DOCUMENT RESUME ED 073 911 SE 015 648 AUTHCR Fisher, ties, Comp.; Gruchow, Nancy,Comp. TITLE A Guide to Minnesota Environmental Education Areas. INSTITUTION Minnesota State Dept. of Natural Resources, St.'Paul. Bureau of Information and Education. RUB DATE 72 NOTE 117p. EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$6.58 DESCRIPTORS *Directories; *Environmental Education; indexes (Loeaters); Natural Resources; Nature Centers; *Outdoor Education; *Rural Areas; Site Development; *Study Facilities IDENTIFIERS *Minnesota ABSTRACT More than 400 areas in Minnesota, useful as sites for environmental studies, are catalogued in this guide. They.include state parks and waysides, state forests, state wildlifemanagement areas, waterfowl production areas, national forests, naturecenters and preserves, metropolitan, county and city parks,outdoor education school sites,. school forests, private conservation farmsand campgrounds, private camps, historic sites andmonuments, university and college study areas, Boy Scout and Girl Scoutcamps and foundation sites. Introductory sections elaborateupon the wide range of possible study sites outside the classroom andenumerate factors which should be considered while teaching in naturalareas. For a general overview of the state, fourmaps show the soil types, bedrock formations, general landforms, and forest vegetation.The major section of the guide compiles theareas in alphabetical order by counties. Each entry provides a short description of thearea or-site together with its official name, when it isopen, size, type of area, location, and source to contact for additional information.A glossary of terms and index to all areas concludes thebook. (BL) FIL'vIED FRONI BEST AVAILABLE COPY Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Bureau- of Information & Education US DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH EDUCATION 3 WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION I p,,s OUCLATI_N;ito S RI; N I';;,' DUCED I XACIt `1-AS KC; [VW I PON; 1*4 1HE PIPSON Of; ORtIANI:A ;ION ORII, ArriGiffir INATIN;I ITPOINTS 01 Vlt 4T OR (-WIN IONS 511110 00 NOT RE pREsi NI Of FICIAI, 01; ICE Of WU CA ;ION POSITION OR PO; ICN Environmental Educai as Minnesota Environmental aciiication 4 Aras INCLUDING Compiled by State Parks and Waysides, State Forests, We Fisher & Nancy Gruchow State Wildlife Management Areas, Water- fowl Production Areas,,National Forests, Nature Centers and' Preserves, Metro-, politan, County and City Parks; Outdoor Education School Sites, School Forests, Private Conservation Farms and Cai grounds, private Camps, Historic Sites The Minnesota 'and Monuments, liniverSity and College Department of Natural Resources Study Areas, Boy Scoe.tt and Girl Scout Bureau of Information & Education Camps and,Fouridation Sites FILMED FROM BEST AVrLABLE COPY TABLE OF CONTENTS MAPS Soils of Minnesota p. iv Bedrock Formations p v Generalized Landforms Recreation Resources pvii Foreword, Dr. D. B. Lawrence, Professor Department of Botany University of Minnesota p 1 Preface, Robert Collins, Director Environmental Science Center Golden Valley, Minnesota P 5 Sites (alphabetically within each county) ..... p. 9 Glossary p. 105 Index (alphabetically by site name) p. 106 EXPLANATORY NOTE-. At the beginning of each entry there are several headings which indicate when the site is open, its size, ownership and exact location. In some instances, a site encompasses more than one County. In such cases, all counties in which the site is located are listed in alphabetic order at the head of the entry. When trying to locate such a site always look to the county that comes first alphabetically. Because of their great number, State Wildlife Management Areas are listed only by name and nearest town in their respective counties. A few of the largest areas are listed separately, however. Persons wishing to use these sites are advised to contact the Division of Game and Fish, Department of Natural Resources 390 Centennial Bldg., St. Paul, Minn. 55155. iii SOILS OF MINNESOTA r. Silty Forest and Prairie Soils of Southeastern Minnesota Medium Textured Prairie and Prairie Border Sails of Southastern Minnesota Coarse to Fine Textured Forest Soils of East- Central Minnesota Medium to Fine Textured Prairie Border Soils of Central Minnesota Medium to Fine Textured Prairie Sells of South- Central Minnesota IIIISilty Prairie Soil of Southwestern Minnesota NINMedium to Fine Textured Prairie and Prairie Border Soils of Western Minnesota INMedium Textured Forest Soils of North-Central Minnesota EiCoarse to Medium Textured Forest Soils of East-Central Minnesota Fine Textured Forest Soils of East-Central Min- nesota aCoarse to Fine Textured Prairie Soils of Organic Soils of Glacial Lake Plains MICoarse to Fine Textured Forest Soils and Organic Soils of Glacial Lake Plains laCoarse to Fine Textured Forest Soils and Rock Outcrops of Northeastern Minnesota Coarse to Medium Textured Prairie Soils Formed from Glacial Outwash Coarse to Medium Textured Forest Soils Formed from Glacial Outwash iv BEDROCK FORMATIONS -Upper Red Lake 1' EXPLANATION Oreenstone Belts (Approximately 2.7 billion years) Sediments and