To meet our community's call for creative, humanities-based programming for younger students, 826 MSP will offer Identity Exploration through Poetry Field Tripsfor primarily-BIPOC Twin Cities youth in grades 1-2. Students will work with mentor texts from BIPOC poets, write their own pieces, and leave as published poets. Each student will receive a bound anthology including all the poetry from their class and with prompts for extended writing and discussion in the classroom and at home.
Pollinators play a key role in ecosystem function and in agriculture, including thousands of native plants and more than one hundred U.S. crops that either need or benefit from pollinators. However, pollinators are in dramatic decline in Minnesota and throughout the country. The causes of the decline are not completely understood, but identified factors include loss of nesting sites, fewer flowers, increased disease, and increased pesticide use. Developing an aware, informed citizenry that understands this issue is one key to finding and implementing solutions to counteract these factors.
Continuing pollinator habitat creation and enhancement on 11 sites from Lakeville to St. Cloud, with public engagement and education centered on youth, schools, and community awareness of natural resource stewardship.
Though many parts of the Twin Cities metropolitan area are urbanized, there are also has large areas of natural lands that continue to serve as important habitat for fish, wildlife, and plant communities. However, pressure on these remaining lands continues to intensify as population and development pressures increase.
Telling Queer History was founded to bring the hidden and undertold stories of queer people to light and to connect our community by fostering compassion, empathy, and healing through curated storytelling gatherings. Since its founding 9 years ago, TQH has recorded these gatherings. In this project, we will transcribe, catalog, and make public this rich collection of stories to share with a wider audience, including those unable to attend past programs and researchers.
We propose to integrate Minnesota Wildflowers Information, an online tool for plant identification, with the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas, to preserve and extend this popular ENTRF-supported resource for future use.
Colors of the North: Preserving Hmong Minnesota Heritage and Paj Ntaub in a Holiday Coloring Book Project, will provide education for student outreach on cultural diversity and celebration that empower the younger generation in building identity and culture within this ever changing and assimilating world through our Hmong Holiday Coloring Project. Our project will bring a sense of belonging and foster wellness in Hmong children and families to appreciate who they are.
This project integrates traditional Hmong healing practices into modern lifestyles and empowers younger Hmong to embrace the wisdom of their ancestors for overall health and well-being.
This project will preserve and facilitate public access to the Northland Poster Collective (NPC). NPC was a print shop in Minneapolis which operated from 1979-2009. The artists who ran NPC created art to represent identities and interests of Latinx, Black, Asian American, LGBTQIA+, and working-class people in Minnesota.
Rondo Community Land Trust will formally weave the arts into cultural preservation. This project includes: 1) Populate a community archive by hosting scanning days for photos & objects. 2) Locate where historic murals were, who painted them, what stories they told & recreate aspects of them. 3) Map historical markers across historic Rondo, prioritizing Selby & engage artists to develop creative alternatives to standard plaques. From here, incorporate narration from community elders telling stories for a self-guided walking tour of Rondo.
This project helps Minnesota entities that directly or indirectly cause PFAS and microplastics contamination stop the flow of the contaminants by developing strategies to manage solid waste streams.
The 400-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from its headwaters at Lake Itasca to Morrison County near Little Falls is the focus of this project. Working in cooperation with the eight member counties, this project will develop implementation plans and strategies geared specifically for the Mississippi River and incorporate them into the individual County Comprehensive Local Water Plans. These recommendations will be for specific strategies, often crossing county boundaries for implementation.
