Environmental Education

A sailboat with a red sail floats on the Mississippi River under an overcast sky. In the distance, faint outlines of buildings are visible on the shoreline. Image courtesy of Thomas Turnbull. Alt text generated by Perplexity AI.

FeatureApril 4, 2025

Fluvial Networks of Creative Resistance

By Joseph Underhill The ship is the heterotopia par excellence. In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and…

Blue painter's tape is arranged on a polished concrete floor to depict a simplified map of the Mississippi River system. The design features branching lines representing tributaries and the river network, with a white column intersecting part of the layout. Alt text generated in part by Perplexity AI.

GeographiesApril 4, 2025

Big River Drawings: In Support of Learning, Welcoming, and Community Engagement

By Aron Chang A common directive in community engagement is to “meet people where they are.” One way to do that is to locate…

Art Community Engagement Engagement Environmental Education Mississippi River Basin Toolkit

A person wearing a blue life jacket and winter clothing paddles a canoe on the Mississippi River near the Flint Hills oil refinery at Pine Bend. The refinery's industrial structures, including smokestacks and storage tanks, dominate the background under a cloudy sky. The canoe holds supplies, including a blue container and a red dry bag. Image courtesy of Michelle Garvey. Alt text generated by Perplexity AI.

Teaching and PracticeApril 4, 2025

Mississippi as Method

By Michelle Garvey Praxis of Place When I think about the kinds of praxis—the application of theory—that enable liberatory movements, I remember bell hooks….

Education Engagement Environmental Education Environmental Justice Experiential Education Mississippi River Basin Toolkit

A group of people from the Augsburg University community gathers outdoors near a blue solar shed during a dedication ceremony. The shed, equipped with solar panels on its roof, is surrounded by tables holding cooking equipment, including a propane tank and portable stove. Attendees are standing on grass near the I-94 freeway wall, with parked cars and autumn trees visible in the background. A tall building rises in the distance under a cloudy sky. Alt text generated by Perplexity AI.

Teaching and PracticeApril 4, 2025

Building a Small, Solar-Powered Work Shed

By Joseph Underhill What does resistance to the current set of unsustainable, unjust, and unhealthy practices look like? In the face of large-scale, daunting…

Education Environmental Education Minnesota Toolkit

Image shows Big Stone Lake in the background, behind an unmown grassy hill, under a blue sky with cumulus clouds.

Feature (Peer Review)October 29, 2024

Big Stone Lake Stories: Crossing Borders

By Jonee Kulman Brigham. Earth Systems Journey is foremost a form of participatory public art and secondly an environmental education curriculum model. Big Stone Lake Stories is one of over a dozen applications of the Earth Systems Journey model. Each application is adapted to the specific people, place, and program where it occurs, and with each iteration new insights emerge.

Artistic Expression Engagement Environmental Education Minnesota United States

Issue Contents

Introduction

Introduction to Issue 28 | Mississippi River Open School

By Laurie Moberg, Editor. In the current moment, I find myself struggling with seemingly endless uncertainties. Environmental, political, social, and personal conditions create a...

By Laurie Moberg, Editor

Introduction

Action Camps Everywhere: Solidarity Programs in the Anthropocene

By John Kim. The Mississippi River Open School for Kinship and Social Exchange (Open School) (2022–2025) has engaged pressing issues at the intersections of...

By John Kim

Feature (Peer Review)

Spirituality and Ecology: (Re)Membering Black Women’s Legacies

By Ebony Aya. I don’t have a green thumb, or at least one I have discovered yet. Keeping my indoor plants alive has been...

By Ebony Aya

Feature

Bioculture Now! The Paraná Talking with the Mississippi

By Brian Holmes For the best experience, read this article with a widescreen view here. From the 1930s onward, the Mississippi has been a...

By Brian Holmes

Feature

Imagining Life-as-Place: Harm Reduction for the Soft Anthropocene

By Sarah Lewison During the summer of 2023, at a conference of the Mississippi River Open School, an experimental learning group I belong to,...

By Sarah Lewison

Feature

Moving Spirits Through Water Together

By Stephanie Lindquist frozen On mornings when it is 17 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, it is hard to crawl out from my warm sheets....

By Stephanie Lindquist

Feature

Pokelore: How a Common Weed Leads Us to Kinship with Our Mid-River Landscape

By Lynn Peemoeller “A weed is a plant growing in a place where we don’t want it, and I have seldom seen a poke...

By Lynn Peemoeller

Feature

Fluvial Networks of Creative Resistance

By Joseph Underhill The ship is the heterotopia par excellence. In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and...

By Joseph Underhill

Geographies

Big River Drawings: In Support of Learning, Welcoming, and Community Engagement

By Aron Chang A common directive in community engagement is to “meet people where they are.” One way to do that is to locate...

By Aron Chang

In Review

Showing Up (for Each Other)

By Lynn Peemoeller Editor's note: This article was written in January 2024. Here in the Middle Mississippi River region, one thing we’ve managed to...

By Lynn Peemoeller

Perspectives

The (Non)Territoriality of the Mississippi River

By Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles The Mississippi River is one of the most defining features of Minnesota. It is a body of water that commands...

By Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles

Perspectives

Plein-Air Painting as Countervisual Performative Fieldwork

By Sarah Lewison We can open a portal to the stories of those whose lives have been subjugated by acts of economic control upon...

By Sarah Lewison

Primary Sources

Perceptual Ecologies of Sound and Vision at Mary Meachum Freedom Crossing

By Sam Pounders In the Midwest of North America, as in many places, settlements accumulate below confluences where the modern riparian condition unfolds as...

By Sam Pounders

Teaching and Practice

Mississippi as Method

By Michelle Garvey Praxis of Place When I think about the kinds of praxis—the application of theory—that enable liberatory movements, I remember bell hooks....

By Michelle Garvey

Teaching and Practice

Networking a Network

By Jen Liu and Monique Verdin Beginning in May 2023, we started building an emergency communication network to connect an existing network of mutual...

By Jen Liu and Monique Verdin

Teaching and Practice

Building a Small, Solar-Powered Work Shed

By Joseph Underhill What does resistance to the current set of unsustainable, unjust, and unhealthy practices look like? In the face of large-scale, daunting...

By Joseph Underhill

Teaching and Practice

How to Launch a River Semester: Creating Experimental Programs in Higher Education

By Joseph Underhill How do we create the wildly different kinds of programs needed to respond to the multiple, compounding crises of our day...

By Joseph Underhill

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