This project will evaluate the effectiveness of two methods to remove exotic hybrid cattail to restore fish and wildlife habitat in Minnesota wetlands.
The project will evaluate the effectiveness and benefits/impacts of locally sourced woodchip, corncob, and iron-bearing minerals as alternative effective abrasive materials to lower salt use for protecting Minnesotas water resources.
Continue and expand a River Watch program on the Minnesota River engaging teams of high school students in water quality monitoring and reporting the data to the MNPCA
This project will focus on creating a much more robust reuse economy throughout the State resulting in reduced solid waste, less pollution, more jobs, and small business development.
This project will: expand strategies of the 2015 LCCMR grant; establish deconstruction and building material reuse as a practice statewide; document the environmental, health, and economic benefits of material reuse.
Camp Sunrise is an integrated environmental education program for economically disadvantaged youth. This innovative camp experience allows children a hands-on program to understand their impact on the environment and nature.
The average Minnesotan and even most natural resource managers are not skilled in plant identification, yet the ability to positively identify plants is crucial to a number of conservation activities, including identifying areas that need protection, recognizing new or existing invasive species, monitoring restoration projects, and delineating wetlands. The Minnesota Wildflowers project attempts to fill this need with a free web-based field guide ultimately aimed at providing profiles for each of the over 2,100 vascular plant species in Minnesota.
We will implement an economically-viable, farm-based strategy to protect water quality across more than 100,000 acres of vulnerable wellhead protection regions using cover crops in corn-soybean rotation.
Elms were once a very widespread tree in Minnesota and amongst the most common and popular in urban landscapes due to their size, shading capability, and tolerance of pollution and other stresses. Over the past five decades, though, Dutch elm disease, an exotic and invasive pathogen, has killed millions of elms throughout the state. However, scientists at the University of Minnesota have observed that some elms have survived the disease and appear to have special characteristics that make them resistant to Dutch elm disease.
The number of people from other cultures and languages is increasing in Minnesota. It is important that they learn the behaviors that will help Minnesota preserve and enhance its natural resources. Yet, communicating and effectively interacting with people across cultures to change behaviors on natural resources, conservation, pollution prevention and stewardship is challenging. Most environmental information is designed for reaching native English readers. Translating and printing information often does not reach the intended audiences, who are often part of an oral culture.
This project will equip out-of-school youth organizations across Minnesota with knowledge, skills and resources to incorporate outdoor nature activities into after-school programs and engage under-privileged children with the outdoors.
The project proposes a .48 mile trail along the Otter Tail River in downtown Fergus Falls as well as a 125 ft. long bicycle and pedestrian bridge crossing the river.
Project Outcome and Results
Minnesota Schools Cutting Carbon (MnSCC) is a three-year project that engaged over 7,000 students in 100 public high schools, colleges and universities across Minnesota to save energy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at their schools.
Provide approximately 25 matching grants for local parks, acquisition of locally significant natural areas and trails to connect people safety to desirable community locations and regional or state facilities.
Provide approximately 25 matching grants for local parks, acquisition of locally significant natural areas and trails to connect people safety to desirable community locations and regional or state facilities.
The Soudan Iron Mine near Ely, Minnesota is no longer an active mine and is now part of a state park, as well as the home to a state-of-the-art physics laboratory at the bottom of the mine. The mine has also been discovered to contain an extreme environment in the form of an ancient and very salty brine bubbling up from a half-mile below the Earth’s surface through holes drilled when the mine was active. Strange microorganisms – part of an ecosystem never before characterized by science – have been found living in the brine.
Overall Project Outcome and Results
The objective of this project was to accelerate Ducks Unlimited (DU) bio-engineering assistance to help agencies design and construct enhancement projects on shallow lakes for waterfowl using water control structures. DU biologists and engineers provided technical assistance to Minnesota DNR, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and private landowners around shallow lakes with a goal of:
