Graduate Student: Jennifer Kobylecky Adviser: Dr. Brenda Lackey
As the full-time Education Coordinator for the Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo Wisconsin, I am developing the Interpretive Master Plan for the newly opened Aldo Leopold Legacy Center. I have aligned this interpretive planning project with my graduate study at UWSP, focusing on evaluation of current programs and exhibits. My thesis will be the first formal visitation and interpretation study ever done at the Aldo Leopold Foundation. Our new facility challenges participants to consider the very essence of conservation: thinking deeply about people, land and the many complex connections between them. The Center itself is a wonderful vehicle for communicating this message. Embodying Leopold's land ethic philosophy in a twenty-first century structure built almost entirely from trees planted by the Leopold family in the 1930s and '40s, the center was honored in October 2007 with the highest certification in the world by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy. Since opening in April 2007, our visitation has nearly doubled—over 5,000 visitors took part in on-site programming last year. They represented 16 foreign countries, and 49 states in our nation. We expect visitation to grow in coming years to nearly 10,000 people annually. As part of my master’s thesis, I conducted focus groups and surveys with a representative group of visitors to the center to determine what information they sought during a visit, their reactions to our interpretive offerings, and their basic demographics. I am currently analyzing these data, which will play a crucial role in shaping the future of our interpretive program. Our ultimate goal is to weave the thread of Leopold’s land ethic through the historic Leopold Shack and Farm site, binding it tightly with the modern day applications of conservation ethics on the Leopold land today, also embodied in the Leopold Center.
Picture on this page provided by Jennifer Kobylecky