All Projects

The Minnesota Historical Society created communication strategies and promotional materials for many of the ACHF-funded programs to increase public awareness and ensure that citizens, educators and students would use and benefit from the new programs.

Minnesota Historical Society staff created and implemented communication strategies for FY12 and FY13 Legacyfunded history projects and programs, including the "Then Now Wow" exhibit, designed with schoolchildren in mind. Increasing public awareness of these investments ensures that students, teachers and the general public use and benefit from them, giving greater understanding of Minnesota's history and legacy for the future.

Per Minnesota Laws, 2011, 1st Special Session, Chapter 6, Article 4, Section 2, Subdivision 6, the Minnesota Department of Administration requested proposals to create, produce, acquire, or distribute radio programs that educate, enhance, or promote local, regional, or statewide items of artistic, cultural, or historic significance.

To hire qualified professionals to publish a book on the history of Minnesota's law requiring special education.

Realizing the need for increased technical capacity in the field offices, the Becker, East Otter Tail and West Otter Tail Soil and Water Conservation Districts have developed an agreement that will increase technical capacity while minimizing costs to each district. The first step was taken in this agreement through the recent hire of a shared engineer. Currently, minimal survey grade equipment is owned by the districts. This grant will be used to purchase an integrated survey system.

To conduct primary source research on the history of small watercraft in Minnesota.

We will quantify exposure to two contaminants for 12 Minnesota raptors. Polyfluoralkyl substances (PFAS) and methylmercury (Hg) are bioaccumulative toxicants that cause reproductive failure in birds.

We propose to quantify the amount, type, and source of microplastics in the water, sediment, and fishes of a range of Minnesota lakes in collaboration with MN DNR.

Partner Organizations: Council for Minnesota Archaeology, Minnesota Archaeological Society.

Radiocarbon dating is an important technique in modern archaeology since it provides objective information about the calendar age of archaeological objects and sites. Through this partnership, the Society's existing archaeological collections were mined for organic samples suitable for radiocarbon dating.

Ragamala Dance Company will develop a new, limited-series podcast entitled Subcontinuity: Voices from the South Asian-American Diaspora. Curated by Aparna and Ashwini Ramaswamy and developed with Public Radio Exchange (PRX), Subcontinuity will explore the significance of South Asian-Americans within the cultural landscape of Minnesota and the U.S. Subcontinuity will feature cross-disciplinary conversations between visionary South Asian-Americans doing vital work that speaks to the current moment.

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Rainfall runoff in urban areas contributes to localized flooding and washes contaminants and excess nutrients downstream affecting water quality. Systems to mitigate these problems can be challenging to implement in urban areas due to existing infrastructure and competing demands for land use. However, one option is to find alternative applications for the excess rainwater and use it replace the potable water that is currently being used for certain purposes. Researchers at the University of Minnesota are using this appropriation to evaluate alternative uses for captured rainwater.

The goal of this project is the development of a model of wild rice population dynamics, using RAMAS software, which mimics natural variability of population levels and calculates the probability of population extinction.

Increasingly many youth are disconnected from the outdoors and the natural world and many of these same youth, nearly 50% in Minnesota, are also not proficient in science. Yet such experiences and knowledge are necessary components for this next generation to understand and participate in solving the complex environmental challenges facing our world.

The Minnesota Historical Society manages 26 historic sites and museums across Minnesota. Recognizing an opportunity to work more collaboratively with organizations where historic sites are located, the Society developed programs to expand history education and programming and elevate the level of professionalism in local history organizations.

This funding enabled site staff across the state to host workshops to train history professionals and work with local historical agencies to assess and update collections.

The Minnesota Historical Society manages 26 historic sites and museums across Minnesota. Recognizing an opportunity to work with organizations where historic sites are located, the Society is collaborating with local historical organizations around the state to assess and improve their service to the public.

This project will collect real-time parameter data for specific conductance, water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and stream flow at the United States geological Survey (USGS) gaging stations located at Fargo, ND and Grand Forks, ND on the Red River of the North; and publish the data both on the USGS NWIS website and in the USGS Annual Report.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

We will characterize environmental drivers contributing to the decline of wild rice using lake sediment cores to reconstruct historical wild rice abundance in relation to lake and watershed stressors.

This project will provide land and water managers in the Red River Basin with data and online tools to prioritize actions on the landscape that achieve water quality objectives identified in local and state plans. This will help identify strategically important locations for implementing erosion control and water management practices. Standardized watershed-based data products will be integrated into a web-based planning tool which will be added to the Red River Basin Decision Information Network (RRBDIN) being developed as part of the Red River Watershed Feasibility Study.

This project is for Minnesota Legislative Clean Water Fund funding to engage citizens in local watershed monitoring, to work with regional partners to promote understanding and protection of watersheds, and to organize and facilitate gathering of scientific data all for the benefit of water quality in the Red River Basin.

This project is for Minnesota Legislative Clean Water Fund funding to engage citizens in local watershed monitoring, to work with regional partners to promote understanding and protection of watersheds, and to organize and facilitate gathering of scientific data all for the benefit of water quality in the Red River Basin.

The International Water Institute (IWI) will monitor 42 sites (3 basin, 12 major watershed, and 27 subwatershed) in the Red River and Upper Mississippi River Basins intensively during the contract period. There will also be 5 sites in the Red River Basin where mercury samples will be collected and sent to Minnesota Department of Health for analysis. The IWI will collect water samples across the range of flow conditions targeting sample collection at times of moderate to high flow.

This project will develop an effective transferable model to engage and educate watershed residents, stakeholders and others to better understand and protect watershed ecostystems through environmental monitoring, training, and formal and informal education programs in their local watershed. The project will build on the foundation of the existing Red River Basin River Watch program by strengthening three main activity areas: 1) curriculum integration and teacher training, 2) youth leadership and civic engagement, and 3) applied research collaboration and watershed science skills building.

International Water Institute (IWI) staff will monitor 24 sites in the Bois de Sioux, Mustinka (2 sites), Buffalo (8 sites), Red Lake (4 sites), Sandhill (3 sites), Thief (2 sites), and Tamarac River (3 sites) Watersheds intensively over a 2 year period in an attempt to collect 25 samples per year at each site. If conditions allow for the collection of all planned samples, 1200 stream samples will be collected over the time period. Monitoring will include field measurements, observations, and at least three photographs during each site visit.

MN Legislative Clean Water Fund funding to engage citizens in local watershed monitoring, work with regional partners to promote understanding and protection of watersheds, and organize and facilitate gathering of scientific data all for the benefit of water quality in the Red River Basin.

The purpose of this project is to improve understanding of primary productivity in the Red River and the diversity and population structure of the algal communities occurring along the river system. This will be accomplished through taxonomic identification of periphyton and phytoplankton assemblages necessary for characterizing responses to nutrient gradients along the Red River of the North.