Category: Education

The Latest

MWMO Newsletter — August 2026 — Planting for Fall Edition

In This Issue: Fall Planting Tips, Green Team's 19th Year, New Exhibits, Upcoming Events, and More
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A Google Street View screenshot of the MWMO's green roof.

Take a Virtual Tour of the MWMO with Google Street View

One of my personal favorite ways to explore a city is via Google Street View, the Google Maps extension that allows you to immerse yourself in 360-degree panoramic views of a […]
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Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium maculatum)

Plant of the Month: Joe Pye Weed

By Marcy Bean For this month’s featured plant, I’d like to showcase Joe Pye Weed — one of my summer favorites. Before it blooms, the foliage has nice color and […]
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A Mississippi River Green Team member holds a dragonfly.

Catching Dragonflies with the Mississippi River Green Team

A typical day of a Mississippi River Green Team member consists of working in locations full of fearsome predators: dragonflies! Dragonflies are insects belonging to the order Odonata, meaning “toothed […]
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A dog owner picks up after her dog.

Why You Should Always Pick Up After Your Pets

Of all the pollutants that we find in our watershed, few are likely to provoke as much visceral disgust as E. coli bacteria. It’s easy to understand why: E. coli […]
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A rain garden in front of the East Side Storage and Maintenance Facility.

Watch Volunteers Build a Rain Garden in 79 Seconds

’Tis the season for building rain gardens — those bowl-shaped landscape features filled with native plants that help stormwater runoff soak into the ground. Rain gardens are an increasingly popular […]
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A Monarch butterfly on swamp milkweed

Plant of the Month: Milkweed

By Marcy Bean You’ve probably heard the buzz about planting plants that are good for pollinators. Milkweed plants are important because they provide nectar and food for larva of a […]
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A bee collecting pollen from a flower.

Gardening for Pollinators: Six Questions for Heather Holm

Pollinators are in the news — partly because it’s National Pollinator Week, but more importantly because whole populations of bee and butterfly species are in decline. Our food chain depends […]
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Tamarack trees in the MWMO's tree trench.

Plant of the Month: Tamarack

By Marcy Bean Our front yard at the MWMO Stormwater Park and Learning Center is home to a tree that I had always heard of, but had never seen up-close. […]
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A misty river scene.

What I Learned from Paddling the Entire Mississippi River

By Anna Johnson When my friends asked me to move from Washington, D.C., to Minneapolis to help start an environmental education nonprofit, I said yes. When my friend, turned coworker, […]
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