Groesbeck Estate Audio Tour
Written for the Cincinnati Nature Center
I managed a three-person team to research, write, and record an audio tour about the Groesbeck Estate, a historic estate on the grounds of the Cincinnati Nature Center. We researched the site's history and audience, created personas to ensure our content was relevant, developed an interpretive theme to guide our writing, mapped out tour stops, and wrote and recorded scripts for the tour.
View one of the sample scripts below.
Script for Stop 5/6:
Growing and Gardening
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Grace Groesbeck loved filling her home with fresh flowers, so she needed a place to grow flowers all year long. She built a greenhouse on her property so she could care for plants even when it was cold. The original greenhouse stood here at the exact site of the current greenhouse, although the structure you see today has been rebuilt.
Greenhouses are a great tool for gardeners because they keep plants safe from harsh weather, freezing temperatures, and animals like bunnies and deer that eat garden plants. Grace loved to fill her greenhouse with tulips, irises, and other bulb flowers. She grew so many flowers that she had to hire a full-time gardener to keep all the plants healthy and colorful.
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Today, the Nature Center uses the greenhouse to grow native plants. Native plants are species that have existed in their environments for thousands of years and have developed strong, healthy relationships with other plants, animals, and non-living features of their habitats. Growing native plants helps the Nature Center rebuild healthy environments full of species that work together to form balanced food webs and nutrient cycles.
Grace Groesbeck didn't grow native plants in her greenhouse, but she still shared the Nature Center’s love of caring for her surroundings.
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How do you care for the environment in your life?
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When you are ready, walk back toward the trailhead that leads to Lauren’s Lookout.