In the December 2008 issue of Parks and Recreation magazine, Doug Knapp wrote an interesting article about how parks can better connect with their visitors and will likely lead to repeat visitations!
In this current article, Knapp specifically looks at the impact of interpretative programs, and their effectiveness, in promoting the history and resources of particular parks. Many parks provide multiple resources and landmarks that will attract visitors (Civilian Conservation Corps relics, a lake, hiking trails, museums, etc.). While offering many opportunities can diversify who travels to your park and why, it is also important to brand a park in a way that relates it to many of the park visitors. Creating a brand for a park markets specific resources, opportunities, or other attractions that are coveted by the majority of users. Once in the park, the visitors might discover other aspects that are enjoyable.
To find a park brand, it becomes very necessary to conduct a park evaluation and/or visitor needs assessment. What is this park doing well? What attracts you to come back? What can we work on? Finding the urban-reminders (Lewicka, 2008), those physical aspects that hold significance to the visitor (due to familiarity with, or similarity to) can increase repeat visitation and a sense of ownership in the visitor.
One way to promote this sense of attachment is to provide interpretative opportunities that allow the visitors to connect to the park. Knapp (2008) has multiple suggestions. One such suggestion is to connect better with children. In Knapp's research, adults connected better to a park through their children rather than directly connecting to the adult. Also, try a constructivist approach to interpretation. Try to connect individually with each visitor in some way and relate your content to something they know. And then again, as Knapp puts it, "find the hook;" or more to the point, find the brand that continually brings the visitor back!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Bubble-Wrapped!
Karen Malone in her 2007 article, “The bubble-wrap generation: children growing up in walled gardens,” asserts that over-protective parents are partially to blame for health issues and developmental issues in their children. By not allowing children to be outside alone (to play, to walk to school, etc.), these kids are growing up sheltered and indoors. According to Malone, “many parents are failing to allow children the opportunities to build resilience and skills critical to be competent and independent environmental users” (p. 513).
Malone makes many claims about the effect of this protective layer around children. One such claim is that parents are over-scheduling their children (e.g., music lessons, sports practice, tutoring) to avoid allowing children unsafe alone time. It is true that many studies have found that unstructured time and boredom in children can lead to juvenile delinquency (see “Rationale for Recreation by Witt and Caldwell (2010) and/or many other studies about juvenile delinquency and recreation), but there is also a connection to self-exploration, recreation and leisure, and identity development (Freysinger and Kelly, 2011) that can be neglected by over-scheduling children; not to mention the pressures of living an adult-life before being able to maturely capable of doing so.
Most startling, Malone notes that in a study conducted in 2005 regarding Australian children, one in ten was active in play as we understand it and one in twenty admitted that they rarely left the inside of their home to play. Richard Louv (author of Last Child in the Woods) and a slew of researchers have found time and again that this loss of connection to nature does relate to health and developmental issues in children. Taking it further, researchers have found that children who lacked a connection to nature, also lacked this connection as adults. More specifically, environmental value researchers have found that there appears to be significant environmental value formation in children which can lead to values and behaviors as an adult; or these values if not formed in children, may not form as an adult.
Malone makes many claims about the effect of this protective layer around children. One such claim is that parents are over-scheduling their children (e.g., music lessons, sports practice, tutoring) to avoid allowing children unsafe alone time. It is true that many studies have found that unstructured time and boredom in children can lead to juvenile delinquency (see “Rationale for Recreation by Witt and Caldwell (2010) and/or many other studies about juvenile delinquency and recreation), but there is also a connection to self-exploration, recreation and leisure, and identity development (Freysinger and Kelly, 2011) that can be neglected by over-scheduling children; not to mention the pressures of living an adult-life before being able to maturely capable of doing so.
Most startling, Malone notes that in a study conducted in 2005 regarding Australian children, one in ten was active in play as we understand it and one in twenty admitted that they rarely left the inside of their home to play. Richard Louv (author of Last Child in the Woods) and a slew of researchers have found time and again that this loss of connection to nature does relate to health and developmental issues in children. Taking it further, researchers have found that children who lacked a connection to nature, also lacked this connection as adults. More specifically, environmental value researchers have found that there appears to be significant environmental value formation in children which can lead to values and behaviors as an adult; or these values if not formed in children, may not form as an adult.
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