Cullen Krieg

Dr. Jack

CODES
12 October 2023

 

MOBOT

The article speaking about Henry Shaw and the past of the Botanical Garden brings up topics that need to be introduced into the tours of the Botanical Garden. The article does a very good job explaining what Henry Shaw did with the amount of evidence that was saved. Personally, I think that the tours of the garden itself need to bring this up or add more signs stating this past.  Comparing both of these informational pieces together there can be some changes.

Firstly, when we first visited the garden I didn’t seem many signs of slavery taking place. The guides did bring it up while taking us on the walking tour but most individuals like to walk around the garden on their own. Implementing different signs or statues would allow those individuals to stop and read about the past that Henry Shaw had been a part of. If there were pictures of the records that are in the article many people would have a better understanding of why the Botanical Garden is the way it is. 

I think that the article is good because it is multimodal. It informs the reader about the past that Henry Shaw had. It states that he didn’t like slavery to begin with but then with a drastic switch he started purchasing slaves. The photographs that were implemented did a good job at showing the certain topic that they were talking about. However, I think that a translation from the letters would be a very good addition to the website. Since some younger individuals cannot read cursive handwriting, having a printed copy would allow more individuals to read. 

Being able to use both of these ways of information is a decent way at being able to figure out our certain wicked problem. But, say a class that is based around the same thing we are doing that hasn’t visited the garden and only looked at the website may have a different understanding that a class that may have gone to the actual garden. I think that a virtual tour of the garden would be a very viable thing to add to the website. 

All in all, the article and the visitable garden gives an individual a good amount of information about the past of the garden and Henry Shaw. There are also a few things that I think could be added to the website and brought up during the tours of the garden to help inform about the past of Henry Shaw.