CLEVELAND, Tenn. — At Red Clay State Historic Park’s visitor center, a large vertical screen stands out in a room full of glass displays and informational panels, and an avatar on that screen stands at the ready to interact with visitors.
Coinciding with the 27th annual National Trail of Tears Conference and Symposium in Chattanooga in October, Red Clay introduced a new interactive exhibit, consisting of an artificial intelligence avatar, in the personage of a young Cherokee girl, that can teach park visitors about the Cherokee, the Red Clay site and the Trail of Tears. Red Clay is the first Tennessee state park to have the technology, Park Manager Erin Medley said in an interview.
Credit: Robin Rudd
Credit: Robin Rudd
Visitors can interact with the avatar via touch pad, either by selecting preprogrammed questions or by asking their own through speech or text. Having both speech and text options for visitor interaction as well as having the avatar’s responses be subtitled makes the exhibit more accessible for more people, Medley said. Eventually, the avatar will be bilingual, being able to speak Cherokee in addition to English, Medley said.
The avatar is modeled in appearance and voice after a 6-year-old descendant of Rebecca Ketcher Neugin, the last survivor of the Trail of Tears, during which the U.S. forcibly removed the Cherokee people from the Southeast. The avatar’s historical information is based on interviews with Ketcher Neugin. Medley said she wanted the avatar to be female because “we want to tell full stories.”
“That is our big push with Tennessee State Parks — to tell full stories,” Medley said. “And we have it from the perspective of men, and we wanted it from a woman’s perspective, from a kid’s perspective, so that we’re telling the whole story not just one person’s story.”
The avatar is another tool the park’s staff can use to help visitors connect to the past, Medley said. Although, she noted, the avatar can’t lead a tour of Red Clay or conduct a Cherokee weapons demonstration like a park ranger can — “I don’t want it to replace us, right?” she said.
What the avatar can do, what it is designed to do, according to Medley, is get children involved.
“What kid wants to walk around and read panels? Not me. I’m an adult, and I don’t want to do that,” Medley said with a laugh. “So, this is a great way for kids to learn about this history, this very hard history.”
Credit: Robin Rudd
Credit: Robin Rudd
Michael King, a 10-year-old student from Hardy Elementary School, exemplified Medley’s point. Interacting with the avatar, King asked question after question of the virtual Ketcher Neugin from what life was like during the Trail of Tears to who the leader of the Cherokee was. King would walk away from the avatar, think of another question to ask and return to the screen to speak with the avatar again. Each time he walked away, he would recite the information he learned to his mother, who beamed with pride as she watched him interact with the avatar.
“I felt very good asking it questions,” Michael said in an interview. “It felt like I was talking to a real person from the Cherokee.”
Some children struggle to read the information on plaques at museums, but the avatar at Red Clay can speak to them on their level and help them understand the information better, Amanii King, Michael’s mother, said in an interview. Seeing her son’s excitement, Amanii King said more museums should have interactive experiences like Red Clay’s avatar.
“He wants to learn more. So, instead of him just reading on the wall, he’s really excited to go back and ask more questions,” she said. “And that is big. Because knowledge is power, and it makes them seek the knowledge.”
As mother and son left the visitor center, Medley, the park manager, said Michael’s experience — him interacting with and wanting to learn more from the avatar — is “what it’s all about.”
Credit: Chattanooga Times Free Press
Credit: Chattanooga Times Free Press
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