John Macadam / Earthwords, geologist & writer

In 1999-2000 the Millennium Commission funded me to go on two interpretation schools:

• Signs, Trail Panels, and Wayside Exhibits run in Denver for the US Fish & Wildlife Service, and the US National Park Service, by Mike Gross and Ron Zimmerman (the authors of the well-known interpretive manuals)
• Interpretive Master Planning run in Snowdonia by John Veverka (author of another interpretation 'bible')

The funding also allowed me to look at interpretation in National Parks, state parks and museums across the States (including the mid-west NPs, the Everglades and sites in Washington and New York, as well as Denver Museum, the Smithsonian, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.  The three museums all had  major new displays in the Earth sciences.  In addition the funding allowed me to look at interpretation in Europe, particularly in the Réserve Géologique de Haute-Provence.

Since then I have also looked at much more interpretation across Europe but also co-run a course on

• Selling Geology to the Public, a 2 day course in 2000 for Scottish Natural Heritage - in its 'Sharing Good Practice' programme - at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh.

In April 2002 I attended a course run by Sam Ham (Applying Persuasive Communications in Visitor Management) for Scottish Natural Heritage.  I also attended the first conference, Scotching the Myth, of SIN, the Scottish Interpreters' Network, of which I am a member.

In October 2002, I attended a course run by Mike Gross and Ron Zimmerman on visitor centres, for Scottish Natural Heritage.

In September 2005 I spoke at the IV European Conference on the Conservation of the Geological Heritage in Braga, Portugal, about three cases studies of the interpretation I have done (Bodmin Moor, Brown End Quarry and the China Clay area): the presentation on MS Powerpoint is available on request, the abstract (MS Word) is here.

In September 2007 I was funded by the Slovenian environment ministry, the Slovenian Geological Survey and the British Council to give a keynote speech, and run a workshop, on 'Interpreting Earth Heritage' at the ProGEO meeting in Ljubljana, attended by around 80 delegates from 14 countries.  In fact I was their guest for 10 days.

In October 2008 I will be speaking at the European-wide meeting of ProGEO on Rab Island, Croatia.  I'm on the scientific committee. I'll be part-funded by the CSM Trust.

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