The Children's Discovery Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota will increase access and deepen engagement with their effectively proven School Service Program. The museum will take down the economic barriers and increase enrollment. This grant will fund more educators and facilitators, curriculum development, scholarship aid, transportation assistance and art/teaching supplies.
Connecting students from Northeastern Minnesota, especially Ely and Cook County schools, to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness through grade-wide day trips and overnight wilderness experiences during the school year.
Fourteen permanent RIM Easements on 766 acres of high quality, riparian and forested habitat have been recorded and will provide lasting wildlife habitat. Attempts were made to acquire three tracts in fee title that would have relied on this funding. The owner of one tract rejected an offer of the certified appraised value. Acquisition attempts on the other two tracts were discontinued when it became apparent that the planned use of the land as DNR Wildlife Management Area would be incompatible with local government plans for future municipal growth.
The goal of this project is to conduct water quality monitoring at the ten lakes within the Todd County portions of the Mississippi River Brainerd and the one lake within the Todd County portion of the Mississippi River Sartell. Sampling will be done once per month between May 2016 and September 2016 and then again once per month May 2017 through September 2017.
This project will build off the success of the additional geographic information system (GIS) and water planning expertise the TSA8 added in 2016 to provide consistent mapping, water planning assistance and training to partners. This project will help soil and water conservation districts prepare for the 1W1P process before the planning starts. A unified protection methodology is essential for the 1W1P process to be successful. This project will include: unified GIS mapping and protection model for all nine counties respectively.
Turtle Island Skywatchers - Innovative Research and Data Visualization project works to protect Minnesota water, wildlife, and natural resources while empowering Indigenous youth as leaders and all citizens as researchers.
We will reconstruct historical lake conditions to identify factors linked to successful walleye fisheries and guide effective management in the face of warming temperatures, invasive species, and nutrient loading.
Minnesotans increasingly value native fishes. For example, >95% of bowfished species in MN are native, yet all are poorly understood. Foundational natural resource data is absolutely necessary for all stakeholders.
Our goals are to engage 100,000 underserved youth statewide in environmental education, engaging them in the conservation and preservation of Minnesota wilderness through the experiences in the outdoors.
This project will provide the monitoring of reaches where there are data gaps, incorporate new data and analyze relevant data, identify pollutant sources, hold a stakeholder meeting, and gather information towards the future development of a Draft Restoration (TMDL) and Protection Plan.
The main outcome of the project will be the development of a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) study that address total suspended solids/turbidity impairments of the Mississippi River (Swan River to Crow Wing River). Community outreach to communicate the results and strategies for restoration will also take place during this project.
The main outcome of the project will be development of a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) study that address total suspended solids/turbidity impairments of the Mississippi River (Swan River to Crow Wing River). Community outreach to communicate the results and strategies for restoration will also take place during this project.
The goal of phase 1 of this project is primarily to support organizational planning and coordination among project partners, forming and training a civic engagement team, creating a civic engagement strategic plan, holding two watershed kick off meetings and gathering and summarizing available water quality data. The completion of phase 1 will help provide significant momentum towards the completion of the future phases of the Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) process.
This project will support the monitoring of reaches where there are data gaps, incorporate new data and relevant data, continue identification of pollutant sources, complete load duration curves, coordinate and encourage participation in stakeholder meetings. The information gathered during Phase IIB will be utilized towards the development of a Draft Restoration (TMDL) and Protection Plan (Plan).
This project will extend the simulation period for the Hydrological Simulation Program - FORTRAN (HSPF) models for the Grand Rapids, Brainerd, Crow Wing, Redeye, Long Prairie, Sartell, Sauk, St. Cloud, and Crow watersheds, and review and comment on the calibration.
This project will extend, calibrate, and validate watershed models using the Hydrological Simulation Program - FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed model for the Mississippi Headwaters, Leech Lake, Pine, and South Fork Crow Watersheds.
The primary goal of this project is to examine the calibration and validation of recently extended Hydrological Simulation Program – FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed models for the Mississippi River-Headwaters, Mississippi River-Grand Rapids, Mississippi River-Brainerd, Mississippi River-Sartell, Mississippi River-St. Cloud, Leech Lake, Pine River, Crow Wing River, Long Prairie River, and Redeye River watersheds and revise the calibration.
The goal of this project is to calibrate, and validate three watershed models using the Hydrological Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) model. The contractor will produce HSPF watershed models that can be further developed to provide information to support conventional parameter TMDLs. The contractor will clearly demonstrate that the models generate predicted output timeseries for hydrology, sediment, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen which are consistent with available sets of observed data.
Crow Wing County is pursuing this grant to continue this proven community and landowner outreach campaign by developing new water planning tools and using print and social media strategies to effect a positive change in our watersheds. The County believes that landowners want to do the right thing and has the data to show that when doing the right thing can be presented in customer-focused, fact-driven, easy-to-understand format, they get engaged and conservation gets done!
Use mobile AI-assisted technologies to survey lake visitors. Assess perceptions of water quality and perceived threats. Combine survey data with water quality data and trend monitoring to inform lake management.
This project will collect data for 8 lakes and 4 stream sites in 2010 and 2011. The lakes included in this project have little or no data, or are lakes where citizens have asked for monitoring assistance.
Wolf survival and predation in summer are almost unknown but critical to deer, moose, and wolf, management. We'll study wolf predator-prey ecology, share charismatic natural history, and promote Voyageurs' region.
Minnesota Sea Grant seeks to create a science-policy fellowship program to train Minnesota's science-policy workforce and advance Minnesota's water resource policy, emulating Sea Grants successful federal-level fellowship program.
We propose robotics-based educational activities for middle-school youth on water quality in Minnesota. Youth will gain skills for measuring water quality and communicating results through group study and hands-on projects.
The Big Sandy Area Lakes Watershed Management Project has developed innovative projects to protect and improve water quality, wildlife, and the fishery resources in the Big Sandy Lake Watershed since 1991. Projects have focused on the main ecological problems and sources of nutrient loading to Big Sandy and other watershed lakes. A Clean Water Fund Grant provided funding for nine demonstration projects that continue this work. Projects planned for this area focus on controlling shoreline erosion and overland runoff that carries soil and nutrients to the lakes.
This Phase 5 continuation of the Wild Rice Shoreland Protection Program will utilize permanent conservation easements to protect 500 acres, translating to approximately 3 miles of wild rice shoreland habitat. Sites are selected through an integrative ranking process that considers development risk, surrounding land use, habitat value, and numerous other criteria. BWSR will utilize the RIM Easement process in partnership with 12 local SWCDs within the Northern Forest and Forest/Prairie Transition Sections during the appropriation term.
Twenty six easements protecting 1,173.3 were recorded which exceeded the original proposal by 173 acres (15%). 11.6 miles of shoreline were protected which exceeded the 8 acre goal by 30%. Total expenditure was $1,355,000 which was 17% lower than originally budgeted. No fee-title land acquisition opportunities on wild rice lakes that fit within DNR and other government agency land plans were available during this time period thus DU did not expend any of the $100,000 budgeted for fee-title acquisition. Instead the program focused on RIM easements.
This Phase III continuation of the Wild Rice Shoreland Protection project acquired 98 acres for Yaeger Lake Wildlife Management Area (total acquisition was 285 acres but a portion was funded with other LSOHC money, only the portion funded with this grant is reported here) and 14 RIM easements protecting 600 acres for a total of 698 acres of wild rice shoreland habitat in the Northern Forest Section. This exceeded this Phases overall goal by acres for RIM.
