Parks
Service
My mission is not to regurgitate facts but to help lifelong learners discover their own interests and passions and cultivate skills to explore them while emphasizing important issues for civic life and environmental stewardship. When it comes to creating relevant educational experiences, the cultivation of skills like thinking critically, making connections, empathizing, and communicating are just as important as the specific content and
themes of the materials.
Short form and easily digestible videos that highlight some of the overlooked plant & animal species of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.
Dunes Diaries
I am continually challenging myself to subvert the notion that science and human history are seprate disiplines. My own identity is intertwined with a sense of place, both ecological and humanistic and my work seeks to blur the lines between a sense of self, a sense of human lineage, and land.
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It is important to make special considerations and build understandings of all the perspectives that change the way we interact with educational structures, sources of learning, and information. Within these perspectives, recognizing cultural and economic barriers and creating resources within the project to dismantle them only improves the experience for all learners.
Short form and easily digestible videos that encourage viewers to imagine the ways that technology and social change has altered our lived experiences by capturing daily life at Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site.
Living History
Interpretation
"Dunes MD" is an audience centered experience (ACE) informed activity researched and developed by Bean while serving as a full time summer volunteer at Great Sand Dunes National Park in 2022.
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Given both as a porch talk and a guided hike, Dunes MD is an activity that encourages guests to not only explore the biological and historical features of the park, but notice the interplay between the two. In addition to highlighting human-environment interaction, Dunes MD also aims to engage visitors with underrepresented historical demographics of the area.
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Game graphics (featured here) were also researched and designed by Bean and encouraged visitors to work as a group to apply resource knowledge to a historical profile.