Environmental Interpretation: A Practical Guide for People with Big Ideas and Small Budgets

Environmental Interpretation is the first truly applied treatment of environmental communication written specifically for people with big ideas and small budgets. Drawing on 20 years experience and the successes of his colleagues worldwide, Sam Ham presents an unusually diverse collection of low-cost communication techniques that really work.

More than 200 illustrations, photos, and technical insets provide simple instructions for designing and implementing effective education programs in forests, parks, protected areas, zoos, botanical gardens, extension and community programs, and in all kinds of agriculture and natural resource management programs.

Aside from its step-by-step, "how-to" approach, what sets this volume apart is its solid theoretical foundation. Readers learn not only how to communicate their ideas more forcefully but why the methods work. Some 20 case studies, carefully selected from throughout the Western Hemisphere, stimulate the imagination and show how others have successfully applied what this book is about.

Written for beginners and experts alike, the book represents a valuable resource for anyone faced with the need to communicate about the environment yet constrained by lack of money and experience.

Sam H. Ham is professor of Environmental Communication and International Conservation in the University of Idaho's College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Range Sciences. Dr. Ham's workshops on communication and interpretive methods are in demand both in the United States and abroad.