Chris Wells: Minnesota Environments

I am an associate professor of environmental history at Macalester College, where I direct the school’s Andrew Mellon Foundation-sponsored Digital Liberal Arts initiative. My research focuses on the ways that technology–and especially technological systems–have reshaped the American environment, mediating and structuring people’s relationships with the natural world.

For this lightning round, I will discuss Minnesota Environments, a smartphone app and accompanying website developed in collaboration with George Vrtis (Carleton College). Based on the Omeka CMS and its Curatescape plugin, the resulting project allowed students to research and publish material on Minnesota’s environmental history that users can explore from a smartphone, tablet, or computer.