In the Field with Ranger Mike

Last Post!

2008-09-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

Well, believe it or not, summer is over. And with the changing seasons, it's time for this blog to hibernate for awhile. This was a great way for me to document my travels and projects throughout the summer, but I think this blog has potential for so much more. In an ideal world, the posts would be created by other staff and scientists and I would act as an editor of sorts. So I'm going to step back for awhile, rethink this idea, and hopefully return, better than ever (!), sometime in the future.

Filming with Ron Bend: Lewis and Clark NHP

2008-09-24T12:48:00.000-07:00

So many great photos from Monday. I'm seriously thinking about starting a Flickr account for work.

Org(anization) Chart

2008-09-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

Here's the first draft of an org chart that shows the structure of the North Coast and Cascades Inventory and Monitoring Program:

Photos from the Road... and Trail

2008-09-12T08:55:00.001-07:00

Travel Report: Glacier National Park

2008-09-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

“So basically what you’re telling me,” I asked Tim Gilk, IT administrator, and Bill Hayden, Interpretive Media Specialist at Glacier National Park “is that anything is possible?”

“Yes,” they replied.

We were sitting down in Bill’s office on Friday afternoon and they were showing me the ease at which their NPS website can be updated. Information like when a campground fills or the status of the Going-to-the-Sun Road or cross-country skiing conditions is displayed in real-time and bypasses the current CMS restrictions. Even historical data like the average temperature for, say September 7, between 1990 and 2000, can be determined. It seemed like whatever Bill, Tim, and David Restivo, another Visual Information Specialist, could dream up, it could happen.

It was at this point that my brain started firing away with little ideas we could try back at our own Research Learning Network and it was at this point that I felt very grateful for visiting Glacier.

While the park itself was stunning—a hybrid of North Cascades and Yosemite—it was the staff that truly impressed me. As I continue to find during my travels, National Park Service employees are enthusiastic and passionate about their work. Sure there might be some eye-rolling about bureaucracy, but at the end of the day we’re here because we believe in our NPS Mission.

Here are some highlights of what I learned:
-Apple computers are possible to be connected to the NPS network!

-Glacier has a huge fan-club following of web-cam viewers, to the point that there are daily e-mails thanking the park for having them and/or complaining that a camera has been bumped and that the view is off by an inch. In the greater scheme of things, these cameras have allowed park visitors to stay connected to their park resources, despite geographic distances.

-The Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center recently hired a new staff member to improve their publications and web-presence. Thus, they are addressing some of the same communication issues as our own network. I’m anticipating future collaboration, or at least park-to-park camaraderie in the future. Sallie Hejl, their director, was also very excited about the projects we are developing.

-After a conference call between Bill, Jerry and myself, it seems that the Yellowstone Science Learning Center model is something we should aspire to, at least in terms of our web-presence. It’s incredibly content-rich with material available for the general public and scientists alike.

-Discussions with park staff reinforced my belief that the national park experience isn’t limited to park boundaries and that digital media is one means of reaching out to non-traditional park visitors—be it the upcoming tech-saavy generation, urban populations or handicapped visitors. I now have digital templates for Glacier’s interactive e-hikes, have seen how their podcasts are produced and can now create 360 degree virtual reality panoramic movies.

-Lastly, I learned that hiking in grizzly bear country can be a little nerve-wracking. Fortunately, the views make up for having to carry bear spray and shouting loudly every few hundred feet.

As I reflected on this trip, driving across the flats of Eastern Washington, it was apparent that this was a fruitful learning experience. I witnessed not only very successful models of communication (Freeman Tilden Award!), but also staff that have the energy and creativity to lead the National Park Service. Knowing our own staff and resources in the Pacific Northwest, I believe that this too is something we can achieve. Thanks everyone for this opportunity!

Vital Sign Map

2008-08-29T10:25:00.000-07:00

One of this week's biggest accomplishments for me was finalizing the coding for this interactive Flash map of our network's vital sign. The content is still being developed, but the structure is there (the hard part, for me at least). I felt kinda nerdy writing ActionScript, but also proud that I was able to teach it to myself. I'm not sure if this blog can show a flash web-feature, but I'll try and figure out some way of posting it.

Just for fun...

2008-08-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

As I was packing up last night, my roommate passed this video along to me. This is me, glissading at Artist Point in Mt. Baker.

In August.

David Snyder

2008-08-29T09:52:00.001-07:00

Recently, North Cascades hired photojournalist and Artist-in-Residence alumn David Snyder to help build our digital image library. The results are amazing and I'm thrilled to have access to so many high-quality photographs. It's crucial to communicating our parks' goals and mission to the general public.

David also wrote a very thoughtful blog post about his experience:
The park is spectacular. If you have never seen it - and most of you haven’t - go. You will not be disappointed if you have one spark of love in you for wild places. But the park has something else as well - a remarkable collection of people working there - people who love what they do, and whose job, day in and day out, is to protect a national treasure: the park itself. Two and half years now since returning from Africa to the US, the park offers something I haven’t found on the busy and crowded East Coast - a place where the people around you are actually happy to be where they are -where the people love their corner of the world. From what I’ve seen in the last two and half years, we don’t have that here in the East - we run from place to place. We hate our jobs, or at best tolerate them as a menas to an end. And we don’t even take the time, it seems, to recognize that in ourselves.

If ten days in the North Cascade wilderness teaches you much about the world around you, it gives you, most preciously, insight into how you live - detached, in most cases, from the wilderness from which we all emerged. I truly believe we’ve cut that strand to our past to our own detriment - and the chance to reconnect slips away with each road built and each tree cut. Get out to the North Cascades if you can. Get outside at all. It’s where we’re all meant to be.

Changes

2008-08-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you're all ready for a well-deserved long weekend (I sure am). Today marks a number of transitions for me. My summer sublet is up and I'm moving down to the Seattle area, where I will be taking scientific illustration classes for the school year at the University of Washington. Don't worry, classes don't start until October, so I'll still be working for the Network until then.

My schedule will be somewhat sporatic- I won't be in the office at all next week because I'm headed to Glacier National Park!! Bill Hayden and Steve Restivo are doing some amazing, innovative projects and I'm traveling there, essentially as sponge to soak in their knowledge and ideas. Well, and share some of mine too, I hope.

And then, a week later, I'll be assisting video producer Ron Bend from Colorado State University as he films our monitoring efforts within the Network. Our itinerary has us going from North Cascades to Olympic to San Juan to Lewis and Clark to Mount Rainier...in 6 days.

So lots of great stuff happening this month and I look forward to reporting on it all! Have a wonderful and safe Labor Day.

The Motherload of Inspiration

2008-08-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

Oh. My. God. THIS IS WHAT WE NEED TO BE DOING!

An article from the NYT magazine, "The Medium: Tiny Talents" by Virginia Heffernan, introduced me to some of the most exciting forms of education and communication currently available on the web.

How to Avoid Poison Ivy from "Howcast"

How To Survive If You're Lost in the Woods, from "Howcast"

How To Treat a Snakebite from "Howcast"

(note: these videos use a great trick in their timeline at the bottom of each screen. Notice the little red, green, black and blue dots? These correlate to the narration. Red is for warnings, green for tips, black for each instructional step and blue for "did you know" tid-bits. It's a really smart and simple design solution to help reinforce the information.)

What's also really great is the open participation between the community of viewers. You can vote to see if this video was helpful. You can suggest topics. You can upload your own. You can comment on the video (adding validation or criticism). This dialogue, common in places like Wikipedia or Facebook/MySpace, is really what makes the Internet an exciting place for communication and building community. This online fluency is something we the National Park Service, does not have. YET.

