A04_0040627850_Attach_0001_SOW_SERO_I-E_Design_Civil_Rights_Junior_Ranger.pdf

Civil Rights Junior Ranger Statement of Work National Park Service (NPS) Southeast Region

Background Using Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail Junior Ranger program as a model, the Southeast Region seeks to create a similar program that unites 9 civil rights sites showing the civil rights story over time and across the geographic region. The parks initially involved include:

1. Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument

2. Camp Nelson National Monument

3. Freedom Riders National Monument

4. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park

5. Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument

6. Reconstruction Era National Historical Park

7. Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail

8. Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Park

9. Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site

Other parks may join in the future. Ideally, the civil rights junior ranger program sets a framework that others may replicate, but content for any future parks is outside this scope.

Showing how events in the civil rights movement are connected across space and time will dispel any myth that the movement began when a seamstress randomly decided not to give up her bus seat in 1955. The Civil Rights Junior Ranger program will focus on the breadth and depth of the long struggle, celebrating achievements made through strategic planning, collective action, nonviolent tactics, and courage of individuals both known and unknown to us. While included sites have their own Junior Ranger books focused on their specific stories, this broad Civil Rights Junior Ranger program will paint the Big Picture.

Purpose NPS Program Goal: The goal of the National Park Service Junior Ranger Program is to connect young people to their national parks and to the national park system through a variety of in-park self-initiated activities that are designed to introduce them to the system and cultivate future generations of park stewards.

The NPS Junior Ranger program is an activity-based program conducted in almost all parks. Many national parks invite young visitors to join the National Park Service "family" as Junior Rangers. Junior Rangers are typically between the ages of 5 to 13, although people of all ages can participate.

Activity books are geared toward place-based learning and encourage interaction with park staff. Junior Ranger books are designed to provide participants with the flexibility to discover and interact with the park at their own pace and within the limits of their visit. Some web components augment the on-site https://www.nps.gov/lecl/learn/kidsyouth/beajuniorranger.htm experience while other Virtual activities are geared toward website users who may never visit a park in real life. The total media package will offer visitors multiple ways to access and engage the civil rights story.

Scope The Vendor shall provide all services including labor, materials, facilities, and travel necessary to design interpretive products for the NPS in accordance with the specifications as detailed in this contract and its attachments. Work shall also include comprehensive research for obtaining all necessary reference information and materials to design all items required in this contract. The government shall provide a Resource Packet with reference material, including Junior Ranger logo graphics.

Planning

Vendor will work with regional employees and park staff from 9 different sites to conceptualize a cohesive Junior Ranger program and products. The Vendor will submit a proposal that NPS will review and approve before work continues.

Activity Book

The Vendor will design a junior ranger activity book that broadly interprets the civil rights movement as it happened throughout different time periods across the Southeast Region. The book will be full color, 12-16 pages with front and back covers.

Design of Junior Ranger Book to include:

• Original artwork: both spreads and spot illustration

• Brainstorming session with park staff to develop book goals, themes, and activities for audiences of diverse backgrounds, learning styles, and abilities.

• Original interpretive activities and text

• A completion certificate and space for stamp collecting

• Graphic design of original layouts created in Adobe InDesign

• Document set up that facilitates export of a pdf file that would meet Section 508 standards with proper tag structure, alternative text for all figures/images, appropriate metadata, sufficient color contrast, and use of descriptive hyperlinks.

In-Park Deliverable

The Vendor will plan and design a product that can be fabricated and sent to participating parks to mark their involvement in the program and engage on-site visitors. Examples include a pop-up banner, hanging sign, cutout, or standee, but the Vendor may suggest another medium.

Web Components

The Vendor will plan, outline, and prepare text and multimedia for web components. An NPS.gov web author will be responsible for inputting and publishing the content online.

Virtual Activities The Vendor will plan and design at least 5 activities for inclusion on NPS.gov that use existing elements found within the NPS content management system (CMS). Activity examples include a web-based scavenger hunt, Q&A using collapsible panels or image comparison slider, or short listening exercises.

Vendor will conceive activities and write text. Prepared images will meet dimension and size requirements of each element (generally at least 1,300 pixels wide and up to a 100 MB).

Read Along Videos The Vendor will record Read Along videos to both narrate and audio describe activity book. Audio described read along videos read the text and describe the imagery of the Civil Rights Junior Ranger activity booklet. Featured voices will be inviting, not robotic. Videos may include audio clips from oral histories, other clips, sound effects, or music.

There will be a video for the cover, one for each interior spread, and one for pledge and certificate. The videos will meet Section 508 standards. The vendor will provide transcripts for all videos. Videos will be exported as 1080p MP4 format.

