Star Tribune
Mankato science teacher fosters connections in school’s forest
Julia Battern has gone to great lengths to find new ways to inspire as a teacher — even as far as Antarctica.
But some of the best lessons are being cultivated at home.
Just behind the football stadium at Mankato East High School, where Battern has taught science for 11 years, is a 2½-acre wooded area — one of more than 145 officially designated school forests in Minnesota and an outdoor lab of sorts for Battern’s wildlife ecology class.
Here, she said, students learn of their connections to forests and prairies, and the food they produce, hopefully inspiring them to become good stewards of the land. They’ve learned about how to combat some of the state’s most difficult invasive species and how to calculate carbon footprints. Such lessons, and the partnerships she has created, have led to Battern receiving a state award this month for her conservation efforts.
The Buzz Ryan Award goes to a person who does not work for the state Department of Natural Resources but is committed to good forestry, and is named after a DNR legend who worked for 47½ years in the Cloquet area and wrote extensively about the history of early logging and forestry in Minnesota.
Vanessa Zachman, a DNR forester who nominated Battern for the honor, said: “Julia goes above and beyond when it comes to engaging her students in good conservation work and education.”
Last week, Battern’s students stood around a campfire on a bitterly cold day, reflecting one by one about what they learned in the semester-long class. The quick testimonials included nods to trail work, trash pickup and tree planting, as well as a common bond against an invasive enemy: buckthorn.
Each year, students clear out the noxious weeds, which sprout in tree-like fashion. The management plan was created with the help of the DNR, and dates to Battern’s first year at Mankato East, when she knew little about buckthorn or the proper way to get rid of the tallest intruders.
Stepping off a trail, she pointed to a thick stump about 5 inches off the ground — a remnant of a time when teacher and students didn’t know it should be cut down to the soil. Be careful, in other words, or you’ll trip. Now, Battern’s classes have the system down, and after clearing out the buckthorn, they plant seeds.
Those plants can take years to mature, however, “so it is a process, and for the students, they only get to see themselves as a snapshot of that,” Battern said. “So I have to tell them the story that well over a thousand students have been a part of these efforts over the years.”
Alison Smasal, a senior, said the wildlife ecology course spurred her to action on two fronts: She has begun composting food scraps and working to help reduce her family’s carbon footprint with a couple of energy conservation measures. This after completing a carbon footprint calculation in class.
“I knew about carbon issues and all that. But I had no idea how much goes into each person’s carbon footprint,” said Smasal, who plans to major in environmental science in college.
She added that learning by doing, through the time spent on forest projects, can beat traditional lectures.
Battern, who traveled to Antarctica in 2022 thanks to a sponsorship from a local power company, said she better understood how burning fossil fuels in Minnesota can affect Antarctica.
At the campfire last week, she gave a shoutout to Issaic Depyper, a junior serving as a peer tutor after he took part in a spring semester class that tapped the forest’s silver maple trees for sap for the first time.
Then, Battern read from the book “Braiding Sweetgrass,” with its message about giving back to nature when taking gifts from the Earth. After finishing, she noted that berries could be harvested in the forest in the summer, and invited students to return.
“It’s always open, right?” she said.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, walked across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.
The former president, once a reality TV star known for his showmanship, wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
”How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie. ”This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a ”floating island of garbage.” Trump then seized on a comment Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The president tried to clarify the comment afterward, saying he had intended to say Trump’s demonization of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.
On Thursday, after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologize to Puerto Ricans.
”I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. ”I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”
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