Mixing technology, nature to lure hikers

[...] it was with some skepticism that I learned the Nature Conservancy would be adding a walking audio guide to the Lisha Kill Natural Area in Niskayuna.

The guide lets people with smart phones listen to recorded informational segments about the preserve as they walk the trails.

People with smart phones and a QR code app can scan the codes to see the Nature Conservancy web site and the audio files – one for each sign.

Troy Weldy, director of ecological management for the New York Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, says the audio guide is part of the organizations's plan to bring the younger generation into the outdoors.

[...] besides just telling them what they're looking at, the audio guide encourages people to go into the stream and flip over rocks to see what they can find underneath, or break off a piece of skunk cabbage to see what it smells like.

The narrator's soothing voice and the low volume of the phone was far from disruptive — far less disruptive than the barking dogs and noisy kids we sometimes encounter at the preserve on summer weekends.