Kare Atlas: Dry Tortugas

Kare Atlas: Dry Tortugas Project

Kare Atlas is a series of adventure videos from the Arctic to Antarctica that started as a personal project and eventually became part of a children's hospital general viewing.

by Andra M. Popa

Just off the coast of the Florida Keys en route with a seaplane to Dry Tortugas National Park, this aerial image is a capture from Kare Atlas: Dry Tortugas, a video used by a children's hospital to calm patients. Read more about the Kare Atlas project in this log book entry.

Health + Nature

When a family member expressed a wish to travel but could not due to ill health, I started traveling again and documented my travels to remote areas of Cape Breton Island (Canada), Newfoundland (Canada), Iceland, Norway, Arctic Svalbard (Norway), and Sweden, through photo and video footage to develop drawings and paintings for pediatric patients who could not travel. After I was invited to screen the resulting video footage at a children's hospital in Chicago, a version of this video above from Dry Tortugas National Park eventually became part of the continuous daily footage shown at the hospital to calm little explorers in waiting rooms, inpatient rooms, the playroom, and in pre-operative surgical rooms. I edited the project initially to calm patients, but after clinicians and health care personnel commented on how it calmed them as well, I realized that the audience and benefit was much broader. The version of the video that appeared in the hospitals also identifies the fish and coral thanks to the help of naturalists at Biscayne National Park, Everglades National Park, Dry Tortugas National Park, and the National Park Service. The photos from the research trips are posted on the Instagram account @andra.m.popa.

A seaplane, free diving, and snorkeling adventure in the Dry Tortugas, a Florida island, where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean to calm little explorers at a children's hospital in Chicago.  In 1888, Fort Jefferson was used as kind of a hospital as part of the Marine-Hospital Service to quarantine sailors who could not be treated on their ships due to certain conditions.

Application of Science

While a correlation between health and nature has been felt and documented historically, scientific methods and instruments are being applied to capture and evaluate the health benefits of nature, with correlations being explained by different hypothesis. For example, Japanese scientists examined the physiological and psychological effects of the Japanese practice of forest bathing from 2004 to 2012, with one scientist studying immune cell response hypothesizing that the forest air contains a chemical compound that positively affects the immune cells. Recently, a Japanese photographer took photos of the experience of forest bathing, with the work being published in The New Yorker in an article entitled "A Japanese Photographer Captures the Mysterious Power of Forest Bathing." Further, in 2016, National Geographic Magazine published a detailed article entitled This is Your Brain on Nature, which offers as evidence various scientific research projects using objective measuring tools, such as electroencephalograms, as well as historical theories based on observation alone to show a correlation between health and nature. Further, in This is Your Brain on Nature, the author discusses a pilot program that encourages pediatricians at the University of California at San Francisco to prescribe outings to local parks, with transportation and programs provided by the East Bay Regional Parks District.

A moose on the Skyline Trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia, Canada, during a guided sunset hike.

Park Prescriptions

Prescriptions to parks have become increasingly common in the US. In 2017, National Geographic Magazine published an article dedicated to this topic of "park prescriptions," entitled Doctors are Prescribing Park Visits to Boost Patient Health. The article discusses initiatives in many states wherein physicians provide patients free park passes as a "prescription," at the very least as an opportunity to open a discussion about exercise and spending time outdoors. Park Rx is an initiative by practitioners to connect and promote the park prescription programs in many states.

Accessibility

As some parks may not be feasible for people with different abilities, whether permanent or temporary due to medical interventions such as surgery or accidents, accessibility is also a consideration in the park prescriptions programs. An example of an accessible park is Zion National Park ("Zion"), in Utah, which offers a wheelchair-accessible shuttle bus. Riding the shuttle alone provides clear views of the park. Further, there are some very flat and well-maintained trails that are wheelchair accessible. While I took the larger photo below at approximately the midpoint of the Angel's Landing hike at Zion; breathtaking wheelchair accessible hikes are also available. I took the smaller photos below with the bighorn sheep just from the side of the road, which also shows the accessibility of the park.

Zion National Park is a remarkably accessible park with an accessible shuttle bus, the route of which can be seen in the background of this photo, as well as beautiful accessible trails.

Application in Cities

City planning has also been influenced by the idea that nature benefits the human experience. Singapore was purposely designed to be a "garden city" to promote the well-being of its inhabitants. The first four photos below show the use of nature in a city setting in Singapore.

The "Gardens by the Bay" in Singapore feature both outdoor gardens and indoor botanical gardens.

A Singapore skyscraper intertwined with vines.

People were playing cricket in the green space in the middle of the Singapore skyline, framed by the National Gallery Singapore awning.

Another view of the outdoor gardens incorporated into city dwelling in Singapore.

The "Hive" building in Singapore incorporates greenery.

The lake front in Chicago as a marvel of city planning.

This image shows the structured planning that incorporates gardens in Washington, D.C. into the national monuments.

The use of plants at an establishment in Notting Hill, London, shows the use of nature in a city dwelling.

Central Park in New York City, co-designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.

This log book entry continues with an examination of Art + Nature in the next installment, available next month: Kare Atlas: Antarctica.

Photos: © Andra M. Popa