Oh, and I checked if there were any instructional videos about or from the NPS...none. This is a ripe, un-tapped market ready for the taking!

Thought: Can we hire this guy to do work for our network?! These are some of the wittiest videos I've seen.

Other videos to watch at your leisure:
How to Use Less Water on Your Yard
How To Make Your Bathroom Eco-Friendly
How To Cook Seven Simple Recipes Over a Campfire

Okay. So excited and inspired. Learning is fun!

Bottom's Up!

2008-08-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

Photo by Brady Fontenot, NYT

Education is at the heart of communication and I found this article about the Post-Katrina Classrooms in New Orleans to resonate with my experience working with the NCCN. In particular, this paragraph about Lousiana's state superindendent, Paul Pastorek's theory about education:

"His conclusion, more than a year into his work, is that fixing a public-school system is not at its root a question of curriculum or personnel or even money. It is a question of governance. It is simply impossible, Pastorek has come to believe, for a traditional school system, run from the top down by a central administrator, to educate large numbers of poor children to high levels of achievement. 'The command-and-control structure can produce marginal improvements,' he told me when we met last month at a coffeehouse on Magazine Street. 'But what’s clear to me is that it can only get you so far. If you create a system where initiative and creativity is valued and rewarded, then you’ll get change from the bottom up. If you create a system where people are told what to do and how to do it, then you will get change from the top down. We’ve been doing top-down for many years in Louisiana. And all we have is islands of excellence amidst a sea of mediocrity and failure.'"

Tough, Paul. "A Teachable Moment" The New York Times Magazine, August 14, 2008

In this article, I saw parallels between working for a network made of 8 diverse national park units and working for a school system. No, I'm not saying that the NCCN is broken like New Orleans, just that we're still figuring out the best way to manage, organize and maximize everyone's efforts.

You can read the whole article here.

AIDS Awareness Campaigns

2008-08-15T13:51:00.000-07:00

In preparation for our up-coming fall workshop on science communication, I'm going to start collecting innovative of non-traditional and innovative communication techniques. Some may be about science, but I'm not limiting myself to that subject...design, pop culture, magazines, technology, advertisements...it can all be inspiration.

From "Advocates Share Ideas in Teaching About AIDS," by Marc Lacey and Lawrence K. Altman

"More than a quarter of a century since the AIDS epidemic was first recognized, the advocates say, they must be increasingly imaginative in their efforts to educate the public about the disease. Posters on display showed condom-shaped superheroes sailing through the air and oversize insects, representing the virus, having sex with unsuspecting victims. The worst thing, those involved in drawing attention to the epidemic say, is to be so dull that people’s eyes glaze over."

What threatens communication?

2008-08-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting and uncommon perspective on communication:

Typography’s principal function (not its only function) is communication, and the greatest threat to communication is not difference but sameness. Communication ceases when one being is no different from another: when there is nothing strange to wonder at and no new information to exchange. For that reason among others, typography and typographers must honor the variety and complexity of human language, thought and identity, instead of homogenizing or hiding it.

-From Robert Bringhurt’s “The Elements of Typographic Style”

I'm currently reading and loving this book. It's a subject that probably interests, oh, maybe .5% of the population; but for whatever reason, I find typography to be fascinating.

This argument of our attention falling victim to sameness reminded me of something I read in the Sunday NYT Book Review last week:

Driving rarely commands 100 percent of our attention, and so we feel comfortable multitasking: talking on the phone, unfolding a map, taking in the Barca-Lounger on the road’s shoulder. Vanderbilt cites a statistic that nearly 80 percent of crashes involve drivers not paying attention for up to three seconds. Thus the places that seem the most dangerous — narrow roads, hairpin turns — are rarely where people mess up. “Most crashes,” Vanderbilt writes, “happen on dry roads, on clear, sunny days, to sober drivers.” For this reason, roads that could be straight are often constructed with curves — simply to keep drivers on the ball.

-From "Slow-Moving Traffic" by Mary Roach, about Tom Vanderbilt's book, "Traffic: Why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us)"

Longest post EVER

2008-08-08T14:47:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone!

I’ve got lots to share on the blog today so let’s jump right in. I realized earlier in the week that I only have two months left of my season with the North Coast and Cascades Research Learning Network. Where has this summer gone? With all the projects I’ve become involved with, these next eight weeks will require some good time management skills in order to have actual completed projects. I now have 8 post-it notes on my desk with the priorities listed for the remaining weeks.

Post-it number one, as recommended by Sara Melena: NCCN graphic identity, specifically a logo, template for the Resource Briefs, and folder design.

The logo, as mentioned last week, is one of the hardest things to design. It has to be simple and iconic, yet represent an incredibly diverse and complex network. The logo should be specific to our region in terms of colors and content, yet also point back to the larger National Park System.

This was last week’s logo:

After many more brainstorms...

...I’ve eventually settled into this:

Now remember, nothing’s ever final, but this is my top choice and the one I’ll pitch to our Science Communication Committee. Thankfully, this group of 7 or so will make the final decision, not the entire network.

The logo represents the two main natural features of our network: mountains and water (the latter loosely includes coasts, rivers and lakes). The mountains rise up above the horizon as sharp angular shapes. The water ripples outwards in geometric curves. The green is taken from the color palette I developed last week: the dark, wet evergreen that covers every mountainside west of the Cascades. The green of the water is the same but as a 50% transparency.

If one examines the logo closely, eight shapes will be counted; 3 mountains and 5 water components. This is completely intentional as we have three large mountainous parks in our network—Mount Rainier, North Cascades and Olympic—and 5 smaller parks surrounded by or heavily influenced by water—Ebey’s Landing, Fort Vancouver, Klondike Gold Rush, Lewis and Clark and San Juan Island. 8 graphic elements, 8 network parks, all bound together by a surrounding circle.

The text, of course, ties it all together and I prefer the clean, sans-serif lines of our Frutiger 45 Light. I also felt fortunate that the words “The North Coast &” fit evenly above “Cascades Network” without any weird adjustment of spacing.

Chip Jenkins, NOCA’s superintendent, mentioned that the symmetry of the logo reminded him of Charley Harper’s work for the National Park Service.

I’d seen Harper’s posters before but hadn’t looked much further until this week. Have you ever found an artist, or author, or any other individual and immediately felt a connection to his/her work and ideas? I love the clean lines and reduction of complex subjects to “simple” shapes. I find that to be a more difficult, more witty exercise than to copy the subject individual feather by individual feather. As I read Harper’s biography and explored his body of work, I felt a mixture of relief that someone else had similar design aesthetics and anxiety that this person had already filled the creative niche.

Charley Harper died in 2007 and I feel sad that I hadn’t really discovered him before hand. I would have enjoyed seeing an exhibition, if not meeting him in person. Fortunately, he’s left behind an incredible amount of work to provide me with inspiration. There’s this idea of one’s artwork always being part of a larger conversation with contemporary artists and all the artists that have lived before. I’d like to consider some of my work taking his ideas further in this dialogue. For example, he worked by hand and I work digitally. And I know how to animate my work...

Moving on from this art history critique…

Here is a re-design of the Resource Briefs that each monitoring team is supposed to update annually. I didn’t have to do too much, just some cleaning up to make it more readable and consistent with the overall graphic style we’ve developed.

Finally, here are some of the first drafts for a folder that would be used to hold network publications and products.

At first glance, it appears that it’s an abstract landscape, of mountain ranges expanding and fading into the background. Upon closer examination, one realizes the lines are part of graphs and that each peak or valley corresponds to one of the networks (listed on the bottom). If you fold out the back cover, the topics of the charts are revealed. Y-axis’ rise up at varying heights and intervals and text at the bottom explains what each graph measures: number of vital signs, total acreage, distance from Seattle, latitude and longitude, etc.

