Feeling Accountable: Interpreting Park-Based Science in the 21st Century

In the 21st century, national park interpreters reveal the significance of natural resources while facilitating dialog and audience-centered experiences. Interpreters adopting such approaches encounter visitors’ eager responses to silence to requests for a less interactive form of engagement. At several parks interpreters were simultaneously asked to showcase park-based science using visualizations to invite discussion. Survey and interview data from interpreters participating in the educational initiative Interpreters and Scientists Working on Our Parks (iSWOOP), revealed that interpreters found ways to surmount the challenges they encountered. Accountability theory provides a lens for understanding how interpreters chose to respond when visitors’ expectations conflicted with their assignments. Supervisors’ actions made a difference particularly when they granted a green light for experimentation; allowed the interpreter latitude to shift location and topic; and dedicated time for interpreters to prepare and refine their approaches so they could successfully facilitate richly intellectual and emotional, place-based interpretation with visitors.