you all right?
1:00:32 OK.
1:01:31 You can do that.
1:02:13 U SBS
1:02:19 and by the time I started working it talking about,
1:02:24 I really wanted to catch it.
1:02:28 That's just something about
1:02:33 human nature
1:02:35 that's a whole,
1:02:44 you know.
1:03:39 So when you,
1:03:45 ok, let's move on. Yeah, but you have a heart running. So
1:04:30 it was very frustrating
1:04:38 based
1:04:43 on this.

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Geographic Interpretation and Map Design for Cultural Landscapes

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