Imagine interpreting global warming 55 million years ago, and what it might tell us about our own future today. That’s a challenge we faced while working on The Ancient Basin exhibit at the Washakie Museum in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin.

The Basin is at the geographical center of research on climate change during a highly significant period called the PETM (paleocene eocene thermal maximum).

Here’s a brief introduction of the science and significance:

During the age of the Paleocene / Eocene, our entire planet warmed, much like we’re seeing today (to be sure, the earth has warmed and cooled many times, so that’s nothing new). So what’s significant about the PETM? The duration and amount of warming could be VERY similar to what many scientists are currently predicting for the future. The PETM saw rapid rises in C02, temperature, and sea level, along with corresponding extinctions and changing distributions of plants and animals.

To communicate this story, ECOS used fossil specimens of mammals, dinosaurs and plants found within the Big Horn Basin, making side-by-side comparisons showing how life changed. Large, immersive murals recreate the landscapes before and after the PETM. We even considered increasing ambient temperature in the exhibit gallery, but this yielded to fears of having a climate change exhibit that adds to global warming!

The most powerful exhibit experience flows from the passionate voice of scientists actively uncovering this story in the Basin. ECOS developed the following video (with the outstanding video help of Boston Productions, Inc.) to help bring the story to life:

The use of video in the exhibit complements our strategy of layered exhibitry, where content is delivered in multiple ways, with multiple entry points. Various interpretive methods deliver a core message: the past can be studied to help shape the future. Our overall intent is to give visitors the tools to build their own take-away impression of this complex, often controversial topic.

PETM Exhibit at the Washakie Museum

About the Washakie Museum: The Washakie Museum in Worland, Wyoming, opens its new state-of-the-art museum in May 2010. ECOS planned, designed, and produced the facility’s 5,000 square-foot permanent exhibition about the paleontology, archaeology, and non-Native settlement of the Big Horn Basin.

The Washakie Museum contains more than 200 interpretive panels. That’s a lot of information, which calls for a lot of reading. Of course, ECOS wants visitors to be engaged while they’re in the museum. Visitors should understand and enjoy the science and history of the Big Horn Basin—that is, after all, why they’re there. But, this can be tricky: Most museum visitors don’t read exhibition graphics from start to finish. Some barely glance at labels at all, particularly after the first few panels.

We know that clear content organization and savvy copywriting make a huge difference in how much visitors read and how much they remember. When ECOS developed the graphics for the Washakie Museum, we addressed this issue from the earliest concepts.

Short Text

ECOS has found that visitors are more likely to read text presented in short paragraphs. So our exhibit developers wrote most text blocks to contain between 35 and 40 words.

Conversant Tone

Museums are informal learning environments, not lecture halls; visitors respond best to labels written in a casual, non-academic style. So, ECOS used a relaxed tone, informal questions, and everyday references to keep the text accessible for visitors. For example:

Layered Copy

We began with a layered approach to graphic design. We set up each panel with levels of take-away messages: a quick read (snappy and informative headline), a brief overview of the subject (explanatory subhead), and short but informative text (copy block).

Highlights

To further encourage and aid visitors to grasp the essential ideas, we graphically “featured” key text within each paragraph using bold type and secondary colors. This helps speed-reading museum-goers pick out the most important parts. It’s a trick we borrowed from the advertising world: Advertisers often use this technique to focus viewers’ attention, but it isn’t broadly implemented in museums.

Stand-Alone Captions

ECOS also finds that many museum guests read photo captions first. Some read only the captions, skipping main text blocks altogether. For this reason, we made certain the text under each photo and artifact stands on its own.

Finally, we selected the best photographs, unearthed historic documents, and commissioned detailed illustrations to enhance our stories. We placed them in compelling yet simple graphic layouts to capture interest. Once visitors are interested, they’re more likely to actually read those short paragraphs of carefully crafted text.

See for yourself. Below is a graphic panel from the Washakie Museum. Click to enlarge, using the magnifying glass to look more closely.

One of our jobs this past year was truly a mammoth undertaking. Columbian mammoths like the one picture above once wandered vast areas of North America—and will soon inhabit the new Washakie Museum in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin. The ECOS-designed exhibition features archeology, paleontology, and western settlement. The center will open to the public in May 2010.

Illustration: Dave Miller/Hadley Exhibits for ECOS Communications and the Washakie Museum

The resonant and reassuring voice of the narrator. We know it well—from elementary school science films to Discovery, PBS, and the History channel. Documentary film and narration go together like movies and popcorn. You can’t really have one without the other. Right?

Think again. ECOS recently produced an award-winning short video for EPA Region 8 without using narration. No voice of authority . . . and no high-price-tag professional talent.

Wetlands & Wonder: Reconnecting Children with Nearby Nature is a story about protecting and restoring neglected urban wetland remnants in the name of healthier kids. With the cry of alarm being sounded far and wide over Nature Deficit Disorder, the message of this film is a timely one. Yet we had a tall order from the start: weave together the benefits of wetlands, the causes of today’s disconnection from nature, and a call to action to clean up urban wetlands—all on a tight budget, and in under 15 minutes.

