Spring 2017 News

There’s been a lot of Earth Systems Journey Activity in Spring 2017!

The exhibit: “We Watch the Stream: Impressions from River Journey” by Jonee Kulman Brigham with River’s Edge Academy will be on display April 10, 2017 – August 15, 2017 at the MWMO Stormwater Park and Learning Center. The reception was Friday May 12 from 4-6pm with a presentation at 5pm. Please see the exhibit page for more details.

2017 Mississippi River Water Journey Camps were held June 12-23 at Institute on the Environment, at the University of Minnesota. The first camp explored the path of the “Water We Drink.” The second camp explored the “Story of Rain.” Check out the website to find the story of this year’s camps, and the camper’s photos highlighted in the GIS storymaps they created. There is also an exhibit about the camps summer 2017 from June 12 to August 16, 2017.

The camps from summer 2016 and associate GIS Story maps are being presented at the ESRI Education Summit in July 2017, which brings together educators engaging students with GIS to exchange ideas and best practices.

The Rain-Drain-Pollution-Solution brought the Earth Systems Journey model to a 6th grade classroom at Edgerton Elementary. Here, students explored the path of stormwater through their school grounds, created maps, and researched stormwater potential pollutants to share with the public online and at “WaterFest.” Learn more at the project website.

New and Pending Grants: A very exciting new exploration is underway with the Bell Museum. A Mini Grant called “A Systems Journey – Ecological Education and the Distributed Museum” from the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment was awarded this spring to the Bell Museum to work with Earth Systems Journey and a group of advisors to explore Earth Systems Journey programming at the new Bell Museum+Planetarium, set to open in 2018.  In addition, two more grants have been proposed and others are under development at the University of Minnesota that use the Earth Systems Journey model.

Summer will include exploration of energy, and materials/waste versions of Earth Systems Journey, continuation of grants and exhibits, conference presentations, and article writing.