Partner: American Alliance of Museums
In fall 2013, 18 Minnesota teens partnered with 18 Palestinian teens in Jerusalem to study fashion, history and culture through a program called Design Diaries International. The girls researched textiles in the Minnesota Historical Society collections and the Palestinian Heritage Museum and worked with fashion designers to create garments, drawing on their research to express their unique identities. The girls shared what they learned through posts on Tumblr, a closed Facebook group, photo diaries, sketches and written reflections.
Asian carp pose a real and serious threat to Minnesota’s aquatic ecosystems. While there are a few instances of individual carp being found in Minnesota waters, including the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers, it is not presently believed that there are significant established populations in the state. In order to quickly and effectively respond to threats posed by Asian carp in the future, though, detailed information about the fish themselves is needed.
Crosby Farm Regional Park. Develop new east side entrance and parking area. Build new trail connections to Sam Morgan Regional Trail and other existing trails. Convert unused road bed to green space.
Minneapolis Chain of Lakes Regional Park, implement Brownie Lake Master Plan, develop a 1-mile trail and update lighting, vegetation, and drainage. Upgrade fishing facility, archery area.
At Bald Eagle-Otter Tail Lakes Regional Park, develop a volunteer corps of nature play leaders, gardeners and naturalists to support nature programming.
A professional preservation specialist was retained to develop a needs assessment, an action item list and a timeline for a complete disaster plan pertaining to the storage and gallery spaces that the SLCHS is responsible for in Duluth's St. Louis County Heritage and Arts Center.
In FYs14 and 15, MNHS completed production of the Dred Scott Curriculum Kit and development of the Lumberjack Math Curriculum Kit.
* The Dred Scott curriculum kit uses videos and primary source activities that tell the story of slavery in Minnesota in the 19th century. The kit was produced at the end of FY14 and is currently being marketed to middle- and high-school teachers across the state.
* The Lumberjack Math Curriculum Kit uses math and primary sources to teaching about the logging industry in late-19th century Minnesota. The kit is will be produced in summer 2015.
Partner Organizations: Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame, Minnesota Air National Guard Historical Foundation, Minnesota Aviation History and Education Center, and Northwest Airlines History Centre
AirSpace Minnesota (a coalition of independent aviation and aerospace organizations) worked to develop a formal partnership among organizations with similar missions to engage in long-range, strategic planning for coordinating future projects.
Increasingly, people are turning to digital resources for answers to questions or as a starting point for research. MNopedia is a new digital resource for the public from the Minnesota Historical Society.
Working with the Minnesota Newspaper Association, local historical societies and newspaper publishers, the Minnesota Historical Society launched an innovative project to expand the number of contemporary newspapers available in digital form.
In the pilot phase of the project, the Society developed a methodology for digitizing, preserving and indexing newspaper content. Those processes will be tested with six newspapers and optimized in 2011.
Through this funding, the Minnesota Historical Society is advancing the work of making collections information available online. The Society is photographing 3D objects in the collections and completing corresponding descriptions that will be published online, allowing web site visitors to access an increasing volume of historical information.
Partner Organizations: Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MNGeo), Minnesota Secretary of State, Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), Minnesota Association of County Surveyors (MACS), U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
Increasing the public's online access to the Minnesota Historical Society's permanent collection remains a top priority of the Collections Department. ACHF collections assistants continued to increase public access to the MNHS collection through the digitization of over 1,300 additional records published to our online database in FY14. In FY15, over 1,500 additional records were digitized and published to the database. These items focused primarily on American Indian material culture, World War I and recent acquisitions.
In FY14-15, the newspaper team continued work on the newspaper hub, increasing functionality and improving the web interface. The test version of the newspaper hub is available on workstations at the Gale Family Library and also on the web at www.mnhs.org/newspapers. MNHS negotiated with the Department of Education to add approximately 275,000 pages of the historic Minneapolis Tribune to the hub.
The Sauk River Watershed District (SRWD) is the drainage authority for Stearns and Pope Counties. The SRWD manages 12 public drainage systems totaling over 90 miles. The majority of the public systems provide drainage for agricultural land uses and were constructed in the early 1900s.
