Did you hear about the "electronic rangers" you can now rent in Death Valley National Park? For $15 a day these gadgets, which you place on your rig's dashboard, will give you a guided tour of the park. Park officials hope these devices, among other things, will generate a new revenue stream for Death Valley.
Manufactured by BarZ Adventures, these devices use GPS coordinates to trigger a video commentary of the immediate area. Already the devices have been deployed at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi, Cedar Breaks National Monument in Utah, and reportedly are on their way to Shenandoah National Park, if they're not already there.
Death Valley spokesman Terry Baldino told the AFP wire service that along with using the devices to entice younger generations to Death Valley, officials view the daily rentals as one way to boost revenues.
David Blacker, executive director of the Death Valley Natural History Association, had this to say about the GPS Rangers:
“In our attempt to keep Death Valley National Park relevant as we move into the 21st century we must embrace new technologies to help us with our educational and interpretive mission. This partnership with the National Park Service and Bar Z Adventures is our first step in doing this.”
Is the relevance of our national parks dangling on the future of where technology takes us? There's no doubt that advancements in technology play a key role in our lives, and can help deliver stirring interpretive programs in the parks. But first the younger generations have to want to go to the parks, and I question whether the prospect of listening to a GPS Ranger will be enough to persuade Susie and Johnny to beg their parents to take them to Death Valley or Shenandoah or Vicksburg.
Another question to ponder is whether it's a good thing to automate the national parks, to replace walking, talking interpretive rangers with electronics?
This summer I had the opportunity to join a ranger-led tour of the Hoh Rain Forest in Olympic National Park. The ranger, Larry Gore, captivated an audience of roughly 20 with a natural history discussion of the rain forest. Young and old were listening intently to his talk, laughing at his jokes, and watching as he used visual aids -- puppets of salmon and banana slugs -- to explain the cycles of life in the Hoh.
Ranger Gore also clearly answered questions that arose.
Will the GPS Ranger be able to duplicate such an interpretive program?
Comments
Assurance of quality aside, how many questions can you anticipate being correctly answered by a GPS ranger? If your answer is no more of less that an "actual" ranger, then what's the point of having either available to visitors? The gist of my comment was that the impersonal nature of the devise initiates it's own set of issues, not the least of which includes a newfound self-dependence on already un(der)equipped visitors. A great number of folks annually find themselves in trouble by underestimating the environment and treating the adventure as a Sunday walk in the park. I'm finding it difficult to rally behind anything that increases the likelihood and probability of stressing an already undermanned staff with additional situations brought about by misuses of technology. Unfortunately, placing technological devises in the hands of literally anyone who wants or can afford it is the American way. How many people STILL don't have a clue how to use anti-lock braking systems? If you think not many, look at the surveys conducted by JD Powers and other organizations on how satisfied people are with automobile technology. How many nit-wits does it take to program a DVD-RW, how many people know the difference between a CD-R, CD+RW, etc? In the hands of the general public, commonly used pieces of "technology", even this ultra-low-end crap like GPS routefinders, are utilzied at less than 50% of their designed capabilities. Granted, it's mostly due to the public's unwillingness to read an owner's manual, but I digress. If hand-held or dashboard mounted devises are required to attract the "mew generation" of park visitors, and they cannot or will not come out without having some portable electronic devise to supplant the Gameboy, PDA or whatever, maybe they should consider taking a compass, binoculars, and water bottle instead. These would tend to be far more useful, and liberating, than a "Here's an oak tree, there's the parking lot, and oh by the way, you're standing in a pile of rabbit crap" virtual ranger.
When it comes to the National Parks, I believe a strong anti-technology bias is exactly what is called for. The parks are meant to be an escape to nature, not an extension of the rest of our world. Preserve and protect is the mission, not unlimited wireless access and broadband for all.
The more important bias effecting the parks is the one against properly funding the parks budget and addressing the multi-billion dollar maintenance and upkeep backlog. Under the Bush Administration the number of rangers has been drastically cut and the results really show.
It's time we stopped building bridges to nowhere and pissing away billions a month in phony military occupations and started taking care of the parks so we can leave them in better, not worse, condition than we found them. And no amount of high tech solutions is going to solve that problem.
The "anti-tech bias" is simply a straw man argument.
People shouldn't be watching a video screen while they're driving around a battlefield site or anywhere else for that matter.