In the end, this “problem” led ECOS down a very creative road. Our big break came when three authorities on the subject of children and nature—also figures of national prominence—agreed to be interviewed for the film. (Thanks again to Joan Almon, Richard Louv, and Robert Michael Pyle!) With the help of videography partner Tamarack Media, we wove highlights of these interviews together with clips of a young EPA ecologist. She speaks to both wetland science and her personal experience of the ever-increasing tugs of an electronics-based culture—tugs that pull so many away from nature.

You might guess the rest. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Children exploring and playing at the water’s edge. Urban/suburban wetlands: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Examples of nature-integrated development. B-roll. Juxtapositions. And some repurposed footage from Michigan Public Television. (More thanks!)

Yet, truly, it’s the interviews that hold this short film together and move it along. Heartfelt, personal, and compelling, these voices of concern carry the key messages straight to the hearts of viewers. Without Mr. Omniscient. You might want to try this route with your next project. And let us know how it turns out!

Here’s a link to watch the video if you’re interested: http://www.ecos.us/project_interactive_epa6.html

Note: Wetlands & Wonder: Reconnecting Children with Nearby Nature has garnered granted three national awards:

1. National Association of Interpretation (NAI): 1st Place, Short Video Category, 2009
2. International Wildlife Media Center & Film Festival (IWFF): Merit Award, 2009
3. Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (MarCom): AVA Platinum Award, Government/Educational Category, 2008

ECOS has been developing a new museum in the Big Horn Basin, Wyoming over the last two years. Located in north-central Wyoming, the museum is focused on a rich paleontological and archaeological history and highly active current research.

As part of the content development, ECOS has been working extensively in the field with scientists in developing the storyline and gathering artifacts and video/photo assets for the exhibits. We’ve spent numerous weeks exploring the Basin – most extensively this summer as we prepare for a May 2010 opening.

University of Wyoming archaeology dig site at Black Mountain.

In July, I traveled the Basin from field camp to field camp to help put the final touches on the storylines…but I didn’t travel alone. Having been wandering the area for two years, this particular week of research seemed an ideal chance to (selfishly) bring along my six-year old daughter, Sophie. Initially nervous about imposing my family on the work, I reluctantly brought her along. Little did I make the connection that this would prove a tremendous asset for fieldwork.

Sophie scouring the Basin for fossils.

The science work at these field camps has gained international recognition is the study of climate change and early-peoples research, so dozens of visitors tramp through the camps each season. I feared I’d be just another one of those visitors – demanding precious time in a four-week field season. A six year-old’s freshness and natural curiosity is exactly the type of inquiry that makes a museum relevant – and the scientists saw this curiosity and fed it. I was simply along for the ride.

Dr. Jonathan Bloch and our young paleontologist show off their findings.

Sophie prospected for fossils for days along with the pros, even finding relevant materials, ate in the camp kitchen, shared the latrine and camped out. She was a welcome addition to the field camp (especially for the scientists who left their kids at home as well as senior scientists who fondly recalled their own family’s visits to camp). Her freshly found love of the material is precisely the kind of embrace we desire in our visitors. The stories and passion from the scientists rose to the surface in a much more natural way than if just another professional showed up to pull their needs out of their work.

A find! Ancient molars from a 55-million Y.O. early sheep!

So, should I bring Sophie’s four year old sister to the next all day charrette? I think I’ll save her for the next field trip instead.

Granted, sometimes there’s no option but to tell the same story in both languages. This time, however, we worked with our project team to prioritize the approach—championing the Spanish, and including a paraphrased version in English. Here’s how it looks on one panel, with all the English “story” included in only the yellow background:

We structured the English portion of each panel so that someone could still relate to the individual pictures and graphics. In casually observing English-speaking visitors using the panels, a majority of them seemed to be referencing visuals within entire panel, even though they were just reading from a small portion of the sign.

This decision to emphasize one language on this project seemed to offer a number of benefits:

1. Text blocks interact more naturally with illustrations/photos.
2. Design elements and negative space can be more prominent, which likely adds to the panel’s overall attracting and holding power.
3. Most of the Park’s visitors are Spanish-speaking, so we believe that the selected language focus, attractive design, and depth of interpretation ultimately attracts and holds more visitors than a 50/50 approach.
4. The approach may allow tour guides to interact expertly with their English-speaking visitors at the exhibit. Before finalizing the approach, we interviewed to a few local tour guides, and they said they would appreciate a more robust Spanish version, over an equal languages treatment. Maybe they get better tips!

Overall, the approach has been very well received, and matches with our intended audience and behaviors the project team wished to promote with the interpretation. To see a larger version of the panels of this award winning project, along with more information about the team, please check out this PDF: Mundo Jaguar pdf Also, here’s a link to an AAM bilingual guidelines presentation that has some helpful information: AAM 2005 pdf Please let us know if you have seen other successful approaches to dealing with “bilingual text overload.” Thanks!