I’m still trying to figure out the best combination of colors and transparencies so that the resulting image hints at being both a landscape and graph, but without being overtly either.

Oh yeah, the light blue lines in the background should resemble a scientific ledger/notebook as well as rain showers. And this may be reading into the image too much, but does the y-axis lines remind anyone else of totem poles? Unintentional, but an appropriate reference to the cultural history of our region.

I’m also very open to suggestions of other things to graph (# of staff at each park? Annual rainfall?)

Well, I think this should be it for now. There’s a couple more things I could post, but this has turned into a very long entry, so I’ll table them for another time.

Have a wonderful weekend!

NCCN Graphic Identity

2008-08-01T09:39:00.000-07:00

Before I was hired, the network and the Natural Resource Program Center in Fort Collins had created an assignment for a class of graphic design students at Colorado State University: develop a graphic identity for the North Coast and Cascades Network. This includes items like a logo, color palette, typographical style guide, brochures, business cards and folder design.

While we were impressed with their efforts, it was also apparent that they were at a disadvantage by being so far removed from our Pacific Northwest landscape. So I've been asked to try my hand at it, to synthesize their ideas and filter it through my perspective as someone who intimately knows the network and our natural resources.

I've started off with the logo and color scheme- two foundational components that influence all other aspects of design. I think I've nailed the colors: a dark evergreen, a light cool granite gray, a dark warmer cloudy gray, and a wet ocean blue. I've also included 4 accent colors- like the bright green of new vegetation in the spring or the bright red of huckleberries.

The logo, on the other hand, has given me the most trouble. How does one accurately represent such diverse national parks? Here are the results of some brainstorm sessions.

This is the best that I've come up with though it's pretty safe and conventional. Because it's the first thing I think of when I think "Coast" and "Cascades", I know I can do better.

Back in the Field

2008-07-31T16:05:00.000-07:00

I have a tendency to over-schedule my life. I’ll say yes to everything and then quickly find myself thinking, just how am I going to bend space and time to get it all done?

When NOCA’s science advisor Regina Rochefort asked if I could help a researcher in the field this week, I of course jumped at the opportunity and agreed. Never mind that it would be right after I returned from Michigan, that I would have to drive straight from the airport to the research station, having been up since 3:30am. Road-weary as I was, I still knew that I’d rather be hiking through fields of sub-alpine flowers than catching up on sleep.

I was right, it was worth it.

The following images are from a day of fieldwork along the Maple Pass Loop, near Rainy Pass on Highway 20. Adeline “Di” Johnson is a researcher with the National Forest Service and for her PhD, she is studying the role of nurse logs in timberline expansion. In other words, how fallen trees along the edge of the forest and sub-alpine can provide habitat for seedlings and thus help the forests expand. With warmer climates, the prediction is that the timberline is going to move higher and higher up in elevation.

At each site (we did two), a 200ft tape was put down in a more-or-less straight line. Yes, normally we use the metric system but somehow the meter-tape got misplaced. Every log that crosses below the tape is recorded: length, diameter, level of decay, number of seedlings, soil and air temperature, cause of death (Mrs. Plum in the alpine with a hatchet), etc.

Di kept copious notes in a little yellow notebook that hopefully, will never get lost. That'd be my biggest fear as a researcher. I think I'd carry a small xerox machine in my car to make copies every night.

As someone who loves reading color names on paint swatches or in clothing catalogs, I got really excited with Di showed me the Munsell Soil Color Charts. Basically, you match the color of the soil to the book and the matrix can tell you about the physical properties of the soil. The pages even have holes in them so you can put the dirt right underneath it for better comparison. What great design.

Chip, our superintendent, will be happy to hear that Di did a good job interacting with the public. This family of hikers had seen us in the meadow below and inquired about our work. These informal interpretive moments are important in promoting one of our main messages: science is happening in our parks and helps us make good management decisions..

This is also where we saw a weasel running down the trail with a vole/mouse in it's mouth.

Above Lake Ann.

Lunchtime!

Measuring the grade/steepness of the slope at our next site. It was exactly 30% which is the max. level before it becomes too dangerous for us to work.

Di says that she'll be coming back to these sites (totally ~20) over the next couple of years. I think I can make it a point to help out again in the future. :)

Why is the Sky Blue?

2008-07-31T11:30:00.001-07:00

I'm a voracious reader and because traveling provides ample time for reading, I enjoyed the Sunday New York Times in its entirety on my flights from Detroit to Atlanta to Seattle. Perhaps it was appropriate that I found this article while flying:

"For the program Picturing to Learn, Harvard physics students put their heads together with design students from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan to draw the science behind the blue sky. Put simply: sunlight — or white light, containing all the colors of the spectrum — strikes air particles and is scattered. The amount of scattering is greater for short wavelengths of light (which we see as blue) than for long (red), so whichever direction you look the sky appears blue. Ah, but the answer is far more complex. The following images show how students tried to illustrate it."

From Donald G. McNeil Jr., "At the Drawing Board" The New York Times. Sunday, July 27, 2008.

A pack of short-legged sprinters (blue light) competes with long-legged ones (red). Potholes (nitrogen molecules in the air) trip up and scatter more blue runners because of their short stride. BUT: Molecules are not like holes. Light has more than two colors, and doesn't behave like people. (People run at different speeds, and trip even with long legs.)

A bouncer at a saloon lets in long-wavelength colors, deflecting short ones to other entertainments — an indirect path to a human eye. BUT: Molecules don't "bounce" light; they absorb it and then radiate it out. And light doesn't curve.

To get the science right, a final drawing requires numerous color pens and boxes that magnify detail. The position of the observer also matters. Bonus: the figure on Earth at far right, looking across at the horizon, suggests why a sunset is red.

Photo: Aaron Lee Fineman for The New York Times

This was quite a design challenge and I'm not sure if I still fully understand why the sky looks blue. But I still enjoyed seeing the results from this collaboration between artists and scientists. Especially the runners.

Great News

2008-07-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

After several weeks in the office, I’m back out in the field! Gina Rochefort alerted me to a scientist coming into the park this week who needed an extra assistant. Adelaide (Di) Johnson, a hydrologist from the National Forest Service, will be studying the role of nurse logs in expansion of timberline with climate change. Lots of hiking, hopefully up in the sub-alpine. It’s been awhile, so I’m pretty excited. The only downside is that I’ll be driving directly from the airport on Monday to the Research Station without stopping home to unpack/unwind. Hopefully I’ve remembered to pack everything I’ll need! I’ll blog a field report next week.

Ranger Mike...Wednesday?

2008-07-23T16:09:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone,

I’m posting earlier this week because I’m headed back to Michigan for a family wedding. As I’m finishing packing and coordinating last minute travel logistics, I also made it a point to print off examples of the communication projects we’ve been working on. There’s certainly a lot that we’ve done since May and I’m really excited about the rest of our projects this summer!

Here’s a quick preview of some graphics I’ve developed this past week. Like most of the products on this blog, they’re in draft form and up for review.

A couple simple charts that introduces the different parks in our network as well as showing where each vital sign is being monitored.

I’ve been working with Sam Brenkman of Fish Assemblages to develop an example of monitoring data. This shows the number of fish counted as they travel through the North Fork Skokomish River, Olympic National Park, throughout the year in 1996. As he explained to me, this shows the temporal segregation of the three species of fish: Mountain Whitefish and Rainbow Trout occur in greater numbers during the summer while the Bull Trout doesn’t arrive until autumn.

