University of Minnesota Extension, Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Education has a mission of promoting youth to engage in the full process of authentic scientific research. The UMN Extension team created curriculum in four areas and trains teachers to introduce citizen science in their classsroom, with the goals of helping springboard learners into scientific investigations of their own. 

As part of the phenology citizen science module, (the study of seasonal timing of biological activity of plants and animals,) our assignment was to create a short video for middle school and high school students and teachers that does the following:

• introduces youth to phenology and citizen science
• shows a scientist working in the field that uses citizen science data in her research
• showcases student observation skills
• documents students entering data on Nature’s Notebook website
• captures moments of unstructured joy while exploring the natural world

In creating this video, the data the scientists are collecting in the field are the same data the students are collecting, supporting the idea that we’re all scientists. As a producer, it was important for me to show that citizen science is approachable and that you learn as you go.  Dr. Rebecca Montgomery shared that the plants teach you what you need to know as they go through their seasonal changes. Our job as a citizen scientist phenologist is to show up, look closely, take notes following the protocol of Nature's Notebook/USA National Phenology Network and share our findings with the world.

What I’m most proud of with this video is how we captured the action of students learning. Since the public doesn’t normally have access to classroom activity, we felt privileged to tag along with the students as they conducted their research. Earth Science and Astronomy Teacher Kate Rosok is very skilled at guiding her students, encouraging them (and all of us) to take a closer look. 

​It’s rare to be invited into a public school classroom and bear witness to teachers teaching and learners learning. A few months ago, I had the privilege to be an ethnographer and hide behind my video camera as I observed Suzuki violin lessons in a kindergarten class at St. Paul City School.
 
As part of their Music for All outreach program, SPCM partners with public schools to bring music instruction and performance opportunities to people who would not otherwise have access to music lessons. It’s work that you can talk about and understand, but until you see it in action, it’s hard to comprehend how tremendous this outreach effort is, and how important it is for young musicians and their families. The focus and joy of these young musicians is extraordinary.

Musical Moments are a series of short videos I produce for the conservatory. Find them on SPCM YouTube Channel, and Face Book page.

Early detection is key to winning the battle against the invasive species oriental bittersweet. University of Minnesota Extension and Minnesota Department of Agriculture teamed up to see if drones can be a valuable tool.

Read the drone research story in RiverTown.net

Watch our award-winning video and become empowered to identify and manage oriental bittersweet.

Shot with my cell phone this morning, I'm marking spring with a series of short slice-of-life videos.

Hiking through the woods is one of my favorite things.. Another is to create short videos.  I decided to combine the two on a recent outing to one our favorite St. Paul places, Crosby Farm Park. I brought our dog Ginger because she shares my enthusiasm for hiking and because she always finds something interesting along the trail.

INVESTIGATIVE QUESTION
How can we use video as a tool to document our outdoor experience and deepen our engagement with the natural world?

A producer looking for an excuse to get outside and shoot, I grabbed the video camera on a beautiful fall day, determined to find out.

OBSERVATIONS 
Creating a video of my walk with Ginger intensified my outdoor experience. 

1. Creating the video slowed down the walk. Because I was shooting a story, I took my time to capture footage of things I found interesting along the way. 
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2. In shooting video, I looked for relationships and patterns. I consciously set up sequences of shots to show the way things are connected.  For example, featuring two varieties of maple leaves back to back. Showing a muskrat house compared to a beaver lodge in the same lake. A tree stump chiseled by a beaver, another one with a dragonfly in the sun.​

3. The process of video creation lead me to double-check my facts. I looked up red maple to confirm it's identity, checked resources to learn the dragonfly was a ruby meadowlark.

4. With a video audience in mind, I looked for fun. I found myself creating the video with young viewers in mind. I wanted to create something that would make kids laugh. The narrative quality of the piano music I selected is meant to set a light tone.

WHAT DID I LEARN?

• It’s hard to control a curious dog and shoot video at the same time.
• If you think you can shoot video while releasing a snake in the wild while you hold it, you need to put the snake in your pocket while you set up the shot, otherwise it will leap from your hand and escape undocumented.
• Shoot way more than you think you need.
• Be willing to leave shots you like on the cutting room floor.
• It's OK to let the cut feel a little raw.
• It's valuable to set a deadline for yourself.

CONCLUSION
Because I had a positive experience with this exercise, I think it would be fun to collaborate with nature centers to arm youth with digital tools and guide them through the process of creating short videos about their outdoor adventures. I believe that the act of creating and sharing short videos strengthens our engagement with the natural world and with each other.

In July I had the privilege to be embedded with summer campers and their counselors at University of Minnesota Mississippi River Water Journey Camp.

The assignment: capture highlights of two weeks of camp spent tracing the journey of water to and from the Mississippi River. 

We traversed the Twin Cities and met professionals that shared their knowledge about our water in St. Paul. Water from the sky, and drinking water from the tap.

An innovative environmental education camp, the children were handed digital cameras to document their experience and the photos became part of an exhibit they shared with their parents and the general public at the end of the week. The children’s photos are extraordinary. Equally extraordinary was my experience with them.