Here's another recent attempt by NPS to "electronify" and replace real people. I like this better than the $15 gizmos for several reasons -- it can be done in any number of languages very inexpensively, there's not a lot of investment in new technology, it's invisible to the park, and there's no inherent profit motive in serving the park visitors. They may have trouble with such a plan in remote places with no cell service though.
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National Park Service Introduces New Lincoln Memorial Educational Guide
Washington D.C. – Beginning Wednesday, August 29, 2007 the National Park Service (NPS) with support from Eastern National, a cooperating association of the NPS, will begin offering free interpretive Ranger talks via telephone. These new Lincoln Memorial talks are organized around many themes including, “The Gettysburg Address”, “Debunking the Myths of the Lincoln Memorial”, and the “Life and Times of Lincoln the Man”. Ranger talks can be heard by dialing (202) 747-3420. The National Mall & Memorial Parks, a unit of the NPS which operates the Lincoln Memorial, presents Ranger programs at the Memorial daily from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. With the introduction of free telephone educational talks, the public will be able to learn more about President Abraham Lincoln and his memorial 24 hours a day from any location. “We are excited to make the legacy of President Lincoln even more accessible to the public,” stated Rosanna Weltzin, Site Manager for National Mall Operations for the National Mall & Memorial Parks.
The recorded messages use Guide By Cell developed technology to offer visitors a range of talks varying in length from two minutes to just under six minutes depending upon topic. The NPS plans to evaluate the success of this program and will be considering adding free telephone educational programs for more National Mall visitor sites, such as the World War II Memorial, in the future. Information about the free programs and the telephone number will be posted at the Lincoln Memorial and is listed on the NPS Lincoln Memorial website, www.nps.gov/linc.
Good Day,
I am Lee Little the developer of the GPS Ranger.
I too enjoy Ranger led talks and try to attend as many of these as possible. However one day at a National Park I was unable to find a Park Ranger to ask a question. I was frustrated. This lead me to start thinking about how technology could be used to relay the messages of the Park. Remember, I just wanted an answer to a simple question. This frustration lead to me to realize that the NPS maps dont' have alot of information either. So if I can't get a park ranger, what is the next best thing ?
Honestly I hate technology. But I like information, especially information about a Park that I have never been to. This is the fundamental theory behind the GPS Ranger. The GPS Ranger is a video player that triggers in front of a point of interest. We work with the National Parks and their interpretive personnel. In the process we video tape the "experts" and our system delivers their message. It is their tour. We offer a tool that helps them deliver their message. We have two goals when we develop a tour, they are, deliever a quality experience and make money for the Parks.
The goal of our system is to offer an educational tour for visitors that they most likely would not have gotten given the cut backs in staffing in our National treasures. Did you know that the GPS Ranger tour in Death Valley has over 3 hours of video content all approved by the Death Valley interpretive staff ?
We have designed our system to give back to the parks. We want the system to be a money maker for the parks. This money in turn goes back into other interpretive programs.
I would encourage those on this blog to try our products and tell us what you think....you can visit us at www.gpsranger.com.
Thank you
Lee Little
Good day Lee-
My given profession in cancer research, more specifically in the drug discovery arena. As such, technology is not something I shy away from, and as a friend told me years ago, "man should embrace technological advances and utilize the tools available to him to his own unique best advantage, not be intimidated by them".
My comments, as I mentioned a few times above, have less to do with technology in the parks as the fear that they by misused and visitors become dependent on gizmos and lose their self-reliance. GPS route-finders on the trails, I fear, will encourge too many under-equipped visits into the nether-reaches, as people even now ignore the warning to be properly prepared, physically, mentally, and equipment-wise, over-rating their ability to successfully conqueor such barren areas due to the fact that they carry this "security blanket" with them, completely ignoring the fact that getting lost is the LEAST of their concerns. I understand that this type of instrument is 180 degrees from what you have proposed, but too many times I've experienced the scenario that "if A, then B", and I can envision what you might call the natural progression of the beast. Once these devices are deemed successful, as I imagine they will be to some extent, the next logical step would be to expand on the uses of the technology, once it is in place. It called cost-effective planning and execution. I'm just hoping that someone realizes BEFORE undue stress is placed on an admittedly understaffed group of rangers what they're opening the doors to in the future, and make provisions to monitor, control and limit the advancement of technology before Pandora's Box is left wide open.
I would gladly experiment with your device. As a matter of fact, I'm quite looking forward to the opportunity. Then at least I can lend an informed opinion. Worst come to worst, at least I'll be on the trail again!