Engaging Citizen Scientists through Partnership with Interpreters
Abstract
A partnership between USDA Forest Service Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center interpreters and University of Alaska faculty and students has facilitated citizen science engagement. The Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center is the most visited facility operated by the United States Forest Service with approximately 445,000 visitors per year. University and visitor center personnel have developed exhibits in the Visitor Center. A majority of visitors stay for only approximately one hour due to cruise ship schedule constraints, so direct engagement by interpreters is an effective public engagement method. Therefore, the University of Alaska Southeast and the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center (MGVC) have worked in partnership to study the Mendenhall Glacier, providing annual public lectures through the MGVC Fireside Lecture Series, intense training sessions for all MGVC interpreters at the beginning of every summer season, and facilitating a dialog of "on-site" observations by interpreters and visitors and University researchers. The MGVC facilitates a weather station and multiple cameras providing real time data and images of Mendenhall Glacier which may be accessed by anyone and time-lapse videos of calving or advance/retreat of the terminus of the glacier. Specifically, these images and meteorological data allow the continued engagement of visitors through access when they have returned home. The open communication between MGVC and UAS allows the rapid communication of observations of changes associated with the glacier and quick response to questions of interpreters or the public. A public recording of calving facilitates public engagement and facilitates the production of time-lapse video by university personnel. In our presentation we will describe the partnership between UAS and MGVC.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AGUFMED11A0595H
- Keywords:
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- 0720 CRYOSPHERE / Glaciers;
- 0815 EDUCATION / Informal education;
- 1621 GLOBAL CHANGE / Cryospheric change