Rollin' down the river
Interactive guide to help the curious learn and explore the Minnesota River
by Dan Boettcher
Issue date: 11/24/09
Section: Campus News
A team from Minnesota State's Water Resource Center is trying to create a one-stop online resource for questions and information related to the Minnesota River.
The proposed Web site, "Minnesota River Experts: An Educational Field Trip Online," will bring together scientists and information that previously had been divided between multiple sources.
Project organizers will interview around 25 experts who will each answer 15-20 questions. Topics will include erosion, water quality, improving fish populations, conservation practices and animals such as mussels who call the river home. The result will be a comprehensive journey that will allow users to have their questions answered via videotaped responses from experts in the field.
The project will assemble professionals into an inter-agency team comprised of several environmental organizations. Members will likely be drawn from agencies such as the Department of Natural Resources, the Pollution Control Agency and the Board of Water and Soil Resources.
"We'll have many different perspectives to try to help people to understand this very complicated, diverse basin," said Kimberly Musser, assistant director of the Water Resources Center.
The viewpoints will not only be those of the experts, but will also include citizens who have contributed to the project. For example, high schools students from the Minnesota New Country School in Henderson, the public school in Gaylord and the Dawson-Boyd schools donated their time and ideas for questions that will appear on the Web site. The combination of experts, students and citizens is designed to create a wide array of ideas for larger brainstorming sessions.
In addition to being online, the program will also be located at booths within the three participating schools, and at three other sites within the region including: the Treaty Site History Center in St. Peter, the Ney Nature Center near Henderson and the Regional River History Center in New Ulm.
The original idea for the project came to Scott Kudelka, communications coordinator for the Water Resources Center, in the fall of 2007 while he was on a mussel walk with a group led by an expert from the DNR named Mike Davis. He realized that there were a lot of professional and dedicated resource people whose message was not reaching the general public.
"I want to connect people to the resource and to the people that are trying to protect it," Kudelka said. "I think people are taking more of an active interest in the Minnesota River."
Another inspiration for the venture came from the creation of another project included in the Minnesota River Basin Data Center Web site (http://mrbdc.mnsu.edu). The project featured members of the Water Resource Center interviewing residents of the basin about their personal experiences with the river. The group allowed the citizens to tell their own unique stories dealing with specific or general landscape features of the valley. All that was left to do was to put it into a form that highlighted the descriptions, Kudelka explained.
The virtual field trip Web site will actually be added to the larger database in an effort to "enrich and update" the existing information. The site will use concise video clips of experts outside providing visual evidence, in addition to maps, aerial imagery, photographs and Google-Earth fly-throughs.
Much of the map and imagery work will be done by Richard Moore, a geographic information systems specialist with the Water Resources Center. The user will be able to view 360-degree panoramic images that hopefully provide a rich texture for the viewer to absorb.
"It helps people understand the Minnesota River and how it's formed and what it's doing, and I think that's a story I would like to hear told," Moore said.
The hope is that the interactive nature of the project will attract more attention from a culture that increasingly relies on the internet for information. This approach seems especially applicable to the younger student population.
Musser explained the center's intention of definitely including at least two students to assist on the project. Students with specialties such as geography or graphic design could be a valuable addition to the team.
The project has gained an approval recommendation from the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, which distributes income gained from the state lottery. The project must now pass the legislative session beginning in February. If all goes well the project should receive funding by August, with the site operating by the middle of 2011.
"This will be a great, interactive way that people can find out about these people and what they're doing," Kudelka said.
Daniel Boettcher is a Reporter staff writer
The proposed Web site, "Minnesota River Experts: An Educational Field Trip Online," will bring together scientists and information that previously had been divided between multiple sources.
Project organizers will interview around 25 experts who will each answer 15-20 questions. Topics will include erosion, water quality, improving fish populations, conservation practices and animals such as mussels who call the river home. The result will be a comprehensive journey that will allow users to have their questions answered via videotaped responses from experts in the field.
The project will assemble professionals into an inter-agency team comprised of several environmental organizations. Members will likely be drawn from agencies such as the Department of Natural Resources, the Pollution Control Agency and the Board of Water and Soil Resources.
"We'll have many different perspectives to try to help people to understand this very complicated, diverse basin," said Kimberly Musser, assistant director of the Water Resources Center.
The viewpoints will not only be those of the experts, but will also include citizens who have contributed to the project. For example, high schools students from the Minnesota New Country School in Henderson, the public school in Gaylord and the Dawson-Boyd schools donated their time and ideas for questions that will appear on the Web site. The combination of experts, students and citizens is designed to create a wide array of ideas for larger brainstorming sessions.
In addition to being online, the program will also be located at booths within the three participating schools, and at three other sites within the region including: the Treaty Site History Center in St. Peter, the Ney Nature Center near Henderson and the Regional River History Center in New Ulm.
The original idea for the project came to Scott Kudelka, communications coordinator for the Water Resources Center, in the fall of 2007 while he was on a mussel walk with a group led by an expert from the DNR named Mike Davis. He realized that there were a lot of professional and dedicated resource people whose message was not reaching the general public.
"I want to connect people to the resource and to the people that are trying to protect it," Kudelka said. "I think people are taking more of an active interest in the Minnesota River."
Another inspiration for the venture came from the creation of another project included in the Minnesota River Basin Data Center Web site (http://mrbdc.mnsu.edu). The project featured members of the Water Resource Center interviewing residents of the basin about their personal experiences with the river. The group allowed the citizens to tell their own unique stories dealing with specific or general landscape features of the valley. All that was left to do was to put it into a form that highlighted the descriptions, Kudelka explained.
The virtual field trip Web site will actually be added to the larger database in an effort to "enrich and update" the existing information. The site will use concise video clips of experts outside providing visual evidence, in addition to maps, aerial imagery, photographs and Google-Earth fly-throughs.
Much of the map and imagery work will be done by Richard Moore, a geographic information systems specialist with the Water Resources Center. The user will be able to view 360-degree panoramic images that hopefully provide a rich texture for the viewer to absorb.
"It helps people understand the Minnesota River and how it's formed and what it's doing, and I think that's a story I would like to hear told," Moore said.
The hope is that the interactive nature of the project will attract more attention from a culture that increasingly relies on the internet for information. This approach seems especially applicable to the younger student population.
Musser explained the center's intention of definitely including at least two students to assist on the project. Students with specialties such as geography or graphic design could be a valuable addition to the team.
The project has gained an approval recommendation from the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, which distributes income gained from the state lottery. The project must now pass the legislative session beginning in February. If all goes well the project should receive funding by August, with the site operating by the middle of 2011.
"This will be a great, interactive way that people can find out about these people and what they're doing," Kudelka said.
Daniel Boettcher is a Reporter staff writer
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