May 31 – Minnesota Wildflowers – Botany of the EFEIT with the online field guide expert of Minnesota’s Wildflowers.
Spring’s Early Risers at the EFEIT with Minnesota Wildflowers with online field guide expert from Minnesota’s Wildflowers. Which plants are early risers; learn how to identify them, and which biomes they live in. When Thoreau came down the Minnesota River on the Franklin Steele in 1861 he took copious notes of the plant species he observed along the way. Thoreau was an amateur botanist. Elizabeth Fries Ellet, a prolific writer on assignment with a New York newspaper came west in 1852 and wrote about what she described as the wild untouched Minnesota landscape in her book “Summer Rambles in the West.”

June 14 – Cynthia Thomas and Yako Myers – Wildcrafting the EFEIT/RTA with Native American Herbalists Thomas and Myers. Thomas and Meyers are practicing herbalists who specialize in plant and herb education. Wildcrafting is the activity of foraging for food and medicine that exist in the wild. Prior to agriculture most human civilization relied on this activity for nurture and curatives. With the guidance of Thomas and Myers we will learn what’s edible and what’s not and make samples to try.

Aug 9 – Minnesota Wildflowers – Botany and Imagineography at the EFEIT with online field guide expert from Minnesota Wildflowers.
Prairie Photo Herbarium at the EFEIT with Minnesota Wildflowers-learn about the prairie species and how to make a photo herbarium. Emily Hitchcock Terry, botanist, artist, added local species to her painted Herbarium when she lived in Minnesota from 1872 to 1884.
October 19 Kate Havelin, author of “Best Hikes of the Twin Cities” will lead us through the EFEIT/RTA.

Wilderness in the City: Fall Colors Excursion with Kate Havelin – this will be Kate’s second excursion leading a group through the EFEIT/RTA. On All Things Considered, MN Public Radio, Tuesday Sept 22, 2009- Author Kate Havelin picked The Richard T. Anderson, Elizabeth Fries Ellet Interpretive Trail as the first location to go to and the best feature the EFEIT signage-(Installed in 2007, project Writers Rising Up).