About This Textbook

Welcome, fellow nature lovers!

I'm Bree, a rusty-patched bumble bee and your guide through Minnesota's native plants. Let's explore the prairie!

What Is This Book?

Minnesota Native Plants is a free, interactive intelligent textbook designed to help anyone learn about the native plants, ecosystems, and ecological principles of Minnesota. Whether you are a home gardener, a student, a restoration volunteer, or simply curious about the natural world around you, this book is for you.

Who Is It For?

This textbook is written for a general public audience with no prior botany or ecology background required. We use plain language, define technical terms on first use, and provide interactive simulations to help you build intuition about ecological concepts.

What Makes It "Intelligent"?

This is not a traditional textbook. It includes several features that make learning more engaging and effective:

• Interactive MicroSims — hands-on simulations that let you explore concepts like fire ecology, pollinator matching, and garden design
• Learning Graph — a structured map of 289 interconnected concepts showing how ideas build on each other
• Per-Chapter Quizzes — two per chapter: 10 recall questions, plus 10 applied questions that put you in a real situation and ask what to do
• Pedagogical Agent — Bree, a rusty-patched bumble bee (Minnesota's endangered state bee), guides you through the content with tips, encouragement, and key insights
• Mermaid Diagrams — visual flowcharts and concept maps embedded throughout

How Is It Organized?

The book is organized into 17 chapters that progress from foundational ecology through plant identification, garden design, ecological restoration, and systems thinking:

1. Chapters 1–2 — Ecological foundations and Minnesota's ecoregions
2. Chapters 3–5 — Plant communities: prairies, woodlands, and wetlands
3. Chapters 6–9 — Wildlife interactions and invasive species
4. Chapters 10–11 — Garden design and planting practices
5. Chapters 12–14 — Restoration, cultural uses, and Minnesota resources
6. Chapters 15–17 — Systems thinking, critical thinking, and capstone projects

Technology

This textbook is built with MkDocs Material and hosted on GitHub Pages. All interactive simulations use p5.js. The source code is available on GitHub.

License

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. You are free to share and adapt the material for non-commercial purposes with proper attribution.

Contact

For questions, suggestions, or contributions, please visit the GitHub repository or open an issue.