Instrusive Haas (1 billion years and older) YoungerSedimentsand Intrusive Rocks (Less than 1 billion years) V GENERALIZED LANDFORM LEGEND ROUGH AREAS RESULTING FROM GLACIAL DEPOSITION (TERMINAL OR LATERAL MORAINES) 4 ROUGH AREAS RESULTING FROM GLACIAL SCOURING ROUGH AREAS RESULTING FROM MELTWATER EROSION ROLLING AREAS RESULTING FROM GLACIAL DEPOSIT: N (GROUND MORAINE OR TILL PLAIN) FLAT TO GENTLY ROLLING AREAS RESULTING FROM MELTWATER OUTWASH FLAT AREAS RESULTING FROM GLACIAL LAKES vi OUTSTANDING FEATURES OF MINNESOTA'S RECREATION RESOURCES (Recreational Resource Areas map was reprinted from the Alias of Minnesota Resources and Settlement. prepared for the Minnesota State Planning Agency by John R. Borchert and Donald P. Yaeger.) Deciduous trees Coniferous trees n Less than 10% Of land area in trees El Areas of greatest local relief (100 feet per square mile or more) vii FOREWORD A A Dr. Donald B. Lawrence, Professor Department of Botany University of Minnesota Several kinds of Environmental Education Areas are of water and fires. We still do all these things, and others available for study. Some types such as old fields are inher- still more devastating to natural values. If those pioneer ently capable of withstanding heavy use and human traffic, settlers could now return to the homesteads they established and their organisms are common; others are exceedingly here a hundred years or so ago, especially in the great fragile and their organisms rare. Mostnatural areasare crescent of prairie grassland in the western and southern fragile, and mainly these are considered now. parts of Minnesota, and in the eastern metropolitan area, The primary purpose of establishing natural areas is to they would find little that seemed familiar. Only a few protectthem against further exploitation begun by the Euro- small tracts are nearly like what they would have remem- pean peoples who were the ancestors of many of us. Many bered. The fewer they are, the more priceless they become of them appreciated what they found. But everything seemed and the more careful we must learn to be of them. There so inexhaustible Surely there would always be some of can never be any more than there are now. We still have it left. They had to make a living off the land. They grazed, a golden opportunity to preserve the few remaining areas mowed, seeded crop and pasture plants and incidentally and to handle them like museum pieces to look but not introduced weeds from Europe; they logged, planted alien touch, to take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but a trees, drained, flooded, mined, excavated and filled. They few footprints, and be sure feet do not destroy native plants hunted, trapped, fished. poisoned and polluted. They criss- or introduce alien weeds and diseases. crossed the land with roads which interrupted the movement .Actually we must be much more careful of these beautiful pieces of nature than we are of a museum collection because these collections are alive and so must not be disturbed lest they fail to reproduce themselves and disappear. If dis- turbance, as tor example by fire, was a naturalprocess of the environment before the advent ofEuropean immi- grants, then carefully managed prescribed burning!may have to be resorted to as in prairie preservation, and the regenera- tion of many forest types. In order to keep nativecom- munities functioning naturally we must understandthe biology of the plants and animals and appreciate how each nto the complex wel..-of the -; arid-non-living that we call the ecosystem. We are in a vital race against ignor- ance and carelessness. Europeans have whrked intensively for a century to study their wild plants and animals, but only recently did they discover that they hadnot started soon enough to preserve natural areas. Now they are trying in old worn out pastures to reconstruct at immensecost and effort something like the natural communities thatonce were there. Their job is essentially that of gardeners: ours is learning to manage, to use wisely, and tosave what we still have. Here in Minnesota sonic of the most perfect examples of our relict natural areas arenow held in the preserves of The Nature Conservancy, a private corporation. and in the least disturbed parts of our National Parks and Monu- ments, in our State Parks, in some small tracts of our National and State Forests specifically reservedas natural areas, and in some of our County Parks, The legal basis for a state-wide system of Scientific and Natural Areas has recently been established by the State Legislature but the system itself and the mechanisms for enforcing protective regulations on the individual tracts are still in the planning stage and have not been implemented. The rules and regula- tions that hold for State Parks will surely apply in all Scien- tific and Natural Areas, and other muchmore stringent regulations will be added in those areas dedicated forpreser- vation of rare species, for research, and for teaching. Thus, the inclusion of natural areas in a published Direc- tory of Areas available for use in public education at this time is premature from the point of view of preserving natural values.