Impacts The collective effects, achievements, benefits or changes brought about by interpretive or education program on its intended audiences or on the environment. Impacts often embody lasting changes such as improved environmental conditions and changes in the way people think and live.
Related Terms: Outputs, Outcomes, Logic Model
Indicator A benchmark or specific performance target used to determine success of an outcome.
Informal Education/Learning The truly lifelong process whereby every individual acquires attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment —
from family and neighbors, from work and play, from the market place, the library and the mass media. (Adapted from The Encyclopedia of Informal Education, 2006).
Related Terms: Formal Education/Learning, Nonformal Education/Learning.
Informal Interpretation Spontaneous personal interpretive contacts with audiences within a variety of settings.
Informal Learning Environments The places, venues, and settings where informal learning opportunities are intentionally made available to visitors, such as in parks or museums.
Interdisciplinary A philosophy of teaching in which content and methods are drawn from several subject areas to examine a central theme, issue, problem, or topic.
Interpretation (or Heritage Interpretation) A mission-based communication process that forges emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of the audience and meanings inherent in the resource. (National Association for Interpretation)
Interpreter (or Heritage Interpreter) A person who employs a mission-based communication process that forges emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of the audience and meanings inherent in the resource.
Interpretive Technique that assists audiences through communication media in making both emotional and intellectual connections with heritage resources.
Interpretive Center An interpretive center is a facility where opportunities are provided for people to forge emotional and intellectual connections between their interests and the meanings that arise from learning about the resource. The facility may or may not be staffed, and can range in scale from a kiosk to a complex of buildings and natural sites, but always provides information about the natural and cultural resources.
Interpretive Equation A visual and verbal metaphor for demonstrating the dynamic relationship between the knowledge of heritage resources, knowledge of audiences and use of appropriate interpretive techniques to create
interpretive opportunities.
Interpretive Objectives Desired measurable outputs, outcomes and impacts of interpretive services.
Interpretive Opportunity A place, time and experience when interpretation may occur.
Interpretive Planning The decision-making process that blends management needs and resource considerations with visitor desire and ability to pay to determine the most effective way to communicate the message to
targeted markets. (National Association for Interpretation)
Interpretive Program Activities, presentations, publications, audio-visual media, signs, and exhibits that convey key heritage resource messages to audiences. (Adapted from US Fish & Wildlife Service)
Interpretive Services Any personal or non-personal media delivered to audiences.
Interpretive Theme A succinct, central message about a topic of interest that a communicator wants to get across to an audience.
Inquiry Learning A dynamic approach to learning that involves exploring the world, asking questions, making discoveries, and rigorously testing those discoveries in the search for new understanding. (Adapted from The Inquiry Learning Forum)
Interdisciplinary Education Involves the integration of multiple disciplinary perspectives within a problem-solving or topical context. (Adapted from Deborah Vess)