Letters from Small-Town Minnesota

Short Description:
In August 1934, Corinna Stafford traveled from her home in Atwater, Minnesota, to Floral Park, New York, to care for her aunt and uncle’s children. During the year Corinna was in New York, her mother Ruth Stafford wrote her two or three times a week, with details of daily life in the village of Atwater and Kandiyohi County. This book is a compilation of those letters. [Cover design by Andrea McKennan.]

Word Count: 91537

ISBN: 978-1-7335927-0-3

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Building on lessons learned over several summers, Kristin Raab—Health Impact Assessment and Climate Change Program Director in the Environmental Health Division of Minnesota’s Department of Health—packaged information from diverse communities into a cohesive toolkit that communities of all sizes can use to prepare for heat waves. The Minnesota Extreme Heat Toolkit describes changing weather conditions in Minnesota, the magnitude of potential health consequences from extreme heat, and key steps communities can take to prevent heat-related illnesses and deaths. The toolkit acknowledges that extreme heat response plans will vary with the size of the community and the habits of its residents: examples from the mostly rural Olmsted County and the urban centers of Saint Paul and Minneapolis illustrate a range of community plans that could be useful in Minnesota and beyond.

A history of Cooperating Libraries in Consortium, 1969-2019

Word Count: 31409

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Students use an inquiry approach to describe the major biomes of Minnesota before taking a look at adaptations that make organisms successful in their environments.

This activity is an on-line research activity in which students research different Minnesota lakes and determine their physical characteristics, chemical characteristics, and the overall health of the lake.

MN STEM Teacher Center resources developed to help teachers translate the Minnesota state standards into classroom practice and assist in student achievement of those standards.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Viruses might be small, but they drive ecological change across the planet. That includes helping lock otherwise harmful carbon away in soil. Unfortunately, little is known about soil viruses worldwide. A recent study extensively examined the viral microbiome of a Minnesotan peatland from the experimental site SPRUCE. Peatlands are the largest natural terrestrial reservoirs of carbon on earth and, as such, are a critical component of the carbon cycle. The makeup of viral communities in the SPRUCE peat varied with sample depth, water content, and carbon chemistry factors. Of the 4,326 distinct virus types identified from SPRUCE, only 164 had been previously detected in other soils and those matches were almost exclusively from other peatlands. Peatlands are a very wet, but otherwise terrestrial, ecosystem. However, none of the previously detected aquatic viruses matched SPRUCE viruses, which suggests a terrestrial and aquatic ‘species’ divide..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

In this lesson students will learn about Minnesota's natural resources, particularly iron ore.

features an area in the southwest corner of Minnesota that reflects a rich history of American Indian quarrying, prosperity brought by the railroad and mining enterprises, and a distinctive natural landscape. This National Register of Historic Places Travel itinerary highlights 30 historic places, including buildings constructed with beautiful local red stone and land still sacred to American Indians.

A Good Time for the Truth explores race and intersectionality in Minnesota. Published in 2016, it experienced a resurgence after the murder of George Floyd. The authors, all from Minnesota, write personal memoirs about how race in Minnesota has affected their lives. The book provides a lot of great material for freshman composition courses. Plus, it is, quite simply, a book that everyone must read.