Welcome to the newsletter of NAI's Wild West Region, serving Arizona and parts of California and Nevada.

Featured photo: Wild West Region members gather at the InterpTech 2017 conference at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in May.
Hello Wild West Members!
We are heading into the warm summer months here in the Wild West! In the long days ahead we'll have plenty of time to enjoy our surroundings and reflect on what brought us to the world of interpretation. With this year's snow melting in the mountains; it brings to life the trees, wild flowers and the chance for a wildlife sighting. The rivers swell with runoff leading down the mountain. Our deserts have soaked up the winter's runoff, and animals forage on the last of spring's greens before the high temperatures and monsoons hit. And out to the coast where the last bits of spring fade away and summer brings fun in the sun, with the waves lapping at our feet.

Your Wild West board encourages you to take those reflections and join us at this year's National Conference in Spokane, Washington, where we will be Illuminating Interpretation together! We have a scholarship opportunity available for our region's members. Apply for this opportunity where you can attend the conference and meet other region and national members in Spokane. To learn more about the scholarship, see the National Conference Scholarship section below in the newsletter.

Happy Summer!
Kim Casey
Wild West Treasurer
National Conference Scholarships          
NAI's Wild West Region is offering our annual National Conference scholarship to professionals and students who have shown exemplary work in the area of interpretation. The Scholarship Program recipient will receive one full registration for the National Conference this year, November 14-18 in Spokane, Washington.

Applicant must be a Wild West Region member and the scholarship will be based on a written essay demonstrating success and creativity in interpretive work experience, programs and/or academic projects.

Applications are due by July 17, 2017.

Please see Scholarship Application Form for additional information.
Realignment Plan Affects Wild West Region           
NAI's Advisory Council is considering a proposal that would realign some of the association's western regions in an attempt to better serve member needs. According to the proposal, the current Rocky Mountain Region would be reduced in size to become a smaller region made up of the Four Corners states. Arizona would switch from the Wild West to the new Four Corners Region, which would also include Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. This change would reshape our region to include the densely populated but geographically smaller southern California and southern Nevada.

Also according to the proposal, the states and Canadian provinces that currently make up the northern half of the Rocky Mountain Region would become part of the Pacific Northwest and Heartland regions.

If you have questions or concerns about this process, please contact regional director Amy Erickson at ameserickson@gmail.com.
Destination of the Month: Lake Tahoe           
Mark Twain's Love for Lake Tahoe by Stephanie Ambrosia Stephanie.Ambrosia@parks.ca.gov
 
Of all the classic American writers, perhaps the one who most captures the self-reliance and eccentricity of the Wild West is Mark Twain. Many are familiar with Twain's most notable works, like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). Twain also wrote a large body of nonfiction and immortalized his travels throughout the American West in the semi-autobiographical memoir Roughing It (1872).

View of Lake Tahoe from Rubicon Trail

The young Twain was no different than many of his contemporaries in that he sought riches in the Sierra Nevadas. In 1861, he attempted to strike silver at the infamous Comstock Lode in Virginia City. After failing to do so, he continued westward to the Lake Tahoe basin, aiming to stake a timber claim. As he states in Roughing It, "[w]e had heard a world of talk about the marvelous beauty of Lake Tahoe, and finally curiosity drove us there to see it." What Twain did not realize at the time of his journey to Tahoe was how powerfully he would be struck by its clarity and grandeur. The writer and his party plodded over mountains that seemed "three or four thousand miles high" until the lake "burst upon" them. Twain describes Lake Tahoe as "a noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that towered aloft full three thousand feet higher still!" He continues, "[a]s it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface, I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords."

I can relate to Twain, as I am sure many can, because I was also struck by the awesomeness of Lake Tahoe when I first laid eyes upon it. I took a seasonal job this year with the Lake Tahoe Sector of California State Parks and it was only after moving up here that I first glimpsed the "noble sheet of blue water." I was renewed by the purity of the region and regained alertness and energy. Indeed, Twain insists, "[t]hree months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor..." So, after my summer here, all signs of aging should disappear!

