You’re in a zoo. On your device is a soft voice guiding you. It’s telling you about the polar bear and how the arctic ice is melting away. You are looking at two of them playing in the water. One looks up and stares you in the eye. And then the voice goes: they could be lost by 2100, if we don’t tackle climate change now.
Audio tours reveal everything there is to know about objects on display. They tell you about history, culture or nature. But they can also help create awareness on broader topics and stimulate debate within society.
Awareness Is key
If ever there was a perfect spot for us humans to become aware of our place in nature without having to travel too far, it’s the zoo. The Zoo in Rhenen, Ouwehands Dierenpark, uses an audio tour not only to support and enrich the visiting experience, but also to create awareness. In this era where we are just starting to realize the vulnerability of life on earth, Ouwehands Dierenpark not only wants to give visitors a glimpse of animal wildlife, but they also want to make visitors aware of the dangers their natural environment is facing and inspire people with tips about what they can do to help. They want to reach and touch people, for awareness is what will ultimately lead to the protection of nature.
Let Jane Goodall explain
With this purpose in mind, the zoo created an educational audio tour for adults that tells the story of the primates through the observations of the world-famous primatologist and expert on chimpanzees, Jane Goodall. The occasion was Jane Goodall’s new publication, The book of Hope, that was used as a guideline for the tour, and the script was written in cooperation with the Jane Goodall Institute. In the tour, Goodall takes the visitor on a journey with interesting details about the lives of different monkey species that everybody likes to learn about. But the story she tells is so much more than that: she shares her observations from when she was doing research in Africa and her growing concern for the preservation of these species and their habitat. Goodall: “A famous saying goes: We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. But it looks more like we stole it from them!” Goodall believes in the resilience of nature, yet she warns each and every visitor that we all need to act now and do what we can – or it will be too late.
All eyes and all ears
If creating awareness is your goal, the audio guided tour is an ideal instrument. The message you want to convey comes across strongly in an audio tour, especially if the story is told by someone who is seen as an authority on the subject. Visitors will be all eyes and ears. If our shared goal is to give back the earth we borrowed, the audio tour in Rhenen may help create a new generation of people who will live and work to protect our blue planet.