An interesting lesson in graphically representing data. When plotted with the original data from Microsoft Excel, this is the graph that occurs.

What Excel fails to take into account is that the sampling dates don’t occur at regular intervals. So I made the X-axis based off of the calendar, with each unit equal to one day. This might be a really nit-picky detail, but I think it’s important in having a more accurate graph.

And this 3-D representation of the ranger icon is something I threw around 11pm a couple nights ago. I’ve got an idea of how to use it in a future project…stay tuned!

A more focused direction

2008-07-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

I apologize for neglecting the blog lately. I just got caught up in lots of little projects and by the time Friday rolled around, I wasn’t able to fully focus on a well-written post. Maybe I should blog throughout the week instead of the first day of the weekend. That’s actually part of the appeal of a blog, the random posting; doing something on a strict weekly basis seems more like a periodical newspaper or magazine. Bloggers post at all hours of the day, whenever the inspiration hits them, and I should embrace that attitude more often.

As I skim through the previous Ranger Mike Friday posts, it’s clear that the tone has changed. Rather than becoming a forum for communicating NPS science, it has become a forum about communicating NPS science. Specifically, my efforts and projects as a designer. This switch to a more personally-reflective perspective might not be a bad thing. With our network’s upcoming Fall Workshop (December 3-4), it would be wise for me to start putting down my thoughts on the role that design has in good scientific communication. Obviously, it is something that I believe strongly in and gives me more to contribute than my reports from the field. That’s just how my job has evolved and evolution’s okay, right!

Eventually, we’ll have an amazing official NPS blog for public consumption. It’ll have regular contributors from park scientists and field crews, tons of photographs, and maybe even a podcast or two. For now, however, I’m just going to set a good example for our park and network staff.

The "Face" of Ranger Mike Friday

2008-07-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday, around 4pm, I came across a buried treasure that only graphic designers would get truly excited about. As I explored its contents, I found myself staying in the office much later than I needed to be and when I finally went home, I couldn’t wait for work the next day to continue playing with my new treasures (isn’t that a great thing, to be excited to wake up and go to work?).

Q. What could possibly generate such enthusiasm and creative inspiration?
A. The official NPS map pictograms, as vector images, courtesy of the Harpers Ferry Center.

A brief lesson in digital images: Vector refers to a file type that relies on mathematical formulas to create shapes and therefore can be scaled to any size without distortion or awkward pixels. For designers who constantly have to scale the same images for different projects—for web, print publication, or billboards even—vector-based images make the job so much easier. And for me, the resulting smooth graphics works well with my personal style that is founded in balance, white-space, efficiency and clean-cut-ness (okay, I know that’s not a word). If anyone’s watched me work with Adobe Illustrator, he has witnessed a weird intuitive dance between my fingers on the keyboard, my wireless mouse, and the computer screen.

So finding all of these vector-based symbols, already created, is like suddenly finding myself able to speak another language. Or doubling one’s vocabulary. These are just more words for me to use in my visual language and I spent most of Thursday testing out how they feel.

(PS. I've printed these off as paper bookmarks, to send to our network staff as a reminder to "bookmark" this blog on their web-browser. I know, that's a pretty bad design pun)

Now Ranger Mike Friday has a logo, a symbol to represent who he is. It’s somewhat ambiguous and could represent anyone, and that’s the point. Ranger Mike Friday = National Park Service.

Just to show Ranger Mike doing a variety of activities, I added the hat to many common pictograms. I think my favorite are the random—but real—ones like “Showers Available” and “Golf Course.” Because the activities that I found are not specifically about scientific monitoring, I may be developing our own set of pictograms for the network (bird watching, snorkeling for fish assemblages, using a helicopter to monitor elk, etc).

Simplifying complex information into readable, usable graphics is becoming a common theme in my work and I enjoy this design challenge.

Mmm, pie

2008-07-18T12:34:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I’m balancing so many projects right now: a suite of basic information graphics for the network, mountain lake graphics, creating the visual graphic identity and style guide for the North Coast and Cascades Network, the interactive map web-resource, assisting in our upcoming video modules, helping redesign the NCCN websites, blogging, brainstorms on a poster series, presence on a social-networking site, podcasts… How did I get my fingers in so many pies? Fortunately, I love pie; I just need to set strict deadlines when I have to finish eating each one.

Interactive Vital Sign Map

2008-07-16T09:49:00.001-07:00

One of my projects this summer is to develop a web-resource that introduces the 9 Vital Signs. One will be able to navigate through the site by clicking on the the circle logos at top. Bold yellow circles then appear on the map to the left and show at which national park units we monitor each natural resource. In addition to being a simple graphic that shows where each vital sign occurs, a text box on the right explains, succinctly, why the vital sign is important and the current trend/status. Quick facts and stats appear at the bottom. Finally, depending on how thorough we want this web-resource to become, there could be links to other multimedia and communication projects (podcasts, photo galleries, etc).

Sketchbook Inspiration

2008-07-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

Here's a little glimpse into the mind of a designer. In my sketchbook, I keep a collection of what I would consider good design- not even graphic design per se; fashion, architecture, color schemes...it's all bits of inspiration that helps trigger ideas for future projects.

What National Park Science Means to Me

2008-07-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

From our first guest contributor!

Hi, I’m Jerry Freilich, Research Coordinator at Olympic National Park. I’m also head of the North Coast & Cascades Research Learning Network, the organization Michael Liang has been working with to improve science communication in Northwest National Parks. Michael invited me to contribute to his blog. I’ve been with the Park Service for 18 years in six National Parks working as a law enforcement ranger, naturalist, field biologist, and now as a science administrator.

This summer, Michael has been artfully helping us turn some of the national parks’ Inventory & Monitoring results into clear, understandable language for non-technical audiences. This is important work. After all, taxpayers pay for our national parks and they won’t be concerned about the national parks unless they’re aware of problems national parks face. Beginning in the 90’s, national parks began monitoring their resources with the goal of detecting human-induced changes. Michael’s efforts have centered on communicating the results of that monitoring. So I thought I’d offer some comments on how these results are actually produced. What does it take to run a monitoring program? And what drives researchers to the Herculean effort required to make this happen?

When you read that spotted owls are declining or that exotic weeds are increasing, these terse facts may seem trivial or unrelated to day-to-day problems. And the results conceal the great difficulty required to gain that information. It’s funny, but the public seems to view science with reverent detachment. Perhaps they picture that park scientists wear white lab coats and walk around in spacious labs gently shaking test tubes. The more likely picture is a spotted owl researcher, some rain-drenched soul, clinging to a steep, forested hill slope. Or a drier but equally agonized biologist struggling for the fifth consecutive hour over some ghastly multivariate analysis as the clock ticks relentlessly towards the reporting deadline. Hard data are called that for a reason! Because they’re hard to get. Not only is being a National Park scientist not an “ivory tower joy ride” but what many don’t realize is that science is actually a form of battle, fought with numbers and peer reviewed publications.

Theoretically, monitoring plants and animals should be relatively straightforward. The team goes out, counts the birds, comes back to the office and writes down what they saw. Simple, right? It isn’t so. The whole process is fraught with peril from beginning to end. So you want to study aquatic insects? Well, what method do you use to do this? What are the biases of the 10 different possible methods? What are the experimental assumptions of each method? What statistical method should be used to analyze the data? Is it even possible to gather enough data to produce a properly replicated, statistically valid result? How many samples are needed to detect a change of ± 15% with greater than 90% probability of being correct? Is the thing worth doing at all if your chances of finding a significant result are unlikely until the 5th year of the study? The 20th year? Enormous, contentious arguments even among well-meaning specialists in a given field can chew up years of precious time before the monitoring even gets underway.