Soundbites Using provided oral history multimedia and quotations, the Vendor will create short audio files for upload on NPS.gov. The audio clips may offer words of wisdom or encouragement from key historical persons. For each recording, the vendor will write brief text about the person and provide audio transcript.

Printable Card The Vendor will design a card that can be downloaded and printed at home. The card will include an activity and option to mail. Product will meet First Class Mail postage requirements of either standard letter or standard postcard as outlined by USPS.com.

Work Description Project will be completed remotely, with vendor and National Park Service remaining in contact via email, telephone correspondence, and virtual meeting platform (Zoom or MS Teams). File sharing will occur over MS Teams.

No travel is required.

Sub-contractors

Sub-contractors may be required to complete this work. Vendor should include a list of sub-contractors and the work they will perform in the proposal. Minority-owned business preferred.

Accessibility The National Park Service is subject to federal accessibility laws enacted by Congress, both for physical accessibility and digital accessibility.

The deliverable as a whole and all of its components shall be accessible and usable by persons with disabilities. At minimum, compliance with most current version of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act as amended shall be met. In addition, the NPS strives to meet level AAA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. but acknowledges that not all products can achieve this level. The Vendor shall list the proposed deliverables and the WCAG level which they believe can be met for each deliverable.

As more is understood about the deliverable, the achievable level may be impacted either positively or negatively. Any changes shall be discussed with the government for approval. The Vendor will be required to deliver a plan to detail how they will test for accessibility and how they intend to meet WCAG levels for each deliverable.

Timeline and Deliverables The Vendor shall contact the COR within 10 days after receipt of an awarded contract to schedule an orientation meeting. After awarding the contract, NPS will provide a package of reference material for the Vendor to begin working.

The Vendor will submit a tentative project schedule for NPS to review and approve.

Delivery milestones to be established by vendor and NPS staff and will include an overall plan proposal and at least two rounds of draft reviews prior to final submission. One round of printed and mailed proofs may be requested.

The period of performance ends May 31, 2024.

Finished Products

All finished products will be delivered digitally via MS Teams. Digital files will also be backed up on a flash drive and mailed to address specified by COR.

• Activity Book package o Final editable InDesign files with linked graphics and fonts o As-printed book production files o Raw scans and layered graphic source files o 508-compliant PDF. At a minimum, the PDF shall pass the Adobe Acrobat Accessibility

Full Check found under the "Tools" section of Adobe Acrobat.

o List of all use rights secured by Vendor

• In-Park Deliverable package o Final editable files with linked graphics and fonts o Print-ready production files

• File package for web components o Final web-ready image files o Final working design files o Audiovisual files, preferably MP4 o Outlines with proposed text o Audio Transcripts

Options Certain options may make a proposal more favorable. While the Government is interested in certain options, the Government may, or may not, choose to acquire such options, regardless of final contractor selection. The following project option should be addressed in the proposal if available:

• Design for printed activity materials for preschool-aged Junior Rangers, target ages 3-6

Copyright Ownership At all stages of development, artwork remains sole property of National Park Service.

Vendor will be credited in the booklet and when artwork appears online.

Vendor retains right to use artwork in portfolio and for self-promotion.

Payment The Vendor may submit a tentative payment schedule for NPS to review and approve.

Should project be canceled by the hiring party before completion, vendor will be compensated according to the amount of already work completed.

Vendor will cover expenses incurred during creation of product including design software and art supplies. No government furnished equipment will be provided for completion of this project.

Project Management The Vendor’s Project Manager (PM) shall be the primary point of contact between the Vendor and COR.

The PM shall have full authority to act for the contractor on all matters relating to this contract.

The NPS CO/COR will maintain contact with the Vendor during the duration of the contract and will be the primary point of contact for all discussions which may affect scope of performance, payment, cost adjustment, timeline, or any other circumstance requiring a potential modification to the contract.

The NPS will review all submittals for content and technical accuracy. One set of review comments shall be returned to the Vendor following each NPS review period. Each submittal must be approved by the NPS prior to payment.

NPS Project Manager and COR

Stephanie Metzler Southeast Regional Office stephanie_metzler@nps.gov

NPS Standards and Attachments The Vendor will produce products that align to NPS standards and guidance outlined on webpages and included as attachments.

Home | Section508.gov

WCAG 2 Overview | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 (w3.org)

HFC Editorial Style Guide - Harpers Ferry Center (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

Attachments

• Audio Description https://www.section508.gov/ https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/ https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/ https://www.nps.gov/subjects/hfc/hfc-editorial-style-guide.htm

• Intellectual Property Guidance

• Junior Ranger Best Practices

Evaluation Criteria The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. Technical Merit and Past Performance, when combined, are more important than Price. Award will be offered to the vendor offering the best value to the government.

Evaluation Criteria