Courses

Learn about foundational concepts of accessibility and disability in this free microlearning e-course series! This course is intended for anyone in the parks, recreation, and tourism industry who wants to learn about disability and accessibility in historic and modern-day contexts.

Learn about foundational concepts of accessibility and disability in this free microlearning e-course series! This course is intended for anyone in the parks, recreation, and tourism industry who wants to learn about methods of appropriate interaction with people with disabilities.

Learn about foundational concepts of accessibility and disability in this free micro-learning e-course series! This course is intended for anyone in the parks, recreation, and tourism industry who wants to learn about accessible design requirements vs. equitable use of facilities and recreation environments.

Learn about foundational concepts of accessibility and disability in this free micro-learning e-course series! This course is intended for anyone in the parks, recreation, and tourism industry who wants to learn more about recognizing the rights of individuals with disabilities to use service animals and assistive devices.

The Capital Improvement Certificate provides the learner with a foundational understanding of capital improvement projects, financing of capital improvements, site plans for capital projects, and project management.

This course provides best practices for interpreters charged with developing programs where Civil War and Civil Rights stories intersect.

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Explore the skills needed to be an effective interpretive coach. Coaching others to develop and deliver meaningful interpretation is rewarding because you multiply the opportunities for visitors to understand the relevance and significance of our resources. It gives you the chance to share your passion.

Explore the four most important principles of managing wilderness: Preserve Wilderness and Natural Conditions, Protect Wilderness Benefits, Provide and Use the Minimum Necessary, and Manage Wilderness as a Whole.

Not a designer, but need to develop an interpretive media product? This course will teach you basic design principles that will help you put together a product that is both interpretive and eye-catching.

Why do you write? Is it to inform, instruct, or persuade your audience? Or do you write to help your audience think or feel something new? Effective interpretive writers have basic skills in writing and understand the art and practice of interpretation. This course explores the reasons we write and teaches the essential elements of effective interpretive writing.

This course is designed to assist individuals charged with approving Minimum Requirements Analyses (MRAs). The stories and case studies presented in this course are based on real cases and real MRAs. Learn More

This course is the third in a series of three courses on Cultural Resources Management in Wilderness. It provides a comprehensive overview of the process used to evaluate proposals for scientific activity in wilderness.

Gain skills in effective methods for communicating with staff, colleagues, and partners.

Gain skills in methods for leading teams and developing staff ability to perform effectively.

Gain ability to ensure organizational goals and customer expectations are met.

Gain skills in hiring and preparing staff to be successful in their positions.

Gain a comprehensive understanding of what a team is and how to develop an effective team.

Gain skills in developing competencies and managing staff with competencies in mind.

Gain skills in developing competencies and managing staff with competencies in mind.

This course is designed for students and professionals who are interested in gaining a comprehensive understanding of the requirements for providing accessible programs, services, and activities within federal, state, and local recreation agencies.

This course will help you gain an understanding of the different movements in the history of parks, human health and natural environments. It will also provide you the tools to develop personal definitions for the terms “human health” and “natural environments.”

Establish a strong foundation in the basics of interpretation. This certificate program explores the history of interpretation as a profession and provides knowledge in roving, informal interpretation, audience identification and engagement, and interpretive talks.

This is the first course in the Paleontological Resources Management in Wilderness series. It focuses on the basics of managing paleontological resources found in wilderness.

This course provides a brief introduction to the benefits of facilitation in group settings.

This recorded webcast is designed for park and public agency employees who are interested in the history of parks. The session will include historical details, drawings and photographs of the people and places who make up the story, their objectives, successes and failures.

Explore the role(s) that the parks and recreation profession can have in making connections between the natural world and human health through this self-paced certificate program.

Do you have a strong background and understanding of interpretation (perhaps in programming) but want to dig deeper? Do you struggle with interpretive media or writing? Are you curious about what exactly ‘dialogic’ interpretation means? If so, this certificate program is for you!