Just as an example, I worked on threatened desert tortoises at Joshua Tree National Park in California for six years. Everyone seemed to agree that the tortoises were disappearing. But documenting the decline requires a valid, repeatable field method. When I first met with Park biologists from the other parks with tortoises they all said, “well, let’s just use the easiest method, count them, and we’ll report the results.” Alas, for better or worse, my research specialty was determining the sensitivity of different methods used for counting the tortoises. To make a very long story short, after years of work, dozens of meetings, and four publications in peer reviewed journals, I am here to tell you that there is STILL no known method for accurately counting desert tortoises in areas where they occur at low densities (which accounts for most of the Mohave desert).

So why do we do this? It’s not just because these data we gather, analyze, and present are things we would like to know. They are things we must know in order to “preserve and protect [the parks] for the enjoyment of future generations,” as our organizing legislation commands. Moreover, scientific information is a tool – a weapon actually – that can be used against those who would degrade park resources purposely, or more often, out of ignorance. Although hard data are hard to get, knowledge is power. Carefully constructed research holds up very well in board rooms and in court. Thoughtful use of monitoring data can not only help managers make informed decisions – it can also influence the tone of public discourse – in the local press or when combined with data from other parks and passed on to Congress.

When we hear about science news in magazines or on TV the daunting mathematical and technical realities are frequently relayed in a cutesy or sugary way intended to shield folks from scary technical things they would not understand. But it shouldn’t be this way and it doesn’t have to be. The best nature educators know how to explain complex things plainly. And the most important thing is to never forget the reasons we go to the incredible lengths of doing this work.

To me, being a scientist is an expression of the utter passion I have for living things. It is my opportunity to spend hours reading technical papers and researching how nature works. It is an excuse to learn the Latin names of countless plants, birds, and bees. But most importantly it is a tool that ‘speaks truth to power.’ Science is my way of working to protect living things big and small.

Happy Fourth of July!

2008-07-05T12:39:00.001-07:00

Ranger Mike is taking the day off.

But he make put up some posts anyway later in the weekend.

Get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather!

I'm a rhinaffephantpecker?

2008-06-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

I like this quote I found from Alan Fletcher:

"A designer has to have the hide of a rhinoceros, the neck of a giraffe, the memory of an elephant and the persistence of a woodpecker."

I've got to draw this animal at some point soon.

Summer is officially here

2008-06-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday readers,

Well, I had my first Board of Directors presentation this past Wednesday. Our Research Learning Network had 45 minutes to update the Board about our current and future projects and I was thrilled at the positive response. Conference calls still amaze me and I’d like to think that I’m getting more comfortable talking to a dozen people without actually seeing them. Here are the creative briefs I put together that introduced my summer projects, most of which you’ve seen before.

Now that this meeting is done, I don’t have any big deadlines looming ahead of me. Which is somewhat of a bad thing because I thrive under due dates. Okay, next week’s goal: more self-discipline!

Have a wonderful (and warm) weekend. I’m hearing that we’ll hit 90 on Sunday? This is quite the heat wave for the Pacific Northwest. I may have to start wearing shorts now.

What not to do

2008-06-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

Next week, I’ve been asked to give a training session of my choice to the new interpreters within our park. Whatever I want? Ha, It’s dangerous to give me that much power. Based on the fact that I am giving a presentation on the very last day of their three-weeks of training, I decided to do something fun with as much audience participation as I can.

To no one’s surprise, some of the things in life that gets me worked up are bad powerpoints, boring presentations and lazy graphic design. So my training will be entitled: “How NOT to give a Powerpoint” I figured this would be useful since the interps will be starting their new evening programs relatively soon and I need to break them of their bad habits.

So I set out to create the worst powerpoint and broke every rule that I could. I was somewhat embarrassed working on it in the office because I didn’t want my co-workers to think that this as a legitimate project I was designing.

I’ll give the presentation and have the staff take notes about what is wrong about each slide (and believe me, the list will be very long). We’ll discuss these points and then I’ll provide examples of good usage of powerpoint slides. Should be fun.

Here are some tips I've come up with:

DON'T even think about using
CLIP ART
SLIDE TRANSITIONS
SLIDE BACKGROUNDS
SOUND EFFECTS or (God forbid)
WORD ART.
These are dated and tacky and whoever designed them should be smacked upside the head. Remember, a good presentation brings the focus back to you, not itself.

RESIST THE URGE!

DON'T use your your slides as your script. Keep text to a minimum, otherwise, audience members will read ahead and stop listening to you. And then they’ll fall asleep while waiting for you to catch up.

DO use a limited number of colors. Keep the background as neutral as possible so that the emphasis is on the content.

DO use only high-quality images. Nothing blurry or pixelated. Ever.

DO attribute your sources. If the photographs aren’t yours or the NPS, you can get in big copyright trouble. Especially if the photographer is sitting in the audience.

DO use your slides to reinforce your words, not repeat them.

Try to maintain a level of graphic consistency. This means, staying with one typeface, a similar color palette, and images of the same size.

DO remember that even if technology fails, you should still be able to give your program. This is how confident you need to be in the presentation. It also helps keep your priorities: content and speech first, then supplemental images second (and know that, as a visual person, it pains me to admit that).

Welcome Scott!

2008-06-27T13:16:00.002-07:00

This week, we added a new player to our communication team, Scott Beason! Scott will be my counterpart at Mount Rainier and we’re excited to see how our working relationship develops. With his science and interp background and my interp and design background, we have an opportunity to test out a potential staffing arrangement for science communication in the future. The two of us will be focusing on developing a thorough suite of products on glaciers, landbirds, and/or climate. I’m thrilled to have someone to bounce ideas off and to share the workload.

So now, our team consists of people at Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Olympic and Fort Collins, CO. Being separated geographically (temporally too if you include the fact that Fort Collins is two hours ahead), presents some interesting challenges; it’s not the most ideal working scenario in my opinion, but we’re making it work.

Fill in the Blank

2008-06-27T13:16:00.001-07:00

Hi readers! Time for some audience participation. Please fill in the rest of this sentence:
“The first national park that I remember visiting was...”

Feel free to go into detail if you want, but it’s not necessary. Just post your response in the comment link below.

Here’s mine.
“The first national park that I remember visiting was… Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore”

My uncle has worked as park ranger there for as long as I can remember and I loved my summers as a kid exploring the outdoors of Michigan’s upper peninsula. From 3rd-5th grade, I participated in a two-week long environmental day camp where every day was a wonderful hands-on field trip: putting on fishing waders and electrocuting invasive sea lampreys, spending an afternoon canoeing to count painted turtles, using radio collars to track down some sort of grouse, examining carnivorous plants in bogs. My cousin and I would come home from these excursions and our jeans would absolutely be plastered in mud and our shoes full of water.

It never really occurred to me until later that what I thought was just playing around and having fun outside was what scientists were doing as their fieldwork. I imagine that this type of story is fairly common among my co-workers. I’m also fortunate that I’ve had opportunities to come full circle, where I was the educator and able to introduce a new generation of children to the outdoors.

I had a dream

2008-06-27T13:14:00.000-07:00

I had an information graphic make an appearance in a dream last night. I was driving through a town in the southwest, somewhat touristy though no one was getting out of the cars because of the white-hot heat of the afternoon sun. I must have been lost because I found myself holding a map in my hands. I don’t remember anything other than the map key in the lower right corner. It had very well designed logos for the different types of on/off-ramps and highway overpasses. There was a bit of the third-dimension shown so you could figure out if a road went above or below another. I know this probably makes no sense, but I can vividly see the graphic, colors and all, in my mind.

