Alisha Bube
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Paradise
2022
Statement
The beauty of the sub-alpine meadows at Mount Rainier National Park are renowned, but as one of the snowiest places on the planet, the high elevation vegetation already faces extreme natural conditions in order to survive. With park visitation climbing towards 2M annually, the human impact on the ecosystem could be increasingly devastating if education on preservation and Leave No Trace principles doesn’t increase as well.
I spent around 25 days over the course of seven months in 2022 doing ethnographic research by working with different education, restoration, and citizen science programs at the park. Throughout that time, I did a deep dive into National Park Service and University of Washington data focused on visitation and usage, weather, restoration and prevention, and plant phenology in order to create four large interpretive signs that could be placed near the main trailhead.
Data Analytics and Visualization (MPS) Students