Project credits
Principal Investigator: Beth Mercer-Taylor, Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota

Lead Researcher & Concept Design: Jonee Kulman Brigham, Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota, Creator, Earth Systems Journey Model

Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund​

As my mother hands over the keys to the new owner of her lake house, my childhood home, I feel a rush of emotion, a desire to share with her a treasure map highlighting stories of this beloved place.

​I want to warn her about the poison ivy over by the birch tree. Tell her the west basement door sticks when it’s humid, that I feel the tiger lilies to the east have been grandfathered into the property, as they were there before we moved in, over forty years ago.
 
I look out from shore and reminisce about the time we had a big party on the lakeside patio and the dock fell off it’s footings while the United Methodist minister and youth group stood on it, slowly sinking into the water while calmly eating home churned ice cream.
 
The time my dad had a stringer of fish in the lake attached to his boat and I grabbed them, pretending they were dogs on a leash while I took them for a walk on the dock.

The hours I spent watching my dad skillfully clean fish while swatting mosquitoes on the east side of the house. The sunfish and crappies I scaled, working by his side, trying to keep up with his fast paced fish cleaning assembly line. The hundreds of fish my mother cooked and her creative recipes she concocted to introduce a new way for us to experience fish for dinner.
 


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The bushels of rhubarb, asparagus, carrots, radishes, green beans, corn, swiss chard, peas, lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, onions, squash, pumpkins, raspberries, grapes and everything else under the sun my parents grew for decades in the garden. 

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Living here brought a privilege of seeing both the sunrise and sunset reflected in the lake.  From my bedroom window, I saw fish swimming in the lake, loons, muskrats, ducks, beavers, hundreds of birds and the Milky Way.
 



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Will my mother show the new owner where the wildflowers bloom in the spring?  Encourage her to continue her diligence in feeding the hummingbirds nectar and the orioles jelly? Highlight to her the bounty of the grape vines my father planted in the garden?
 
No. We’ll probably keep it to ourselves, knowing the new owner is now the steward of this land. She will discover the wonders and grow to love this place on her own. Just like we did.
 
I say a tearful goodbye to my childhood home, knowing I’ll carry my treasure map of stories with me forever. 

In honor of National Night Out, my in-laws invited us to their community potluck at Inver Glen Senior Apartments last night.  We were introduced to their friends at dinner, a couple from South Saint Paul.

Making conversation, I asked our dinner companions if they were history buffs. “Do you know much about the Civil War?” I asked, hoping to find kindred spirits. (I’ve been reading books about the Civil War this summer and am eager to find like-minded friends.)

Myrna, age ninety, jumped into the conversation with both feet.  She said, “I don’t know that much about the Civil War, but when I was two I traveled by train from Saint Paul to Charmain, Pennsylvania to meet my great grandmother. Charmain is near Gettysburg and my great grandmother told me she heard the cannons of the Battle of Gettysburg as a child.”

Wow. That blows my mind! In 1927, my new friend Myrna had a conversation with her great grandmother about hearing the cannons of Pickett’s charge on July 3, 1863. 

We talked about how that story makes the war feel like recent history. I would love to know the rest of the story about how her family was affected by the Civil War.  So many questions to ask!

My ancestor, 1st Sergeant of the Co. I, 37th Wisconsin, Charles P. Brown served in the war and died of disease in 1864, stationed in Virginia during the final months of the war. Aformer teacher that grew up in upstate New York, Charles was a well-spoken man. He wrote letters to his wife Francelia who stayed behind in Bay City, Wisc. during the war.  She saved the letters and passed them on to her daughter Carrie, who passed them onto her daughter, my grandmother Francelia. 

We treasure those letters and as I read his words, I feel connected to my family of long ago. Charles chides his young children for their poor penmanship, asking his daughter, my young great grandmother Carrie, to, “...do better in the future and keep her paper clean.”  He cheers his wife on from the war, telling her to, “Be wise as a serpent but harmless as a dove…be thankful for every little favor: for this is a very selfish world.”

Charles' letters offer hints of the cruelty he witnessed and the challenges his wife and four young children faced in his absence… a history I know we share with many other families from both the Union and Confederacy. One letter asks his wife to, “Pray for the Soldiers of the Union.” From where I sit now, four generations later, I hope they prayed for the Confederacy soldiers too, with that harmless dove in mind.

How do you capture the essence of a music school in a video? The faculty, students, hard work and flow of notes? In the case of theSaint Paul Conservatory of Music (SPCM), the essence of the school is interconnected with the historic building they call home.

For nine years I’ve been privileged to be part of the Saint Paul Conservatory of Music family. When Executive Artistic Director Cléa Galhano approached me to create a video to raise awareness about the outreach the school does in the community, I jumped at the chance.  Together we crafted a piece that serves to entertain, inform and hint at what’s so special about the school.

POIGNANT VOICE OF A STUDENT
When possible, I like to use the voices of youth in my work. SPCM violin student Beth Fyxell wrote a short essay about her experience with the school that was published in The Saint Paul Almanac. For the open of the video, we adapted her prose for the screen, recorded her voice and shot a sequence to capture her affection for the building.  “…the door creaks closed and you get a sense of loneliness, missing the comfort of the building,” she says. 

The comfort of a building. I believe we've all experienced that feeling in our lives, but probably never put it into words like that. Thank you Beth, we identify.  Especially those of us who have squeezed into that tiny elevator with mirrors on the walls...