English – Â鶹ĘÓƵ Wed, 21 Jan 2026 23:15:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 /wp-content/uploads/2019/04/cropped-favicon_logo-32x32.jpg English – Â鶹ĘÓƵ 32 32 Urban Agriculture Ethography Project /projects/urban-agriculture-ethography-project-3/ /projects/urban-agriculture-ethography-project-3/#respond Wed, 01 Nov 2023 03:37:46 +0000 https://portal.epicn.org/case-stories/urban-agriculture-ethography-project/ Read More... from Urban Agriculture Ethography Project

]]> The Mississippi Watershed Management Organization seeks to understand why and how residents within their watershed engage in urban agriculture, including motivations, barriers, and benefits, in order to more effectively engage other residents in urban agriculture. MWMO’s overarching goal is to improve water quality by reducing the volume and speed of stormwater runoff. Urban agricultural practices may reduce the volume and speed of stormwater runoff by changing compacted soils that cannot infilitrate water to healthier soils that can absorb stormwater.

Students will investigate engagement in urban agriculture through ethnographic research with residents of North Minneapolis. Based on this research, students will create narratives of residents’ stories of engagement with urban agriculture. In the process of writing these ethnographies, students will explore themes about motivations for and meanings of engaging in urban agriculture as well as barriers residents experience. This study will provide rich, qualitative data upon which a further study examining motivations to engage in urban agriculture can be developed and messages to encourage residents’ engagement in urban agriculture can be built.

]]> The Mississippi River Watershed Management Organization’s (MWMO) education and outreach program seeks to “provide information, services and products to promote responsible stewardship of water and natural resources by the watershed community.” As part of this goal, the MWMO seeks to promote community connections with and understanding of the Mississippi River system. The MWMO’s building serves as a learning center. In addition to permanent installations of stormwater best management practices and green infrastructure that promote water quality, the building has an exhibit space where they host art/writing installations about water and the river. Exhibits are created by local artists with the goal of fostering community connections with and understandings of the river and to engage the community in actions to promote river health.

English 121 students, in partnership with 6th grade students from College Prep Elementary, Saint Paul, will create an interactive exhibit (e.g., written pieces or other forms of artwork) that engage people around the concepts of river stories and sanctuary. College and elementary students will present their exhibit to family and friends at the MWMO to advance the MWMO’s goal of engaging people from diverse communities with the Mississippi River and fostering deeper understandings of and connections with the river.

]]> The Local Planning Assistance work unit at the Metropolitan Council provides technical assistance to communities that are currently drafting their 2040 Comprehensive Plan Updates as required by state statute. Many communities are considering integrating sustainability and resilience planning related to climate change in their Comprehensive Plan. The Metropolitan Council is interested in engaging cities in conversations about community views on climate change to better understand perspectives on climate change and also to inform the inclusion of climate resiliency in a city’s vision section of their Comprehensive Plan. Students will conduct climate conversations with a selected city and synthesize these conversations into themes that can be provided to the city to integrate into their vision section of their comprehensive plan. Students will also write about their experiences of these community conversations to offer a guide for the Metropolitan Council and cities who would like to engage in similar community conversations about climate change.

]]> The Freshwater Society’s (FWS) Master Water Stewards (MWS) program develops, certifies, and supports community volunteer leaders to manage stormwater at a neighborhood scale to improve water quality. FWS is wrapping up the third year of its MWS pilot partnership with the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District and is preparing to expand the MWS program to seven watershed districts and one city in the coming year, including the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization (MWMO). To support the expansion of the program, FWS would like to increase the public visibility of the program to recruit future MWS participants and to share stories of current MWS projects and activities. Students in Analytical and Persuasive writing will create different media to help achieve this goal, including live tweets of watershed tours and narratives of Master Water Stewards’ journeys from “0-10” in their understanding of watersheds.

]]> Students will apply critical thinking skills through research, interviews and writing to highlight sustainability initiatives past and present at the University of St. Thomas. Students will create posters of these initiatives, which will be on display in the library rotunda in celebration of Earth Day to promote more community awareness of sustainability efforts at St. Thomas.