Shaping Watersheds exhibit at the UC Davis Tahoe Science Center

As an interpreter, I am most interested in the issues of watershed and natural resource management. Truly, there is no better place than the Tahoe Basin to learn more about these matters. I visited the UC Davis Tahoe Science Center of Incline Village, NV where they have quality exhibits, including a 3D movie and sand pit for creating your own watershed. The resources there have helped me create my own program about water clarity.

Additional interpretive sites in the Tahoe area include the Vikingsholm Castle at Emerald Bay State Park (CA), the Washoe Indian Cultural Exhibit at Tallac Historic Site (CA), and the Donner Memorial State Park Visitor Center (CA). If you are interested in Mark Twain's travels, then you must visit the Mark Twain Museum and Comstock Gold Mill in Virginia City, NV.

I hope every person who visits California or Nevada gets the opportunity to see Lake Tahoe and learn more about is natural and cultural history. Such a fair picture will forever be imprinted in your mind and heart, as it was for Twain.
Adopt It: Changing with Technology to Reach Larger Audiences            
by Jennifer Dandurand
Jennifer.Dandurand@parks.ca.gov

"What's the weather like where you are today?" "Wait, are you really there? You can see me?" These are some of the many questions which I, as an interpreter for California State Parks, regularly receive from students.

J. Dandurand interpreting at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook

For more than a decade, California State Parks has offered live, interactive videoconferencing programs from parks into K-12 classrooms through a program called PORTS, Parks Online Resources Teachers and Students. In that decade, how we connect to the classrooms has changed drastically-Internet speeds have improved, technology has become less bulky, and the connecting process has simplified-but the purpose of the program has remained consistent: to deliver free, quality interpretive programs to students, many of whom would be unable to experience State Parks otherwise. The program is now offered at ten parks across the state, ranging from deserts to tidepools, redwood forests above ground to kelp forests underwater, from a Gold Rush mining town to inside the historic Governor's office in the capitol. As our goal is to come alongside teachers and help bring various subject matters to life, the units of study cover a specific set of science and social science standards, and each interpreter works closely with the teachers to develop and deliver programs that best fit the needs of each classroom.

I began presenting PORTS programs in fall 2011 at the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook. Located atop a hill in urban Los Angeles, the park offers an almost 360-degree view of the city as well as the Pacific Ocean, making the park a great location for discussing weather and climate-specifically the ocean's effect on the weather and human impacts on the environment.

J. Dandurand shares images of wildflowers with students using PORTS technology.

Though I was initially thrown into PORTS out of a staffing necessity, I have since grown to truly love connecting with the students. I enjoy the opportunity to interact with students from all over the state (as well as the nation), and have found that kids are kids...everywhere! But more importantly, kids are small(er) humans who have a natural curiosity about life and an excitement to see new and different things. I love that I get to both teach the students and give many of them "first time" experiences. For some of these students, they are unlikely to ever experience the park simply because of geographic distance. For others, connecting with a live, Stetson-wearing ranger gives them a sense of familiarity with parks and the people therein, which hopefully reduces some of their natural fears toward unfamiliar environments before physically visiting a new park.

For my personal growth as an interpreter, because PORTS is constantly moving with technological trends, I am ever pushed to change how I present information. In my six years of videoconferencing, I have learned to present in a studio with greenscreen technology, in front of a camera mounted to the back of a golf cart, and have gone completely mobile using a cellphone and iPad. Some of my colleagues deliver programs while sitting in a kayak or using a camera mounted to a telemedicine cart. It is this constant need to learn and adapt that is both exhilarating and exhausting, and it is precisely what I look to for regular mental stimulation.

No one knows what PORTS or videoconferencing will look like in the coming years as technology is rapidly advancing, but we, as interpreters, should be continuously changing how we deliver information-even if the purpose of it hasn't changed-to better reach our target audience and beyond.

For more information about the PORTS program, please check out ports.parks.ca.gov.
Highlights from InterpTech 2017              
by Peter Ostroskie
Peter.Ostroskie@parks.ca.gov

Paul Caputo (NAI) and Brad Krey (California State Parks)

InterpTech was a 4-day workshop held at the Mott Training Center in Pacific Grove, California, May 1-4. Interpreters from all across the country gathered to talk about new technology stemming out of different areas that can help our field. To get the event kicked off, we started with "Digital Media Madness." This is where groups from different parks and different technologies could display what they do. Participants were able to ask questions and network. During the Madness, NAI even held a Facebook Live stream where Paul Caputo and Brad Krey talked about the event. This was just the beginning to a fascinating week.

