HSEM3246H: Geography of Minnesota

In this Honors Seminar on the Geography of Minnesota*, we will learn together about the fundamental contexts for environment, history, and society that make Minnesota. We will explore the bio-physical geography of the state to understand how and why Minnesota’s natural landscapes look the way they do. We will review immigration history and cultural traditions to understand the processes that underlie our region’s social fabric. We will explore historical and contemporary trajectories of economic production. With that background, we will then drill down to explore contemporary socio-environmental issues in Minnesota. Specific topics will be selected with input from student participants and will include some of the following: food cultures, forever chemicals, urban development, civil rights, traditional ecological knowledge, mining, climate change, invasive species, ecosystem restoration, and environmental justice. The class will culminate with a field trip to the historically, culturally, and ecologically significant area around Bdote (the area near the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers) and to the sacred site of Coldwater Spring. Students will experience those spaces, which have been pivotal to state history, central to contemporary issues of urban development and environmental justice, and the ongoing historical traumas experienced by indigenous groups.

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