Here’s a note forwarded from a friend at the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway (I think the email originated with Dale Cox):
“If you haven’t seen the St. Croix Falls river gauge in the last few days, it’s worth a moment to look at. The rise was caused by rainfall from the low pressure system that passed to the north the middle of last week: some areas of the upper watershed in Minnesota and Wisconsin received in excess of 2-3″ of rainfall in a little over 24 hours.
The short, dramatic peak to almost 40,000 cfs on October 30 was caused by Xcel closing the “bear trap” at St. Croix Falls, resulting in the flashboards on top of the dam releasing (the first time this has ever happened in the fall as far as I can tell). The mean discharge for the day
is calculated at 30,700 cfs.
To put this in context, there are 39,752 daily records at this location since 1902. Of those, on only 177 dates has the mean river flow exceeded 30,000 cfs, and only 20 of those occurred after May 31. The river has never previously exceeded 30,000 cfs after July.”
“This June and July a team of young people, working on a project called Summer of Solutions, are teaming up with local neighborhood organizations in North Minneapolis to address food security and accessibility issues as a path to social and environmental justice. The gardens and farms will feed many people in the area later in the summer and help people, “look at land in a new way,” in the words of Annie Young, an Environmental Justice organizer with the Harrison Neighborhood Association (HNA).”
This is a concept that has long been stewing in my brain, whenever I see vacant lots, large grassy yards at churches, and even boulevards I imagine them planted with veggie gardens that anyone can harvest from. The initial idea seed was planted in my brian by an amazing neighbor of mine. Richard has been planting his boulevard with lettuce and cherry tomatoes for years with a cute sign saying “please pick.” I’m thrilled to see this idea becoming a more wide spread reality.
“The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these images of the Twin Cities region on March 17, 2010 (top), and August 5, 2009 (bottom). Both use a combination of infrared and visible light to increase the contrast between water and land. Vegetation appears bright green. Clouds appear sky blue. Water varies in color from electric blue to navy. Bare ground ranges in color from dark brown to tan.
Taken in different seasons—late winter and mid-summer—these images not only show different water levels in the Mississippi and other rivers, but also dramatically different amounts of vegetation. While much of the region is heavily vegetated in August 2009, river levels are low enough to make the water bodies nearly invisible. (Tree cover along the riverbanks may partly obscure the rivers.) In contrast, the image from March 2010 shows vegetation just beginning to emerge from winter’s chill. Differences in vegetation between August and March are especially visible in the west, in what appears to be a large patchwork of agricultural lands. Compared to the previous summer, the Mississippi and other rivers in the region appear swollen. Some of the electric-blue hues in water bodies away from the rivers might result from lingering ice. Springtime rains and snowmelt often conspire to raise water levels.”
I knew it would be good because it won a 2008 NAI Interpretive Media Award, but it far exceeded my expectations. I anticipated a curriculum guide much like the Project WET and WILD guides – which are great resources. However, the MinnAqua Guide builds on the template in a couple major ways.
First, each chapter contains an impressive quantity of local aquatic natural history, essentially eliminating the need to seek out other sources to build your knowledge or to tweak activities to be locally applicable. The guide is alone worth reading to simply increase your natural history knowledge.
Second, the guide also comes with a CD containing a plethora of seriously impressive images, especially of fish. No simple line drawings here, think detailed full-color images that look like the fish jumped out of the water onto your page.
The guide also includes hyper-detailed evaluations of how each lesson meets Minnesota’s Academic Standards and ready-to-use assessment quizzes and standards. To top it all off, the entire guide was reviewed by over 100 experts in various fields so you can feel ultra-confident about the accuracy of the content.
You can get a copy by attending or hosting a MinnAqua Educator Workshop. Contact Michelle Kelly for more info.
Springtime always peaks my interest in phenology. Recently, I went to a local book seller and inquired if they sold phenology journals, the women at the book store asked if I had looked in the New Age section. Right away I knew her mistake, “Not Phrenology,” I said, “Phenology.”
Here is a list of phenology resources from people and organizations who definitely wouldn’t make the same mistake.
Project BudBurst is “is a national field campaign for citizen scientists designed to engage the public in the collection of important climate change data based on the timing of leafing and flowering of trees and flowers. ”
One thing that was identified at both symposia is a need for translators to communicate between scientists and community.The values and methods of communicating with these two groups are very different, making direct communication nearly impossible.
The role of translator between scientist and community member is a role Environmental Educators have been playing for decades: making it real to the community how environmental science effects their everyday lives.
Perhaps Environmental Educators could translate their skills to other types of science – health, psychology, etc. Additionally, they may be able to help the communication flow from the community to scientists; pass on information about the community’s needs and therefore obtain their buy-in.
This strong connection to local communities with help scientists fulfill national grant standards and foster more relevant and valuable research.
If you haven’t recently (or ever) gone through the Project Wet, Wild, and Learning Tree training I highly recommend taking them again!
I had the opportunity to go through the training, for the third time, last week at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve (which is such a cool place it deserves a post of its own) and I was happily surprised at the upgrades and additions to the programs.
New (since about three years ago went I last attended a training) is a Early Childhood supplement for Project Wild, an awesome Project Wild Aquatic book, a phenomenal time-saving book with Minnesota versions of Project Wild activities, and a newly revised Project Learning Tree guide. They have also recently added a plethora of online components.
Also, as always, the opportunity to meet new people is priceless.
If you want to attend, check out the calendar and sign up! If you have a big group you can contact the Project coordinators and see if you can arrange a private training.
