In this collaborative project, the University of New Mexico (UNM) and Arizona State University (ASU) will create a paved 3-km long walking trail along the south rim of Grand Canyon in partnership with the National Park Service. The "Trail of Time" is to be marked as a time line with one meter corresponding to one million years of Earth history, along with interpretive wayside exhibits. This place-based geoscience exhibition using Grand Canyon as an immersive environment is designed to help visitors gain an understanding of the magnitude of geologic time, as well as key processes and events in the geologic evolution of the region. An online "Virtual Trail of Time" and printed materials will also be developed.
The "Trail of Time" will reach a large percentage of the four to five million people each year that visit the Grand Canyon, including many who would be unlikely to attend an exhibition at a science museum. It also offers new methods of interpretation, with the potential to impact many other sites within the large National Park Service system. The evaluation of learning in this natural setting should add to our knowledge of outdoor interpretation, as well as how best to communicate the concept of deep time.
" Grand Canyon National Park and the University of New Mexico, with support from the National Science Foundation, hosted a Grand Opening of the Trail of Time Geoscience Exhibition Oct 13-15, 2010, at Grand Canyon. This Exhibition recently won the 2011 First Place Award for Wayside Exhibits from the National Association for Interpretation. The Trail of Time is a fully accessible interpretive walking timeline trail located near Grand Canyon Village, on the rim of Grand Canyon. It utilizes the unique vistas and rocks at Grand Canyon to help visitors ponder, explore, and understand the magnitude of geologic time and the stories encoded by Grand Canyon rocks and landscapes. Intellectual merit: The Trail of Time Exhibition is a 4,600 km-long (about 3 mile) walking trail on the South Rim of Grand Canyon marked every meter with bronze markers and scaled such that one long step on the trail (1 m) represents one million years of the 4,600 million year (4.6 billion year) age of the Earth. Park visitors seem to love to touch the rocks, do trail activities, and study the wayside information, all in the context of great views of one of the world’s most spectacular landscapes-- Grand Canyon. Those who walk the entire trail get a visceral feel for the age of mother Earth (really old), and most appreciate getting to know canyon rocks, their ages, and how the human timescales interface with geologic time. The Trail of Time effort involved research and evaluation in informal science education aimed at understanding and helping improve public cognition of geologic time—the vital, and difficult- to- comprehend, connection between human time scales and the million year heartbeat of the Earth. Broader Impact: We first proposed the ToT concept to the Park in 1995, and eventually received about $2 million funding from the National Science Foundation in 2005 to install it. It has been an excellent collaborative team effort between Grand Canyon National Park, National Science Foundation, University of New Mexico and Arizona State University, and professional design and evaluation teams. The opening of the exhibit (Oct 2010) was accompanied by a well-attended (120 participants) symposium on "Innovations in Geoscience Education in the National Park System". We hope to generate similar efforts at other Colorado Plateau Parks. We feel that understanding the science of geology is assuming increasing importance as human populations exceed 7 billion on one small planet. The National Park Service fills an essential role and needs to continue to provide improved informal geoscience education to the public. Publications: 1. Karlstrom, K., Semken, S., Crossey, L., Perry, D., Gyllenhaal, E. D., Dodick, J., Williams, M., Hellmich-Bryan, J., Crow, R., Bueno Watts, N., & Ault, C., 2008, Informal geoscience education on a grand scale: the Trail of Time exhibition at Grand Canyon. Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 56, no. 4, p. 354-361. 2. Crow, R., Karlstrom, K.E., Crossey, L.J., Semken, S., Perry, D., Williams, M., and Bryan, J., 2011, It’s about time: Innovations in geoscience education at Grand Canyon: Legacy, v. 22, p. 26-27. 3. Semken, S., Dodick, J., Ben-David, O., Pineda, M., Bueno Watts, N., & Karlstrom, K., 2009, Timeline and time scale cognition experiments for a geological interpretative exhibit at Grand Canyon. Proceedings of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, Garden Grove, California, 8 p. 4. Semken, S., Dodick, J., Frus, R., Perry, D., Wells, M., Bryan, J., Williams, M., Crow, R., Crossey, L., and Karlstrom, K., 2010, Studies of Informal Geologic Time Learning at the "Trail of Time" in Grand Canyon National Park: Informal Learning Review, Trail of Time team (*= Principal Investigators) Karl Karlstrom*, Laura Crossey*, and Ryan Crow, University of New Mexico Steve Semken*, Arizona State University Mike Williams, University of Massachusetts. Judy Bryan, Ellen Seeley, Carl Bowman, Interpretation Division, Grand Canyon National Park Deborah Perry, Eric Gyllenhaal, Selinda Research Associates Jim Sell, Sue Sell, Matt Blakely, Brian Williamson, Mickey Shilling, Jim Sell Designs
