Virtual Tours

Perspectives: Research and Creative Activities at SIUC, Spring 2008

:: research survey ::

Virtual Tours

Your MP3 player could become a park ranger you can carry in your pocket, thanks to a Department of Forestry class at SIUC.

Students in Erin Seekamp's upper-level environmental interpretation course spent spring semester producing five podcasts for use at nearby Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge. A 44,000-acre mix of forest, pasture, lake, wetland, wilderness, and recreational areas, the refuge attracts roughly one million visitors each year.

The podcasts, which will be downloadable onto individual players from a freestanding kiosk in the visitors' center, will serve as tour guides to the different refuge areas, offering the kind of insider insight visitors would get from a one-on-one tour with a ranger.

Seekamp, an assistant professor, focuses her research on partnerships for natural resource management, including interpretive strategies for parks and historical sites. Wildlife refuge specialist John Magera, who enlisted Seekamp's help with the project, says it draws on technology to get people to "go outside and get their feet on the ground."

Many people, he says, "come to our visitors' center, look around, then get in their vehicles and go to dinner or go home. Even if we had the staff to give tours, you can only move as fast as the slowest member of the tour."

Seekamp's students researched, wrote, and produced the podcasts—two to replace existing, more traditional car-based tours, two new programs on the Rocky Bluff nature trail, and one for an annual open-refuge event. In addition to the audio portions, the podcasts include video components for those whose MP3 players can play them.

Once the download station is installed and the podcasts are up and running, Magera anticipates they'll get a lot of use.

"We have some fascinating stuff here, and this is one of the tools we're going to use to get the word out."

—K. C. Jaehnig