By Nick Rahaim / Monterey County Weekly
On a cliff above Whalers Cove, in front of an iPad mounted to a tripod, Daniel Williford, an interpreter at the Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, looks as if he were taking a very professional selfie. Tourists stop gazing at the kelp forest below, and the view of Carmel Bay in the distance, and give curious looks as he talks into his gadget.
“Boys and girls, at the tip of my finger is a harbor seal,” Williford says, pointing to the cove. “In a few minutes I’ll jump in a kayak to show you close up.”
Williford is giving a classroom of curious fourth-graders in Roseville, California, a virtual fieldtrip of Whalers Cove. Since the program’s inception at Point Lobos in March, he has taken thousands of K-12 students and residents of senior homes from across California on a historical/ecological tour of the park.
“For most of these students, they’ll never have the opportunity to come here to see this unique part of the California coast and the effects of preservation firsthand,” he says, sporting a wide-brimmed hat and khaki park ranger uniform. “Now we get to bring the park to them.”
The virtual field trips, or “distance learning,” as the state of California calls the web-based tours, were created through a California State Parks program called Parks Online Resources for Teachers and Students, with additional funding coming from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The PORTS program began in 2004, when multimedia platforms on the internet were still in their infancy. Williford says park interpreters would give interactive tours while standing in front of a green screen inside a studio.