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Figure 9. Mural of TEK featuring three Haida matriarchs of the land, air, and water. The mural is the work of Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya (findingsproject.com). Image courtesy of Wendy F. Todd.
Feature (Peer Review)

The Science in Indigenous Water Stories, Indigenous Women’s Connection to Water

Water is life. It is a familiar phrase, frequently spoken today. Even so, little thought goes into what this simple phrase means. We exist in water throughout our lives, dependent on it from conception, surrounded in water in our mother’s womb, until our last water vapor breath. Water is so common, we are so accustomed to our submergence in it that we fail to notice how vital it is and fail to recognize our dependence on it, taking for granted the water vapor-laden environment we exist in every moment of every day…

Wild rice growing in northern Minnesota. Image via Superior National Forest, (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
Perspectives

Data Science in Indian Country

At the end of July 2022, some 150 individuals from across the country gathered at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities for “Data Science in Indian Country,” the Fifth Geoscience Alliance Conference since 2010. Founded by Dr. Nievita Bueno Watts of  California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt), Prof. Anthony Berthelote of Salish Kootenai College, and Dr. Diana Dalbotten of the University of Minnesota’s St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, the Geoscience Alliance (GA) is a coalition of students, educators and staff, Indigenous community members, and others committed to broadening the participation of Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and people of Native Hawai’ian ancestry in the geosciences…

Daniela Daniele took this picture to show that her research interests began with the canal that flows behind her apartment. This semester she’s defending her master’s thesis on the historical ecology of the Miami River. Image courtesy of Daniela Daniele.
Feature

Reflections on Negotiating the Science-Society Relationship Together

By The Tropical Rivers Lab. At the Tropical Rivers Lab at Florida International University, rivers have convened us to think deeply about how to best understand them and apply that understanding towards their conservation and sustainable management. We explore different aspects of south Florida ecosystems, Amazonian riverscapes, and East African waters, with collaborations across the tropics. When we decide “how” to best understand rivers, it is not just about the scientific questions we ask, but also about where those questions come from, how we relate to them, and ultimately, how these questions mediate our role with society…

Jean Bonneville and Joanne Richardson at the Old River Control Auxiliary Structure in spring 1992. Image courtesy of John and Alta Fossum.
Primary Sources

Meeting the Atchafalaya

The Mississippi River flows mostly south from its most northern reaches in Minnesota through the heartland of the United States down to Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico, collecting and distributing commerce and culture with a multitude of tributaries and distributaries. The river itself is dynamic and changeable, flooding, avulsing, and remodeling its banks and channels continuously. Tentatively held in place with levees, dams, and floodways, this dynamic river is held somewhat in check, allowing towns and farms to reach right to the river’s edge, and providing some continuity and control for navigation of the famous river barges that carry a wealth of commodities up and down the river…

We Are Water MN exhibits are shown here in the Institute on the Environment space at the University of Minnesota.
Feature

We Are Water UMN

An unassuming email with the subject line “possible to talk about hosting a water-community exhibit in LES?” came through my inbox midday on February 27, 2018. Little did I know this email would change the way I looked at my work at the Institute on the Environment (IonE) and spark my drive for collaborations within and outside the University community in respect to absent narratives.

St. Anthony Falls Laboratory on the Minneapolis riverfront in 1942. The landmarks of Minneapolis are evident, as well as SAFL’s intimate relationship with the river. Courtesy of University of Minnesota Archives.
Geographies

Lab on the River – Snapshots of the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory

The St. Anthony Falls Laboratory (SAFL), which falls under the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota (UMN), is one of several historic buildings along the Minneapolis riverfront. Constructed in 1938 using funds from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), SAFL utilizes the 50-foot elevation drop over the St. Anthony Falls to bring water into the building for use in experiments and research of fluid dynamics…

Landscape view at Whitewater Park. Notice the fields on the hillside. Image courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.
Geographies

Fields: The Transformation and Healing of the Whitewater Valley

They say hindsight is 20/20. Farmers of the past didn’t have information about environmentally friendly agricultural techniques. The farming techniques used today to reduce erosion and other negative environmental effects were developed as we learned from agriculturally derived disasters. Situated in the Whitewater River Valley less than 10 miles from the confluence with the Mississippi River, Beaver, Minnesota was one such town that suffered…

View of Duluth on the shores of Lake Superior, showing the Aerial Lift Bridge and the Great Lakes Aquarium.
Feature

Eyes on Large Lakes

“A lake is a landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” So said H.D. Thoreau in Walden, conjuring an image of human eyes peering intently into Earth’s eyes, and learning something profound in the process. Indeed, who among us hasn’t gazed into one of these watery eyes of Earth, into a lake’s mysterious depths, and had their souls stirred, their curiosity piqued?…