This program is designed to attract new audiences to Minnesota State Parks. Primarily young families and young adults that often look beyond state parks for their means of recreation, along with youth looking for an “extreme” or “adventure” experience. Programs will offer participants the opportunity to experience rock climbing, outdoors on real rock. This program targets the state’s climbing parks (Blue Mounds, Interstate and Tettegouche State Parks) by offering one “I Can Climb!” - rock climbing experience - every month from June to August at each of the climbing parks.
To hire qualified professionals to catalog hundreds of books in the Minnesota Genealogical Society's collections, to allow greater access to these resources.
The Center for Hmong Studies is seeking a $20,000 grant form the Hmong Cultural Grant program to acquire the Jason Schoonover Collection, to provide stipend for students to digitize and catalog the collection, and to organize a Hmong Textile exhibit to show the collection.
This project will characterize unregulated drinking water contaminants at wells and intakes (which pump from groundwater, lakes, rivers), and to examine if they persist after standard public water system treatment.
The Latino population in Minnesota has grown dramatically since 1980, both in the Twin Cities and in Greater Minnesota, in cities such as Worthington, Willmar, St. James, Moorhead, Melrose, Long Prairie and Albert Lea. This project involves interviewing Chicano-Latino elders and community leaders from approximately a dozen Latino population centers in the state.
This project will create a new chloride source assessment model and generate the best management practice (BMP) information and needed water softening data for the Smart Salting Assessment tool, which will allow Minnesota communities to fully evaluate their specific sources and magnitude of chloride and develop a community specific chloride reduction plan.
Fortin Consulting will develop a strategy to identify, prioritize, educate, and provide assistance to appropriate local businesses or industries within three communities experiencing elevated chloride in surface waters or in wastewater discharge to upgrade, optimize, or replace their existing water softening systems to a system that will decrease salt use and reduce chloride pollution entering local water resources.
This project will result in the development of tools and resources to develop community specific chloride reduction/minimization plans and a better understanding of the sources (and relative contributions) of chloride at a community-scale level or geographic area.
This study will test groundwater and drain tile waters at concentrated animal feedlot opperations (CAFOs) to evaluate the presence of intibiotics and hormones. Samples will be collected from monitoring wells, tile drain sumps, and tile line discharges.
Water samples will be sent to Axys Analytical Services as they are colleced from each monitoring site. A total of 18 samples will be generated in the field by pumping ultrapure water through the sampling system.
The Minnesota Historical Society is administering grants to organizations to support civics education programs for Minnesota's youth. Civics education provides students with an understanding of the democratic foundation of our national, state, and local government and constitutional principles. Programs run by Kids Voting St. Paul, the Learning Law and Democracy Foundation, and the YMCA has been funded with this money.
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the Minnesota Historical Society is creating a broad range of opportunities to help students, teachers and the general public learn more about the war and the role Minnesota played. Initiatives include:
The Minnesota Historical Society developed a communications strategy to raise awareness of the significance of Minnesota's role in the Civil War and also the Society's educational initiatives, exhibits and programs related to the war to ensure that students, teachers and the general public would use and benefit from these initiatives.
MNHS is developing an online database to identify the burial sites of Minnesota's Civil War veterans. When complete, this database will be available to the general public and serve as an aid to descendants, authors, educators and researchers.
In FY16, MNHS began to create a website for teachers to access educational materials and content related to the Civil War. Research was completed and Civil War-related materials were gathered for the website, including 120 primary sources with background information, Minnesota History magazine articles, videos and programs. Teacher testing will inform design and content modifications in advance of a spring 2017 launch.
As the Minnesota State Capitol reopens after several years of restoration work, MNHS plans to offer new programs exploring the Civil War at the Capitol. During this project, an introductory video will be created for school programs and public theme tours that provide background information about Minnesota's involvement in the Civil War and how that influenced the placement of artifacts, art and memorials in the Capitol.
The mission of the Minnesota Civil War Commemoration Task Force is to promote and share the rich history of the American Civil War and Minnesota's connection to it. With support from the Legacy Amendment's Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, the task force oversees the development of statewide, balanced activities commemorating the Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War and Minnesota's involvement in it and the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.
The Historic Recognition Grant program will preserve, recognize, and promote the historic legacy of Minnesota, with a focus on commemoration of Minnesota's role in the American Civil War via a grave registration database to identify all known Minnesota Civil War soldiers buried in Minnesota and those Minnesotans buried outside the state is the first of three projects being administered by MNHS in cooperation with the state's Civil War Commemoration Task Force are in development
Minnesota ranks #2 in hog production and #1 in sugar beet production in the U.S., generating about 11 million tons of pig manure and over one million tons of sugar processing wastes annually. Presently there are not cost-effective methods available to deal with these waste streams other than land application, which usually results in nutrient runoff into ground and surface water resources.
This project is to assist the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in developing a robust inter-agency communications action plan and strategy for the Clean Water Fund. The goal of the project is to provide specific recommendations of how to best communicate to key stakeholders and the general public about statewide outcomes and outputs of clean water projects funded by dedicated sales tax revenue.
The goals of the program are to evaluate the effectiveness of agricultural conservation practices, identify underlying processes that affect water quality, and develop technologies to target critical areas of the landscape. Funded projects provide current and accurate scientific data on the environmental impacts of agricultural practices and help to develop or revise agricultural practices that reduce environmental impacts while maintaining farm profitability.
