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Jim Rock (Sisseton Dakota Father) has taught Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy for over 40 years at various institutions including reservation, urban and suburban high schools, colleges, tribal colleges and universities. He retired in 2023 as the Director of Indigenous Programming for the Marshall W. Alworth Planetarium and as an instructor in the Physics and Astronomy department of Swenson College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota Duluth where he also taught Physics and University Honors course called Native Skywatchers: Indigenous Ethno- and ArchaeoAstronomy.
Rock advocates for Dark Sky preservation, light pollution reversal, sacred site and wetland restoration, and land return, and Indigenous interpretation at all sites of Turtle Island. He works to decolonize science using a traveling 30x15 StarDome to "Indigenize and Digitize the Skies" for Indigenous community collaborative outreach and storytelling settings. He has published nine articles and two books (2014, 2024) on Dakota constellations and snake effigy mound symbolism and eclipse prediction methodologies. Rock continues to work as a consultant with Saint Paul Public Schools and their Como Elementary Planetarium, as well as the Science Museum of Minnesota on their Indigenous Roundtable for exhibits, and with the Bell Museum Planetarium.
Since 1986, Ron Schmit has been an active member of the astronomy community in the Twin Cities. He is a member of the Minnesota Astronomical Society and serves as a NASA Solar System Ambassador. He has been an educator of astronomy at the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Minneapolis Planetarium, the Eisenhower Observatory in Hopkins and the Staring Lake Observatory in Eden Prairie. Since 2014, Schmit has been the Observatory Coordinator for Jackson Middle School in Champlin. The school is home to an observatory and planetarium where students come to discover news and lessons from the frontier of space. As Observatory Coordinator, Schmit continues his quest to explore astronomy, which has always included the desire to help others and to open them up to the wonders of the cosmos.
Dr. Cindy Blaha is a retired Professor of Physics & Astronomy at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Dr. Blaha began teaching and conducting research with students in Carleton after receiving her B.S and Ph.D in physics and astrophysics from the University of Minnesota. Her astrophysics research centers on galaxy-wide census of emission-line regions in nearby galaxies. Dr. Blaha was also a Co-Principal Investigator in the eAlliance project, an NSF ADVANCE program aimed at forming peer-mentoring groups for women faculty in physics and astronomy. After 36 years of teaching, Dr. Blaha retired from Carleton but maintains her connections with the college’s Goodsell Observatory as well as her colleagues.
Manuscript Collections
Joseph Smith Papers (see esp. Journal, 1832-1834), accessed online.
Lawrence Taliaferro Papers, 1813-1868 (bulk 1821-1839).
Northwestern Archaeological Survey field notebooks and related volumes, pre-1880, 1880-1895.
Pamphlets relating to the study of astronomy in Minnesota, 1946-
Newspapers
Covin, Chandra. “Two sites in St. Paul will be renamed to reflect cultural significance to Dakota tribes.” MPRnews. May 22, 2025.
Stanich, Susan. “Ely pictographs linked to the heavens.” The Duluth News-Tribune (Duluth, Minn.), April 6, 1992.
Wescoe, Dan. “Things are looking up in Champlin.” Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minn.), November 8, 2005.
Published Primary Sources
Astronomy and Astro-Physics vols. 11-13 (1892-1894) [preceded by The Sidereal Messenger. In 1895, Carleton sold the journal to the University of Chicago where it was renamed The Astrophysical Journal].
Carver, Jonathan. Three Years Travels through the interior parts of North-America, for more than five thousand miles. Philadelphia: Key and Simpson, 1796.
Payne, William W. “Carleton College Observatory.” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 3, no. 15 (March 28, 1891): 85-87.
Payne, William W. “Time Service of Carleton College Observatory, at Northfield, Minnesota.” Science 2, no. 64 (September 17, 1881): 445.
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe. Narrative Journal of Travels through the Northwestern Regions of the United States extending from Detroit through the Great Chain of American Lakes, to the Sources of the Mississippi River. Albany: E. & E. Hosford, 1821).
