City Buzz is the semi-annual newsletter of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Area Urban Long-Term Ecological Research Program (MSP LTER), produced to inform interested partners and community members of our work.
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From the Director
Happy Fall! A number of us have just returned from attending the LTER All-Scientists Meeting in Asilomar, CA. This gathering happens every three years and brings together students, postdocs, staff, faculty and other researchers from across the 28 sites that make up the national NSF-funded network of LTER sites. Sites range from open-ocean to coastal, desert to grassland to forest, arctic to Antarctic. MSP is one of only three urban sites in the network. For many of us, it was our first time attending a conference in person in a long while, and it was a great opportunity to connect with old friends, build new relationships, and explore possibilities for collaboration across sites, which all share a focus on studying human-environment interactions over the long term. MSP attendees led workshops on the effects of urbanization on evolution, knowledge co-production, and the role of legacies of past inputs of phosphorus in contributing to present-day water quality challenges. They presented work on the present-day consequences of past discriminatory housing policies for urban nature and shared our approaches to building relationships with community partners. As someone who has attended these meetings for decades now, it was exciting to hear all the discussion of knowledge co-production, environmental justice, and integration of traditional ecological knowledge and western science. We are all learning and growing together.
-Sarah Hobbie, Director and Lead Principal Investigator
Featured Stories
Connecting Students to Urban Science: Developing Curriculum for the Urban Long-Term Ecological Research Program
By Emily Dzieweczynski, Communications Associate at the Bell Museum
This summer, middle school teacher Lauren Reuss traded her classroom for the field, shadowing MSP LTER researchers to develop hands-on urban ecology lessons for students across the Twin Cities. Inspired by squirrel behavior research, she's designing a series of lessons focused on squirrel behavior and adaptation to the urban environment. Read this piece from the Bell Museum's Emily Dzieweczynski to discover how this Bell Museum collaboration is helping kids see science in the world right outside their door.
Nature, Race, and Real Estate in Minneapolis-St. Paul
By Rebecca Walker, PhD Student, and Hannah Ramer, Postdoctoral Researcher, Hubert H. Humphrey School for Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, and the MSP LTER Nature & Wealth Team
Graduate student Rebecca Walker and postdoctoral researcher Hannah Ramer share initial findings from the MSP LTER's "Coupling Between Urban Nature Investments and Wealth" Team's collaboration with the University of Minnesota's Mapping Prejudice Project. Emerging historical research shows that unequal access to urban green space was no accident, but the result of development policies that have continued to leave their mark on city planning in the Twin Cities.
About Us
Who: 30+ researchers, educators, and community organizers from the University of Minnesota, University of St. Thomas, US Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, and Water Bar
What: Long term research on ecological relationships between human and nature in cities
How: A six-year, $7.1 million, renewable grant from the Nation-al Science Foundation to establish a new site as part of the US LTER Network. The grant began in March 2021 and primarily supports postdocs, students, and staff in research, education, and engagement efforts.
Where: Seven-County Twin Cities Metropolitan Area in the State of Minnesota or Mni Sota Makoce in Dakota. What we now call the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area are the traditional, historical, and contemporary lands of the Dakota People.
To learn more, visit our website at mspurbanlter.umn.edu, or contact Sarah Hobbie, Director, [email protected].