A04_SOW.docx

Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Climate Change Interpretive Content

A. Background The Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail In 1978 Congress established the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail (LECL) as part of the national trails system (NTS) as one of four original national historic trails. Today, the trail is approximately 4,900 miles in length connecting Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to near present-day Astoria, Oregon. Following the historic outbound and inbound routes of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, including the preparatory section from Pittsburgh, the trail connects 16 states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.

Description

This project seeks to interpret climate change and its impacts through the lens of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the changes that have occurred over the past 220 years. It will provide visitors with compelling and engaging interpretive messages and culturally sensitive content to learn and experience climate change through the story of Lewis and Clark.

The purpose of this contract is to conduct research and provide interpretive content that will be used for the NPS website, mobile app, social media and other interpretive products.

This contract, and the content produced from it, will:

· Be written interpretively- to give digital visitors an opportunity to discover why they care about trail resources.

· Be engaging- the content will be a catalyst in creating opportunities for the audience to make their own intellectual and emotional connections with the meanings of trail resources.

· Follow the format laid out in the SOW (and discussed in the initial meeting) to be used on the NPS systems and for public use. This includes writing formatted as place assets or as articles.

· Have quality, vetted content that is available to third party app and website developers.

Next is some background information taken from the NPS Digital Community Site on Place Assets. The content management system and Place assets described below are the systems used by National Park Service employees to create webpages and content for nps.gov. For some examples of existing webpages from the Lewis and Clark NHT, go to https://www.nps.gov/lecl/planyourvisit/places-to-visit-montana.htm What Are "Places"?

Throughout this guide, the capitalized word Place asset? refers to a specific type of web-page in the NPS.gov content management system (CMS) to describe a location. The lowercase word "place" is used in the more general sense of a physical location.

A Place is a specific physical location (e.g., a notable farm, a particular bridge, a specific wayside next to a visitor center, etc). Ideally, these areas do not change quickly and require visual orientation to and on the landscape.

Why Create a Place?

Like other types of shared content, a Place asset embodies the Create Once, Publish Everywhere model. Various sites within the NPS.gov umbrella can then reuse Place assets without having to recreate or duplicate content that another park or program already published.

For example, Burnside Bridge is a notable location in Antietam, but the stories related to Burnside Bridge, and the ramifications of the battle there, extend beyond Antietam's physical borders. A single Place with details of Burnside Bridge would certainly be useful on ANTI's site, as well as the Civil War subject site and other sites that currently exist or that might exist in the future (e.g., military history, historic preservation, etc.).

Places can also be reused by third-parties via the NPS Application Programming Interface (API) and will be used in the NPS servicewide mobile app.

· {LECL note- having the Places for the NPS app and available for third-parties are goals of this project} Places and the NPS Mobile App As mentioned above, Places aren't just published on NPS.gov. They will be used in the NPS servicewide mobile app in a couple of different ways.

· Categories The app will allow a park to group any number of Places by a variety of categories. For example, Yellowstone might make an individual Place for each mud pot in the park, and then group them up into a category called "Mud Pots in Yellowstone." Then, a mud pot enthusiast who is traveling to Yellowstone can read about each of them in the app. There isn't necessarily a set order or any directions connecting Places within a category; it's just a list of locations that share a common theme / geology / etc.

{ LECL examples- Partner Visitor Centers, Historical Sites, Recreation}

· Self-Guided Tours The app will let a park string together a sequence of Places (and other types of content, like campgrounds and visitor centers) into a self-guided tour. When thinking about what stops would work well on a self-guided tour, keep your thinking flexible on what constitutes a Place. Any location that you wish to direct people to visit would work well, no matter how large or small.

For example, any of the following might make a good Place to create and include in a self-guided tour:

· Historic structures

· Grave sites

· Historical markers

· Lewis and Clark Trail sites

For this project, LECL is asking the contractor to develop interpretive content in the form of place assets and articles that connect the historic Lewis and Clark story to modern day climate change.

A mix of Place Assets (see information above) and Article assets (a more straightforward type of webpage with text and a photo) can be developed as long as each locations get at least one Place asset with a geolocation. Articles may be needed if the interpretive writing for the location is more than would make sense for just one Place asset.

B. Project Description

This climate change project will develop online content to tie the story of climate change to the Lewis and Clark story and journals that reveal the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s rich climate, ecosystem and land cover documentation. This will include taking Lewis and Clark journal entries from over 200 years ago and comparing them to the landscape today as it relates to climate change. The Lewis and Clark journals are a great source of historical and scientific information that can help inform our knowledge of climate change.

This project will interpretively tell the story of climate change through the lens of the Lewis and Clark expedition and the indigenous tribes using Place and Article assets with geolocated data. The places chosen for this content should be distributed through the 4,900-mile trail.

C. Scope of Work

Measurable Results 1.Research and develop a short interpretive guide to help all the content work together under one framework. This interpretive guide will make connections between the Lewis and Clark journals and climate change effects seen at trail sites across the country today.

2. The project will develop interpretive content in the form of NPS.gov articles and place assets (georeferenced articles that contain GIS coordinates and follow the NPS place asset template, template will be provided based on a previous contract)

Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail will provide:

· Specific format of how the final content should be prepared for us to review and the final version.

· Links to our current website and shared content for reference.

· Existing content that has been developed related to climate change and the Lewis and Clark NHT.

Final project will include:

· Contractor will devise strategy for researching, organizing, and writing interpretive content to cover the content areas requested and other important places uncovered via research.

· Each place will be written up using a specific format provided by LECL. This will include a place asset format and supplementary article pages. The contractor will also find and provide graphics in the public domain to be used with each place researched. GIS coordinates will be provided for each place.

· Citations for all information gathered will be provided with each entry.

D. Deliverables

1. Interpretive Guide- This document will lay out connections between the Lewis and Clark journals and story with modern day climate change. This will be a short document, 1-2 pages that guides the interpretive writing process.

2. Interpretively written content, a mix of place assets and articles. A minimum of 15 place assets are required.

Deliverables should be provided in Word document as well as a PDF format.

· Place assets will

· Be around 100 words in length

· Include a photo, public domain with citation, alt text

· Follow an interpretive writing style

· Include list of amenities

· Geolocation data

· List of all sources and citations used to write the text

· With each Place, provide a short, 1-2 sentence teaser for use in social media posts

· Articles will

· Be around 200-300 words in length

· Include a photo, public domain with citation, alt text

· Follow an interpretive writing style

· Geolocation data

· List of all sources and citations used to write the text

· May include some information from the place asset but should tell a fuller story

· Provide a short, 1-2 sentence teaser for use in social media posts Final deliverable will be given in both PDF and word formats that are 508 compliant. All photos used should be either public domain or have consent for the park service to use. All photos need to be given as individual files, have a naming convention and include a spreadsheet with files name, alt text, captions and sources of the photos and any necessary permissions.

E. Project Schedule

· Call to include NPS and contractor to discuss project expectations: 2 weeks after award.

· Interpretive Guide deliverable due: 2 months following award

· Interpretive Content first draft deliverable due: 4 months following award

· Interpretive Content second draft deliverable due: 5 months following award

· Interpretive Content final draft deliverable due: 6 months following award