During the summer of 2015, interns researched and developed content for climate change websites for two different parks; produced climate connection park videos; designed and created created climate change infographics; generated relevant climate change social media posts for the parks; and developed a park ranger climate communication toolkit. These projects focused on the cultural resources of parks in the National Capital Region.
Catoctin Mountain Park
Interns Megan Kemp and Lindsey Beall, mentored by Jenell Walsh-Thomas, worked with Catoctin Mountain Park to develop materials that communicate how climate change impacts the park’s cultural resources. After exploring the Park and talking with rangers, webpage content was developed to tell the climate change stories of the cabin camps and the evolving energy resources around the Park. Nicole Coumes worked with Megan and Lindsey to develop effective infographics to feature in the webpages and in social media posts. In addition, Megan and Lindsey worked with videographer Emma Dacol to create a video featuring a recent artist-in-residence at Catoctin that painted the views from the vistas. The video communicates that climate change and associated poor air quality can negatively affect the vistas that draw so many visitors to the Park. Additionally, social media posts were written with the purpose of driving traffic to the new webpages. The materials the interns developed enable Catoctin to more effectively communicate about how climate change impacts the cultural resources, and motivate visitors to model Catoctin’s climate friendly actions in order to reduce emissions.
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
Interns Carolyn Caggia, Rebecca Schmidt, and Brian Watts were mentored by Melissa Clark in the production of climate change web content for Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. The Harpers Ferry team worked closely with many of the rangers at the park to gather important documents and images, to tell two climate change stories: flooding in the town and the industrial take-off of the Armory. The flood story warns of the environmental impacts of clearcutting in the past and extensive fossil fuel use in the present. The industry story examines some of the unintended negative environmental consequences of the industrialization of the old town. The Harpers Ferry team also created a climate change landing page for Harpers Ferry that aims to explain how climate change is affecting the park - helping the visitors to grasp the page for Harpers Ferry that aims to explain how climate change is affecting the park - helping the visitors to grasp the importance of adopting climate friendly actions. Multimedia components, including infographics and a video, were also developed to enable the webpages to be more interactive. Check out the web pages that were developed here!