The Intermediate Methods in Interpretation Certificate is entirely web-based and consists of five interpretive courses each culminating with an applied assignment that relates to your organization or site. This course of study provides you with the opportunity to receive feedback from your instructor(s) who review the elements of your portfolio. Additionally, if you apply for and are accepted into the cohort-based program, you will work with a mentor who has considerable experience in the interpretive field who will guide you as you develop your intermediate skills.

Stop! Before you register for this certificate program, are you an NAI member interested in completing it as part of a cohort and working with a mentor? The Eppley Institute and the National Association for Interpretation are recruiting students to participate in a cohort program that will begin in January 2020. Applications are now available. If you are interested in learning more and applying, please click here. If you would like to join NAI, please visit their website.

The purpose of this course is to help ABMC managers further appreciate their role as supervisors, coaches, auditors, and appraisers of interpretive programs and projects. Interpretive coaching and supervision are important responsibilities of ABMC supervisors.

New to interpretation? Want to refresh your understanding of the basics of interpretation? This course is for you!

Explore guided interpretive programs, which can take many forms: walks, hikes, house tours, canoe trips, bus tours, cave tours, just to name a few.

Explore a new approach to interpretation – dialogic interpretation. This course discusses three methods interpreters are using to present dialogic programs to visitors and guests.

In this course you will explore the core concepts covered in the seven courses in the Human Health and Natural Environments series.

This course is the second in a series of three courses on Cultural Resources Management in Wilderness. It provides an in-depth look at the special requirements of inventorying and monitoring cultural resources in wilderness.

The visitor is sovereign. Interpreters may hear this very basic but very important concept many times during the course of their career. What does it mean? It means that each visitor or guest brings a unique level of knowledge, interest, and care each time they visit a site.

Learn about relevant considerations for managing insects and disease in wilderness.

In this certificate you will learn the basic steps for decision making and management that are applied to federal wilderness areas, and how they can be interpreted and implemented on other, non-federal protected areas. These wildlands can benefit from the same systems and strategies the US government uses to identify the wilderness characteristics, develop plans for stewardship, manage visitor usage, and protect the natural resources.

Learn about the process of evaluating proposals to conduct scientific activity in wilderness and the decisions wilderness managers must make in order to preserve wilderness character while such activity occurs.

Learn the importance of natural resource monitoring and what resources are appropriate to monitor in wilderness.

Jump start your training with online onboarding courses!

Jump start your New Employee training with online onboarding courses! Upon completion of purchase, you will receive a code that can be redeemed for the New Employee Onboarding suite of courses.

Jump start your training with online onboarding courses!

Jump start your New Employee training with online onboarding courses! Upon completion of purchase, you will receive a code that can be redeemed for the New Employee Onboarding suite of courses.

Build a foundational understanding of facility management practices, particularly as they apply to parks and public lands agencies. The certificate program follows the Asset Management Process, an approach used by the National Park Service.

The purpose of this certificate program is to prepare park and recreation agencies to conduct a system master plan. The components can be used in several types of planning and will ultimately prepare agencies to either 1) conduct the planning process on their own, or 2) be prepared to collaborate with a contractor to facilitate the master planning process. This certificate covers the fundamentals of a system master plan according to the Commission for Accreditation of Park and Recreation Agencies (CAPRA).

New to the procurement process? This course will help you to gain an understanding of how to obtain products and services from organizations outside your own.

Gain the skills and confidence needed to interact with visitors informally and learn how to provide them with interpretive opportunities. This course explores three types of contacts: orientation, information, and interpretation.

Explore how social media can be used interpretively to expand your reach.

Gain valuable skills that will help you train impactful interpreters. Interpretive trainers support interpreters in connecting people to parks, museums, zoos, and other places.

Survey Basics and Best Practices for Park and Recreation Agencies will provide a brief overview on how to develop and distribute a survey. It reviews the reasons for surveying and how to construct, conduct, and use the survey data.

The causes of World War One are complex. This course explores the social and political factors that contributed to and shaped the conflict in Europe. The initial reluctance and ultimate participation of the United States is described and placed in a cultural and political context as well.

This course is designed to assist you in understanding, developing, and selecting management alternatives for a wilderness stewardship plan.

This second course in the series provides a thorough overview of how to determine which strategies and actions to use when managing visitor use in wilderness.