]]> Students made parklands along the Iowa River the focus of questions that focus on Iowa City’s history, and concentrated on environmental justice concerns related to use and misuse of the river. The project resulted in a website with audio and visuals about this history that can be accessed from the parks for use in taking self-guided tours.

]]> Students in ENGL 203, in collaboration with SCP Artist-in-Residence Sarah Nelson, will connect human experiences and climate vulnerability data through story and art. Through library research, ethnographies, artist input, subject interviews, and information from the Metropolitan Council’s Climate Vulnerability Assessment, students will explore climate vulnerability in neighborhoods in the Twin Cities, selected from the localized flooding and heat interactive story maps. The Council may use the final illustrations to communicate to their stakeholders the significance and risks of local flooding and extreme heat in urban areas.

]]> Sustainable Communities Partnership

Website |

The Sustainable Communities Partnership (SCP) collaborates with cities and government agencies to integrate community-identified sustainability projects into St. Thomas courses across disciplines engaging students in real-world, applied research and innovative problem-solving. Our partnerships seek to catalyze systems-level change towards human and ecological well-being in the Twin Cities area while preparing students for the complexities of problem-solving in contemporary society.

Since SCP’s launch in Spring 2016, over 2,000 students from more than 100 courses across 26 disciplines have participated in over 150 local and regional sustainability projects.

Our focus is on multi-year partnerships with communities seeking to make systemic changes toward interconnected economic, social, and ecological sustainability. We partner with cities, watershed districts, regional government agencies, non-profits focused on city sustainability, and on-campus initiatives.

Inspired by the transformative impacts of efforts that bridge art and sustainability, SCP launched .  SCP Arts develops partnerships and projects through which students across majors collaborate with local artists, writers, and communities to translate their project findings into artwork, bringing to life community-identified sustainability goals for people of all ages.  We have collaborated with partners on public art installations, such as the , on community exhibits, including , , and .  We also collaborate with writers and researchers to engage in community-centered explorations of .

Fun Facts about SCP

“SCP has been essential in showing how our education ties in with the UST mission. This project has allowed us to analyze real-world data, collaborate with classmates, and present solutions to problems that affect real communities. We are applying skills we have cultivated in the classroom to projects that advance the common good,” stated an Economics student whose project team determined that Delano, MN (pop. 5,464) could generate net savings of $854,000 over ten years with energy efficiency upgrades.

Year Program Established | Fall 2015
Year Program Launched | Spring 2016
Country | US
Federal Region of Program | 5
Public or Private Institution | Private
Number of students at institution | 10,245

Highlight Articles/Videos

Partners

2016 | City of Delano • Population: 5,464
2016 – 2017 | City of Elk River • Population: 23,746
2016 – 2020 | Mississippi Watershed Management Organization
2016 – 2017 | Freshwater Society
2016 – 2017 | Tiny Footprint Coffee
2017 – 2019 | City of Big Lake • Population: 10,060
2017 – 2019 | PLACE’s Via Development in St. Louis Park, MN
2017 – 2024 | Metropolitan Council
2017 – 2024 | Metro Transit
2019 – 2020 | Pillsbury United Waite House Urban Farm, Minneapolis, MN
2019 – 2021 | City of Cottage Grove • Population: 35,632
2020 – 2023 | Caponi Art Park, Eagan, MN
2020 – 2023 | NūLoop Partners and Mpls Downtown Council, Minneapolis, MN
2020 – 2023 | City of Woodbury • Population: 70,840
2021 – 2022 | Saint Paul Almanac
2022 – 2025 | Center for Mission, Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis Creation Care Team
2022 – 2025 | Great Plains Institute, in partnership with GreenStep Cities

Contact Info

Maria Dahmus
Director, Sustainable Communities Partnership
(651) 962-6391
medahmus@stthomas.edu

Banner image graciously provided by: University of St. Thomas Photo 

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