Station interns Ian Coffman and Madeline Damkot staffing a Nature Cart at the headwaters.
Station staff hosted tours and guided hikes, participated in shared programming with Itasca State Park, and engaged Minnesota State Fair visitors. Student interns, Madeline Damkot and Ian Coffman ran “Nature Carts” at the Mississippi Headwaters, sharing five facts in five minutes (affectionately called “5N5” by park naturalists) about Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories with park visitors. Our Nature of Science program featured eight researchers who communicated their science with curious park visitors.
Topics ranged from “All About Bats” with Dr. Erin Gillam from North Dakota State University to “Fight the Bite! Tick and Mosquito Diseases and Prevention” by Dr. Jordan Mandli from the Minnesota Department of Health.
In August, we hosted our first open mic night at the state park amphitheater. Authors from our “Writing the Wild” course and members of the public shared their prose and poetry, celebrating nature through their own work and favorite passages by other authors.
Our popular annual fall hike on Bear Paw Point, led by me and lead park naturalist Sandra Lichter, attracted 58 participants eager to explore fall colors on our trail, which is otherwise inaccessible to park visitors.
New this fall, we participated in the Manoominikewin (harvesting wild rice) demonstration for area school groups in partnership with the Nature Conservancy, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, and the state park. More than 430 elementary students spent the morning learning about harvesting and processing of wild rice, the Anishinaabe relationship with manoomin, and its role in freshwater ecosystems. Station Scientist Victoria Simons presented a module on how birds utilize wild rice.
These efforts were educational but just as important, they fostered community connections around our shared love of the natural world. - Emily Schilling, Itasca Biological Station and Laboratories Associate Director