Why that was necessary for this map, I have no idea. My question is, even though this graphic was “designed” by someone else in my dream, because it was my subconscious, am I free to use it in the future? I like it when all I have to do to find inspiration is fall asleep.

Sun=good for creativity

2008-06-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone! It looks like a beautiful sunny start to the weekend and I hope you all get a chance to get outside to enjoy the weather. I’ve quickly realized that you have to take advantage of any rain-free and cloud-free days because you never know when mother nature will come back with weeks of never-ending overcast skies.

Also, happy summer solstice eve. I can’t believe how much light we get at this high latitude. I love all this vitamin D and serotonin. Of course, we pay for it dearly during the winter months, right?

No travels this week and I think this blog may be documenting other things besides strictly field work. As I’ve started creating actual products and people have seen what work is possible, it’s like a snowball effect of assignments. That’s a good thing of course, I’m glad there is work for me to do!

I’ll keep trying to share what research and monitoring is going on in the parks in whatever ways I can. It’s okay for this blog to evolve; we’re figuring this out as we go along. Let me know if there is anything in particular you’d like to see here.

Web of Vital Signs

2008-06-20T12:32:00.001-07:00

This is an info graphic that I’ve been playing around with for the past few weeks. When I first started this job, I had a difficult time imagining where each vital sign was being monitored? Which parks had the most vital signs? Which ones had the least? What sort of patterns of partnerships existed?

This graphic is eventually what I’ve come up with to answer those questions. It may not be the clearest explanation, but it sure looks cool, right? I know, aesthetics for aesthetics’ sake is worthless in good design; I’d love any suggestions on how to make this graphic more useful.

In the meantime, let me walk you through it (though, admittedly, a good graphic shouldn’t have to be explained like this). Click on each image for a larger detail.

-Each national park unit is represented by its 4-letter acronym.
-The arrangement of the parks matches their geographic locations on a map.
-If scientists monitor a vital sign at a particular park, a circle is placed around the park.
-You may notice that as the circles radiate outwards, the opacity changes (that is, it fades as it spreads out).
-This is because the more parks that monitor a vital sign, the darker the line (ie “Climate” is monitored at all 7 parks, “Intertidal” at just 2)
-This fading effect should be apparent in the 9 boxes to the right.
-In addition to a circle around the park, there are lines that connect the parks to each other. This shows the relationships to other parks that share the same vital sign.
Thus, we can conclude that Mount Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades share the most vital signs out of the network.

In any case, I’ll be reworking this graphic throughout the season, but I wanted to put it out there to get discussions started.

Clearly, Melissa Block reads my blog

2008-06-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

My co-worker Cindy Bjorklund alerted me to the NPR story that aired last night. I’d like to point out that I covered a similar story as my first blog post:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91561739#share

2008-06-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

I forgot that I had collected these images from a few weeks ago while talking with Jon Riedel and Jeanna Wenger of the glacier monitoring team. Looking through them again, I realized they are pretty good competitors for the Mountain Lakes crew in regards to having the coolest job ever. Literally, of course.

I’ll do my best with the captions, though Jon and Jeanna will have to double-check for me.

Jeanna inserts a rod into Emmons Glacier on Mount Rainier, Spring 2008. After marking the snow level, the team will return later in the season to see how much has melted.

A hot steam wand assists in the creating the initial hole for the rod.

Oops. Something got stuck and they had to dig it out. That’s gotta be at least a 10’ hole.

(Is this too large to view?)

Noisy glacier, Summer 2007

Silver glacier, Fall 2006

These are images from the United States Geological Survey monitoring of South Cascade Glacier. While technically not within park boundaries, these photos are often used because the change is so visibly dramatic. Photos were taken in: 1928, 1960, 1967, 1979, 1991, and 2000

Top 12 Places in Washington

2008-06-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

Here is another project I’ve been working on this past week (still in progress). I’m not sure how much background I’m allowed to share other than a handout was needed that introduced all national park units in Washington as well as promote our notable stories and unique features.

Giving equal face time to each national park is an interesting challenge when most people just focus on the “big three” or “crown jewels”: Mount Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades. (It was interesting to discover that Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area came in second in terms of highest annual visitation). Also, I can imagine some debate about the cover, where each park is reduced to one iconic image. But the main point of that graphic is to showcase the diversity of Washington’s parks.

In any case, I look forward to developing this further.

Peer review

2008-06-13T17:57:00.000-07:00

There will probably be a few more posts going up this weekend as I have several on-going projects that are coming to completion at the same time. Well, the first drafts at least. Let me know how these logos work for each vital sign:

My goal this summer...

2008-06-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

I found a great interview with Steve Duenes, the graphics director at the New York Times. He shared the following anecdote:

"From: Nicholas Kristof Subject: the power of art

in september i traveled with bill gates to africa to look at his work fighting aids there. while setting the trip up, it emerged that his initial interest in giving pots of money to fight disease had arisen after he and melinda read a two-part series of articles i did on third world disease in January 1997. until then, their plan had been to give money mainly to get countries wired and full of computers.

bill and melinda recently reread those pieces, and said that it was the second piece in the series, about bad water and diarrhea killing millions of kids a year, that really got them thinking of public health. Great! I was really proud of this impact that my worldwide reporting and 3,500-word article had had. But then bill confessed that actually it wasn't the article itself that had grabbed him so much -- it was the graphic. It was just a two column, inside graphic, very simple, listing third world health problems and how many people they kill. but he remembered it after all those years and said that it was the single thing that got him redirected toward public health.

No graphic in human history has saved so many lives in africa and asia.

I'm sending you a copy of the story and graphic by interoffice mail. whoever did the graphic should take a bow.

nick kristof"

I recently have become very interested in the field of information graphics, the visual representation of complex data. It appeals to both the detail-oriented/mathematical side of my brain and my creative/aesthetic-conscious side. It's a fun challenge to synthesize something that is very confusing into a form more visually palatable to the public.

Working with this network of scientists is providing me with ample opportunity to try out some info graphics, so stay tuned!

Photos of the Week

2008-06-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Ashely Rawhouser, Aquatic Ecologist at NOCA, I just gained access to the digital image library for the mountain lakes monitoring project. I hit the mother lode of images and am putting up a few of my favorites. From what I've seen, this looks like the most fun field work out of all the vital signs (yes, all you other teams should see that as an incentive to prove me wrong!). More captions coming soon.

Aerial view of Blum Lakes

Green Lake

Waiting for the helicopter to arrive...

Don't eat me!

2008-06-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

Our first "foreign correspondent" works on the vegetation mapping crew at Mount Rainier National Park. Michelle Hansen sent this photo of what we think is plasmodial slime mold, taken off the Paradise road near Kautz Creek:

Slime molds? What exactly are slime molds? Well, they're not exactly fungi and their taxonomy is still being determined. Anyone out there want to send in a good description? In the meantime, enjoy this video from the series Planet Earth:

Mmmmm

2008-06-13T09:07:00.000-07:00

This week on the blog we have a potluck of posts to share. Meaning, for the first time, we have others contributing to the fun.

This past Wednesday, I attended the North Cascades summer season kick-off and enjoyed a huge potluck dinner with about 75 guests bringing in as many dishes. As a foodie (and frugal recent college graduate), I was in heaven.

So, as far as I'm concerned about potlucks and blog posts, the more the merrier! Send submissions to: michael_liang@nps.gov

Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy the sunshine (finally)!

Join the fun!

2008-06-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

You too can be part of the blog:

Since I can't be everywhere at once and since I know there are many talented writers among our ranks, I'm opening up the blog to anyone working on an Inventory and Monitoring team this summer. Print this poster and spread the word!