The next day we had a keynote speaker, Colleen Dilenschneider, who is the Chief Market Engagement Officer for IMPACT. Her company handles big data, which helps us understand and see the impact of what we do digitally and how that can affect our audience. Much of the information that was presented shows how much social media and digital technology will impact the next generation, as well as Millennials and Baby Boomers in the present. Dilenschneider's presentation helped to show everyone in the room that technology is a new tool and one that will stay. (Her keynote is available in its entirety on NAI's Facebook page.)

Later on, we interacted in breakout sessions to talk with different companies and what they have to offer. OnCell, Agents of Discovery, InaDev, and Map Stories were part of these sessions. Each one held a special session on how we could use technology to help us, as Interpreters, to create the stories that we want to share with our visitors. However, some of the biggest highlights of the week came from a live stream and a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The livestreaming that we were able to participate in happened on the evening of the second night. Where, through the wonders of the internet, our large group was able to conference live with a pair of interpreters from Australia's Reef Aquarium located in Townsville, Australia. One of the interpreters was outside the tank looking in and able to answer questions. The other was inside the tank swimming with the sharks and fish.

This was not our only deep-sea adventure. The following day our group was taken to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. There we toured around the building and viewed the different types of interactive exhibits, such as the touch screen to view microscopic plankton, the use of the Xbox Kinect that followed your arm movements with birds wings, and the Color and Release Your Fish into the Baja exhibit. Later on in the day, staff members of the Aquarium showed us how they use laptops, tablets and video conferencing to connect with their guests.

A few of the takeaways for many of the interpreters was how technology is going to be an even bigger part of our jobs; from video conferencing to an audience halfway across the world, to the idea that 3D printing could be used to create replicas of artifacts that kids could touch; technological opportunities are endless. Interptech was an exciting and fascinating week to see about the future of our profession.
Upcoming Trainings and Conferences               
5 Day Tracking Intensive
June 9-13 in Frazier Park, CA
Novices to expert trackers welcome
www.EarthSkills.com

Scholarships For Professionals At Small Museums To Attend AASLH Annual Meeting
Applications Due June 9
AASLH will hold its Annual Meeting and Online Conference in Austin, Texas from September 6-9, 2017. Scholarships are available. Learn more

Native American Studies Institute Offers Workshop For Tribal Museum Professionals
June 13-16
Learn more

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEAM) Symposium Conference
San Francisco, December 10-11, 2017
Workshop proposals are due by Friday, June 16, 2017, 5:00 p.m. PDT. For more information and/or to submit a proposal, click here.

Beginning Tracking for Wildlife Surveys
Hosted by the San Diego Tracking Team at the Ranch House, Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve on Saturday, July 15, 2017.
E-mail sdttinfo@gmail.com to register.
www.sdtt.org

Certified Interpretive Guide Training Course
August 5-6 and 12-13, 2017 
Phoenix Zoo, Phoenix, Arizona.
For more information about the course, please contact Sarena Randall Gill at sgill@phoenixzoo.org or call (602) 286-3813.
Click here for more information.

Mark your calendars for the NAI 2017 National Conference, Illuminating Interpretation, November 14-18 in Spokane, Washington!
We're always looking for content                
Have an idea or want to share your thoughts about this issue? Contact us at nairegion8@gmail.com
In This Issue: Summer 2017
Hello Wild West Members!
National Conference Scholarships
Destination of the Month: Lake Tahoe
Adopt It: Changing with Technology to Reach Larger Audiences
Highlights from InterpTech 2017
Upcoming Trainings and Conferences
Save the Date
Regional Officers
National Officers
Jay Miller
President
jmiller@interpnet.com

Theresa Coble
VP for Administration
Theresa.Coble@yandex.com
 
Todd Bridgewater
VP for Programs
toddbridgewater@gmail.com

Travis Williams
Treasurer
travis@outdoordiscovery.org

Tom Mullin
Secretary
tmullin@unity.edu