Visitor Center Updates Incorporate Tribal Knowledge and Accessibility

The Takeaway: The South Slough Reserve updated its visitor center, incorporating local Indigenous knowledge and aligning with Americans with Disabilities Act standards, to educate visitors about the importance of watersheds and estuaries.

Entrance to South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve visitor center.
New Welcome sign at front door.
Information panels for South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve.
Inset panels added to connect the land to the culture and local tribal affiliations.

The South Slough Reserve Visitor Center now boasts enhanced educational signage, interactive maps with reserve information, video stations, and accessible designs to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Originally built in 1985, the visitor center is the main hub for the reserve to provide programs and exhibits that inform visitors about the importance of watersheds and estuaries and the reserve’s research. However, the information and communication techniques being used at the visitor center became outdated as knowledge about how people learn evolved.

Welcome and information sign for South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve.
Welcome and information sign as you walk through the front area.

The reserve used funding from NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management and engaged with tribal partners to make the visitor center shine. The new educational signs focus on connecting the land and estuary to the local culture. The signage combines Miluk—an extinct language that the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians are working to revitalize—with English to educate visitors about the importance of the ecosystem and how Tribal members steward the land today as they have for generations. Rotating displays of interactive maps and video share reserve information, highlight research efforts, and more. Additionally, when entering the visitor center, visitors are now greeted with updated wheelchair accessibility and new automatic doors to access the auditorium, classrooms, and main exhibits.

Not only do these enhancements comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, they also ensure the visitor center’s goals—that all visitors learn the importance of watersheds and estuaries and better understand how the research projects conducted by the reserve help to foster a safer future—are achieved.

Partners: South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management

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