Interpreters should deliberately seek every chance to add participation and demonstration

Evidence

But I also know that these artifacts exist in great abundance all over the Southwest, and it would take several centuries to use up the supply. … All in all, the opportunities for bringing to the visitor a journey into the past by means of participation will never be as abundant as we should like. The point I make is that participation and demonstration are such priceless ingredients of interpretation that we should diligently search for possibilities and never let slip a real opportunity for including them. — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 472

Categorization

• SEED: An article angle: why hands-on, embodied methods beat passive displays — mining Tilden’s participation definition as a general teaching principle beyond nature centers.
• XREF: connects to: Interpretive participation must be physical, novel, and significant to count — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 465; Agencies now adopt language, size, and plain-writing rules to fix participation barriers — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 1100; Expert interpreters must cultivate humility toward non-expert visitors — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 329