Climate Change Education Partnership Visitor Survey Technical Report: Olympic National Park

Davis, Shawn; Beard, Caroline; Tilley, Nicole; Ryndak, Brent

Project Introcution The Climate Change Educaton Partnership (CCEP) is a National Science Foundation funded research project involving Colorado State University, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Parks Conservation Association. The purpose of this nationwide, collaborative effort is to scope the communication challenges, opportunities, and needs among park and refuge staff when discussing climate change impacts on America's public lands. This effort is funded as a "Phase 1 Project", and the data we have gathered regarding our regional site partners and site-specific information will inform a "Phase 2 Proposal" to be submitted in March 2012. If funded, Phase 2 of the CCEP would provide the resources to implement ideas generated through our Phase 1 research at your site. Including your region, we have five pilot site areas across the country (northern Colorado, southern Florida, District of Columbia, Puget Sound in western Washington, and Kenai Fjiords in Alaska). We have engaged each region in a similar process, beginning in late March 2011 and continuing through January of 2012. Your site is one of five protected areas in western Washington that was selected because agency leadership at the Washington D.C. office highlighted your park or refuge as an important place to invest resources in building capacity or enhancing ongoing efforts to communicate about climate change in your region. Because our goal is to engage you, your staff, managers, volunteers, and partners at adjacent public lands in a "landscape-scale" approach to climate change education, a signifcant part of our effort to achieve this goal has been to collect quantitative and qualitative data regarding national park and wildlife refuge visitor perceptions of specific effects of climate change on America's public lands. During our visit to your site, we conducted 413 visitor surveys. This report provides a short description of our visitor survey and a summary of our results from your site. The survey data we have collected at each park or refuge within our pilot site locations is very important as we begin to brainstorm and collaboratively develop education tools for your unique visitor population. Introduction of Study The CCEP core team developed an on-site visitor survey to assess national park and wildlife refuge visitors' awareness and knowledge of place-specific climate change impacts, as well as their level of concern and willingness to act in response to these impacts. Over a six month period, our survey team administered this visitor survey at each park and refuge with our six pilot site locations....

Climate Change Education Partnership Visitor Survey Technical Report: Olympic National Park

Collections