Ramsey County History – Fall 2018: “Fighting Students’ Summer Slide in Ramsey County: Investigate MN!”

Fighting Students’ Summer Slide in Ramsey County: Investigate MN!
Author: Teresa Swanson

According to the Children’s Literacy Initiative, “Summer Slide is what happens when the skills students learn during the school year are lost or forgotten over the summer.” In 2015, the Ramsey County Historical Society (RCHS) started a new educational program, known as Investigate MN!, designed to help students succeed by using a number of the cultural resources available in the Twin Cities to engage and inspire them and to fight summer reading loss. Initially, RCHS partnered with Saint Paul City Schools in designing a six-week-long curriculum that combines reading, writing, and classroom activities with twice-weekly, hands-on learning in museums and other cultural institutions. The focus of the program is students in the sixth grade. Over the past four years, Investigate MN! has grown from twenty-seven middle-school students to sixty participants in 2018. During the most recent summer, Investigate MN! achieved a major goal of including students from a second school. This article provides a detailed account of Investigate MN! and its progress so far.
PDF of Swanson article