I'd love to see anecdotes about bears invading campsites, revelations made from mountain tops, underwater photographs from snorkeling with salmon...anything and everything that shares what your daily life is like as a National Park Service scientist.

I'm not sure where we'll end up with this but I DO know that we need to start with an informal forum to share our field stories.

Best Wildlife Photos EVER

2008-06-06T21:11:00.001-07:00

I burst out laughing when I stumbled across these. Suggest a caption for what the owl must be thinking.

Anyone know the names of these guys? The file names just read "Owl sitting" and "Rob and Owl."

I travel for work and work for travel

2008-06-06T19:34:00.000-07:00

I am on my couch, feet propped up, basking in warm afternoon sunlight. After four rainy days on the road, this seems like the perfect way to conclude my week. I don’t have much field work to report on for today’s post, since I traveled because of meetings, but I do have several travel musings that you might find…amusing (ugh, sorry).

1. Driving in the rain puts me to sleep. The combination of rhythmic wiper blades, the constant patter of rain, and the blurred wet vision of the world all makes for a potent recipe for hypnosis. Even a cup of gas station coffee fails to wake me; the warm liquid melts my core faster than the caffeine can stimulate it. I had to take two separate 10 minute naps on Tuesday and was almost late to my first meeting. But no one would fault me for taking care of my own safety, right?

2. I underpacked. In addition to a rain jacket (or umbrella, though no Washington native uses them), I forgot my sleeping bag/blankets, pillow, and toothbrush. Charles, Nikki, and Kate were gracious enough to lend me extra supplies. Oh, and then I left my soap in the shower after my first night.

3. On the flip side, I did find extra food supplies in the fridge when I stayed at Mount Rainier. The great thing about transient housing in national parks is that it’s inevitable that things are left behind which means they’re up for grabs for the next occupant. In my case, I scored on a can of chili, instant Viennese café au lait, and beer. Don’t ask me how long they were in the fridge though.

4. Gas prices are ridiculous. I don’t even want to discuss it further other than mention the fact that I spent two hours on the road mentally figuring out the advantages and disadvantages of buying a motorcycle. Good: 80 mile to the gallon. Bad: being exposed to the rain.

5. I prefer meeting people face to face. Besides the fact that I’m socially awkward on phones (hithsismichaelliangvisualinformationspecialistforthenorthcoastandcascadesresearchlearningnetworkhowareyou?), I’m finding it’s worth my time to make these formal introductions and put a face to a name. This is especially important in how our network is set up, with staff scattered amongst seven different national park units. I know I keep saying this, but I’m always amazed by people’s passion, patience with me, and willingness to help. For whatever reason, I really felt like this summer was going to be an independent endeavor but I’m finally realizing the resources I have available.

6. I had my first teleconference call today and given my initial hesitancy, I thought it went very well. I’m in awe at how the technology works- that seven people in seven separate locations (one even using a satellite phone from Stehekin) can talk together and have a productive meeting.

All in all, it’s been a fairly good week because by the end of it, I finally have a sense of how my position this summer fits into the larger communication goals of the network. I also think I’m done traveling for a couple weeks. I’ve met so many people and gotten so many great ideas that I need to sit in the office and unload and organize that enthusiasm into coherent plan of actions. As Charles keeps telling me, create create create!

Next week I’ll post my ideas for these projects.

Special thanks to: Charles and Nikki Beall, Kate Minto, David Szymanski, Mark Huff, Scott Stonum, Lee Taylor, Reah (housing coordinator extraordinare), Barbara Samora, Bret Christoe, and Darin Swinney.

Mark Huff says:

2008-06-06T19:33:00.001-07:00

Work together or else we'll end up like this!

Trail of Shadows

2008-06-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

...which is ironic because there were no shadows with such an overcast sky.

Mount Rainier only revealed itself for the briefest of moments on my last day. Rain and thick clouds kept the mountain hidden and it was frustrating because 1) I’ve visited the national park before and know how sublime the views can be and 2) it’s such a massive force that you can still feel it, just out of reach. Despite the weather, which I’m going to have to embrace anyway, I made it outside for a quick afternoon walk. I always forget about the nuanced beauty of the forest understory. And because of the geothermal features of Mount Rainier, there were a few surprises as well:

Snow!

The bright orange color is from iron that has precipitated out as the water cools. This spring, Iron Mike, was once used to keep meat and dairy refrigerated.

The Origin of the Mineral Springs from an interpretive panel:

Water from rain and snow melting on the upper slopes of Mount Rainier percolates down through fractures in volcanic rock where it is hydrothermally heated deep inside the volcano. This hot water then flows downhill through subterranean fractures and mixes with cool, shallow ground water. As the water travels underground, carbon dioxide is incorporated from surrounding rock. In lowland areas such as Longmire meadow, where the water seeps to the surface, carbon dioxide gas escapes into the air, like bubbles from a soft drink. Can you see and hear the mineral spring bubbling? During periods of little rain and snow melt, spring water cannot reach the surface but invisible carbon dioxide continues to escape.

Clarification

2008-05-30T16:50:00.001-07:00

Happy Friday everyone!

I think I’m going to enjoy this habit of sitting down at my kitchen table each Friday morning and writing for an hour before work, nursing a cup of coffee and nibbling on my bagel with nutella spread.

I have a small confession to make. Despite working almost exclusively with scientists this summer, I myself have not been officially trained as one. I received my BFA from the University of Michigan’s School of Art and Design, as well as an environmental science minor. What I do have in my favor is three summers as a North Cascades interpreter and a passion for learning and teaching.

So, with that little disclaimer, my perspective in this blog is one where I am half-outsider and half-insider of the scientific community. As my Dad says about his Chinese language skills, I know just enough to get me into trouble. I’ll do my best to report science accurately, but please let me know of any discrepancies. This also is not a 100% official NPS blog, though I hope we can move towards that direction. As of now, this is an exercise in communicating science in a more narrative, personal way.

A Prairie Park Companion

2008-05-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

This week’s travel started out with déjà vu as I rolled out of bed at 4:30am and felt that familiar mix of excitement and fatigue. All my supplies were laid out from the night before—even a cup of coffee ready to be nuked in the microwave—and I got on the road as quickly as I could. I had to catch the 6:10 ferry out of Anacortes or risk being two hours late to training on San Juan Island. And that wouldn’t make for a good first impression, right?

While I wasn’t able to shadow any teams in the field this week, I was invited to sit in on the seasonal interpretation training at SAJH, San Juan National Historic Park. The islands that make up this beautiful archipelago were once in a boundary dispute between the United States and Britain in the mid-1800’s. Two camps were established on either end of the island and we almost escalated into war over the shooting of a pig. The park manages many of the original buildings at American and English camp and as I discovered, the cultural landscape was deeply affected by the natural one and vice-versa.

After an hour and a half ferry ride, we emerged out of the fog at the port city, Friday Harbor. I had forgotten how peaceful and quiet the islands are; they cling low to the horizon like half-submerged arms offering protective coves and safe passage. My last visit was two years ago on a solo bike trip and the islands seem timeless and unchanged since then.

The superintendent, Peter Dederich, was gracious enough to drive me in their new hybrid vehicle from park headquarters to the visitor center at American camp, a trip that seemed much shorter than when I had to bike it myself. Introductions were made over coffee and donuts and our small group settled in for the first of the day’s presentations. Because the nature of seasonal training can be an overwhelming amount of information and because the topics didn’t always apply to my job communicating inventory and monitoring, I’ll just go through some highlights:

-The San Juan Islands are home to around 4,000 harbor seals with about 1,000 born each year. Unfortunately, the pupping season, late June through early August, coincides with peak tourist visitation. Strandings and injuries do occur but we’ve got one of the best animal rehabilitation centers in the region located on the island, Wolf Hollow.

