Dr. Amy Gregg and Courtney Hall represent Ball State in Dorset, Ontario

By: Courtney Hall

 Dr. Gregg and I traveled to Dorset, Ontario for the National Association for Interpretation Region 4 Workshop on Tuesday February 24, 2009. At this conference, I presented a creative endeavor about coal mining and electricity production during the student session on Wednesday afternoon to my first international audience.  This project was originally designed for use in NREM classrooms, but was easily adapted for an interpretation project.   The presentation was successful, and the crowd very supportive of my efforts. 

We spent the rest of the conference attending concurrent sessions for learning how to interpret cultural, historical and science topics to varying audiences and through different techniques and approaches, such as living history and character development.   On Thursday, the conference offered many mobile workshops, a regular feature of NAI, and these included different outdoor activities such as bird watching, dog sledding and cross-country skiing.  Dr. Gregg and I tried cross country skiing.  For the first half of the day, I was cross country falling… but I seemed to improve quickly.

The evenings were spent networking with Tim Merriman, the Executive Director of NAI, Ginger Murphy and Marvin McNew of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and many other interpreters in the field in both the United States and Canada.  A highlight of the trip was being entertained by a Canadian folk-group the Wakami Wailers. 

Next year we would like to get more students involved.  The workshop will be held in Midland Michigan in 2010, and students are encouraged to consider attending and participating in the student session.  It was definitely worth the trip for me.