Partners: Minnesota Humanities Center for Indian Fellows; Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (CLUES) for Summer Technology Workshop
MNHS is working to serve Twin Cities area schools with increasingly diverse demographics. Staff members provide support services for students competing in National History Day in Minnesota and American Indian History Day. In addition, MNHS promotes and recruits diverse students for programs that engage participants in history. Two of these programs are the American Indian Museum Fellowship Program and the Summer History Immersion Program.
The commissioner shall develop a ten-year strategic state parks and trails plan considering traditional funding and the funding available under the Minnesota Constitution, article XI, section 15. The plan shall incorporate the 25-year framework developed by the University of Minnesota Center for Changing Landscapes. (HF 1231, Art 3, Sec 2)
This program provides critical assistance to MN DNR Parks and Trails Division Regional and District offices to assist with renewal and rehabilitation efforts prioritized locally by field staff. Projects include the following types: State Park Building and Facilities Emergency Repair and Maintenance, Paved Trail Maintenance and Asset Preservation, and State Park and State Forest Trail Renewal. This project is a newly reorganized budget area that consolidates these three smaller project areas reported on in previous years.
DNR completed nine stream habitat projects with this appropriation. Four fish passage projects opened up access to 180 miles of river and 13,521 acres of lake and wetland habitat. We enhanced habitat on 39 Aquatic Management Areas, totalling 1440 acres, through the efforts of four positions funded by this appropriation. It also funded two stream habitat positions that oversaw the completion of 23 DNR projects and over 50 partner-lead projects funded by various OHF sources.
Work resulting from this appropriation resulted in the acquisition, development, and inclusion of 2,095 acres into the state Wildlife Management Area (WMA) system, 74 acres into the the state Scientific and Natural Area system, and through easement acquisition added 387 acres to the state Native Prairie Bank.
The following table provides a short summary of the accomplishments under this appropriation. In total, the DNR enhanced and restored 283 sites for a total of 17,087 acres.
In the summer of 2011, conservation practices were installed in the upper reaches of Dobbins Creek to stabilize eroding stream banks. We contracted with the non-profit Minnesota Conservation Corps to assist with the labor. The crew worked efficiently, the weather cooperated perfectly, and the project came together exactly as planned. The banks of Dobbins Creek were armored with native cedar trees and anchored to the banks. Once the project was complete, we cut the side slopes back to reduce future erosion in the newly protected banks.
Fifteen Minnesota cartoonists were interviewed, recorded and the recordings transcribed for an oral history project conducted by the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Interviewees were selected to represent the history of cartooning in Minnesota from the 1940's to 2011.
Three radio theatre scripts were produced using the synthesized oral histories of Douglas County's elder residents. The oral histories had been gathered earlier as part of the Minnesota Historical Society's oral history project to preserve the stories of Minnnesota's Greatest Generation. The topics for the scripts were: the Great Depression, World War II and the post-war economic Boom. Each script was vetted by knowledgeable content experts and the information presented is historically accurate.
This project replaced bridge #4 on the Douglas State Trail. A grant from the Federal Recreation Trail Program contributed funding towards this project, and leveraged the Legacy funding.
The Otter Tail River serves as the main drinking water supply for the city of Fergus Falls. The community recognizes it as a valuable resource which needs to be protected. The lower reach of the Otter Tail River is listed as being impaired for turbidity(muddiness).
The Drinking Water Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC) program identifies environmental contaminants for which current health-based standards currently do not exist or need to be updated, investigate the potential for human exposure to these chemicals, and develop guidance values for drinking water. Contaminants evaluated by CEC staff include contaminants that have been released or detected in Minnesota waters (surface water and groundwater) or that have the potential to migrate to or be detected in Minnesota waters.
This project will quantify and qualify the effectiveness of herbicide treatments and native plant re-establishment at Duck Lake through systematic vegetative surveys pre and post herbicide application and following mid-summer die-off of curly-leaf pondweed. The data and analysis will ultimately be used in the development of TMDLs, implementation and protection strategies for other lakes in the Middle Minnesota Major Watershed.