-There are four different decomposition stages for marine mammals found on beaches: fresh kill, dead stinky, dead ugly, and mummified/skeleton. The powerpoint slides of dolphins with exposed entrails were the perfect appetizers for our lunch break. Mmmmm.

-One of orca celebrities, Granny, from the J-Pod, is estimated to have been born in 1911!

Christopher Davis finished off the day with an introduction to one of the island’s more unique natural resources, the 684-acre (1.1 sq mile) prairie at American Camp. Prairies were once wide-ranging in the Western Washington landscape but now are severely fragmented and rare. Many were converted to farmland and at American camp, originally Bellevue Farm, over 4,000 sheep, cattle, horses and pigs once grazed in the 19th century.

Ebey’s Landing National Historic Reserve also has 3,000-acres of prairie and together with SAJH, they are monitoring prairie vegetation communities. In addition to prairies, SAJH also monitors climate, landscape dynamics, intertidal and landbirds.

Unfortunately, non-native plants and rabbits are negatively impacting the health of the prairie and restoration efforts are currently underway. Christopher shared numerous misconception or “urban legends” that the public still hold as true:

“Rabbits are good for the soil because their holes provide aeration”
-Actually, they dig too deep and bring up nutrient-poor glacial till.

“If we remove the rabbits, we remove an important food source for raptors.”
-While this is sorta true for the raptors living around the prairie, their consumption of rabbits is way out of proportion for normal raptor diet.

“The government released a virus to kill the rabbits in the 80’s.”
-Ummm, no.

This last point sparked an exciting discussion amongst the group and what they had heard from the public. I had no idea that the rabbits were such a contentious issue (if they weren’t so cute and reminiscent of Thumper, no one would care about removing this invasive species).

There was also a lively reenactment by a prominent staff member, intentionally left nameless, who once hurled a wooden flag pole like a javelin at a bullying pheasant that someone had released illegally in the park.

The only story I could contribute was about Clark’s Cabin in Marblemount. Years ago, the owners had brought some of the San Juan Island rabbits back to their restaurant/lodge and the animals quickly bred like, well, rabbits. Visitors can now pick up stale bread from the back of the restaurant and feed the rabbits much like one feeds ducks in a park. It’s a surreal and scary experience to see twenty rabbits bounding towards you and your bread.

Okay, I’m clearly rambling at this point and should wrap things up. San Juan National Historic Park might not have the sublime majesty of the three larger parks in Washington, but I believe there can be a more intimate experience with its landscape and our own cultural history. Because the human story is so intertwined with the natural resources, I’m not sure if communicating prairie restoration and monitoring becomes easier or more difficult.

I’m realizing that the value of these field trips isn’t necessarily based on how much I learn, but about the connections I make with other NPS employees. I’m continually meeting people who are passionate and excited about what they do and I’m proud to be part of such an organization.

Special thanks to: Peter Dederich, Darlene Wahl, Mike Vouri, Christopher Davis, and Cousin Vinnie’s Authentic NY Café.

If Ranger Mike was a bird, his abbreviation would be RAMI and his call would be cafeeeeeeeeeeine, cafeeeeeeeeeeine

2008-05-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

So this is what 5am looked like, I thought as I started up my station wagon. Staring bleary-eyed through my windshield, I was surprised at the amount of light in the sky.

Why, you may ask, was I getting up at this un-Godly hour on my first day of the weekend?

To go birding, of course.

I was to shadow the Landbird monitoring team as they honed their field skills in Marblemount. Their spring training was nearly complete and they were practicing for an exam that, in order to pass, they needed to recognize 49 out of 50 birds by sight and song. Since their subjects were most active during the early dawn hours, we too had to wake up with sun.

And I guessed, with the light brushing the underbellies of the clouds a bright pink and the valley aglow in a golden haze, there was something special about being awake while the rest of the world was still sleeping. Well, the human world at least. The birds, as I soon found out, were already engaged in a full symphony of twitters and trills.

The six-member team met me at the boat launch along the Skagit River and I was surprised at their age. Everyone was in their twenties and I was impressed at their ability to function before 10:00 on a Saturday morning. Good-natured and quick to laugh, they clearly enjoyed their jobs. The requisite binoculars hung around their necks and I imagined that they probably felt naked without them. The group greeted me warmly and I quickly found out that two of the birders were from Ann Arbor, where I recently graduated from college.

Walking with birders was like walking in a foreign country where your companions all spoke the language and you didn't. Their hyperawareness to the audible world was uncanny and they often stopped mid-sentence or mid-stride to follow a sound that flitted through the branches nearby. The group would raise their binoculars together in what appeared to be a choreographed movement and it reminded me of sleeping geese who would raise their long necks in unison whenever startled.

They tried to explain this world that they are privy to and offered the mnemonics that helped them remember the bird songs. The Black-capped Chickadee goes chickadee-dee-dee and cheeseburger. Cassidy pointed out that many phonetic spellings have to do with food and he imagined it was because of researchers going hungry while waiting out in the woods (Olive-sided Flycatcher chips a quick, three beers!). I listened intently but couldn't quite organize all these new sounds.

Mandy Holmgren, the team leader, stopped to do a 5-minute point count. This is similar to the work that they will be doing in Mount Rainier, Olympic, North Cascades and Fort Lewis and Clark this summer. For a set amount of time, they stand still and record every bird they see and hear. The teams, working in pairs, will do this through July, working 7 days on and 3 days off. They’ll cover a wide variety of habitats and by the end of the season, will have amassed enough data to determine the health of the bird populations. But that analysis is the job of other researchers. For these six, they get to work outside in some of the most beautiful parts of the country.

In addition to recording the species, the team has to note the distance between them and the bird. It’s an inexact science and Mandy used a rangefinder while the rest of the group trained their eyes to estimate the distance.

“See that tree, not the close one, but the one to the left and behind it?”
“The shrubby one?”
“Yeah, the green one”

They guessed 82 meters. 90. 53.

“Actually,” Mandy revealed, “It’s 105.”
“Are we talking about the same tree?”

Usually the group was eerily dead on, Kara especially, and I thought that they could make good money as caddies in the off-season.

By the end of their point count, their notebooks were filled with scribbled notations. They will eventually use official government forms but for now, each team member had a matching Spiderman spiral notebook. The birds were jotted down in four letter abbreviations. Like National Park shorthand, you take the first two letters of each word; American Robin becomes AMRO. There are exceptions of course, like the Yellow Warbler.

Zach mentioned that when he was watching President Bush give a speech in the Rose Garden last month, he couldn’t help but hear the migratory warblers singing in the background (behind Zach, Cassidy made the classic science geek hand signal of pushing imaginary glasses up the bridge of his nose). Is it coincidence, we mused, that the Yellow Warbler’s abbreviation is YWAR?

We did a few more point counts throughout the morning and walked a distance of maybe one mile in two hours. What struck me most about my first birding experience was the different perception of time and space. Compared to the high-energy buzz of urban life everything seemed slower, more pronounced. When, during our normal daily routine, do we ever stay still long enough to listen? This awareness to one’s environment feels more natural and it's refreshing.

We said our goodbyes in the parking lot with promises to follow up later in the season. When I turned on my car, I couldn't believe that it was only 10:30 am. I still had the whole day ahead of me. Or I could take a quick nap. I chose the latter with the light notes of bird songs still ringing in my ears.

Special thanks to: Mandy Holgren, Kara Kuhlman, Cassidy Grattan, Zach Wallace, Andrew Wicks, Andrew Tillinghast, and Bob Kuntz.