The Sidereal Messenger: A Monthly Review of Astronomy vols. 1-10 (March 1882-December 1891) [a leading astronomy journal published out of Carleton College].
Winchell, Newton H. The Aborigines of Minnesota: A Report Based on the Collections of Jacob V. Brower, and on the Field Surveys and Notes of Alfred J. Hill and Theodore H. Lewis. The Pioneer Company, 1911.
Aldana y Villalobos, Gerardo. Calculating Brilliance: An Intellectual History of Mayan Astronomy at Chich’en Itza. University of Arizona Press, 2025.
Allen, Nathaniel. “The Times They Are A-Changing: The Influence of Railroad Technology and the Adoption of Standard Time Zones in 1883.” The History Teacher 33, no. 2 (February 2000): 241-256.
Anoka-Hennepin Educational Service Center. “Jackson Middle School–School Spotlight.”
Aveni, Anthony F. “Archaeoastronomy in the Ancient Americas.” Journal of Archaeological Research 11, no. 2 (June 2003): 149-191.
Bartky, Ian R. “The Invention of Railroad Time.” Railroad History 148 (Spring 1983): 13-22.
Brown, Ralph H. “With Cass in the Northwest in 1820.” Minnesota History 23, no. 2 (June 1942).
Brownell, Lisa Rainey. “Values in Place: Exploring Community Values at the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary.” Material Culture 43, no. 2 (Fall 2011).
Bruegel, Martin. “‘Time That Can Be Relied Upon’: The Evolution of Time-Consciousness in the Mid-Hudson Valley, 1790-1860.” Journal of Social History 28, no. 3 (Spring 1995): 547-564.
Buckstaff, Ralph N. “Stars and Constellations of a Pawnee Sky Map.” American Anthropologist 29, no. 2 (April 1927): 279-285.
Ceci, Lynn. “Watchers of the Pleiades: Ethnoastronomy Among Native Cultivators in Northeastern North America.” Ethnohistory 25 no. 4 (Autumn 1978): 301-317.
Corliss, Carlton Jonathan. The Day of Two Noons. Association of American Railroads, 1888.
Gawboy, Carl and Ron Morton. Talking Sky: Ojibwe Constellations as a Reflection of Life on the Land. Rockflower Press, 2014.
Godsblom, Johan. “The Worm and the Clock: On the Genesis of a Global Time Regime.” Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung 48, no. 1 (2023): 240-258.
Gould, Roxanne and Jim Rock. “Wakan Tipi and Indian Mounds Park: Reclaiming an Indigenous Feminine Sacred Site.” AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 12, no. 3 (2016): 224-235.
Green, Mark A. A Science Not Earthbound: A Brief History of Astronomy at Carleton College. Carleton College, 1988.
Hollabaugh, Mark. “Telling Time.” In The Spirit and the Sky: Lakota Visions of the Cosmos. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. See esp. pp. 83-104.
Huber, Molly. “Goodsell Observatory, Northfield.” MNopedia, May 10, 2011.
Jackson Middle School. “The Telescope.”
Keys, Charles R. “The Hill-Lewis Archaeological Survey.” Minnesota History 9, no. 2 (June 1928): 96-108.
Kwas, Mary L. “The Spectacular 1833 Leonid Meteor Storm: The View from Arkansas.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 58, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 314-324.
Landes, David S. Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge University Press, 1983).
Lee, Annette S. “Anchored to Earth by Starlight: Decolonizing Relationship to the Sky.” Culture and Cosmos 27, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2023): 91-116.
Lee, Annette S. “Ojibwe Giizhiig Anung Masinaaigan and D(L)akota Makoce Wicanhpi Wowapi: Revitalization of Native American Star Knowledge, A Community Effort.” Journal of Astronomy in Culture 1, no. 1 (2016): 41-56.
Lee, Annette S., et al. “Indigenous Astronomy: Best Practices and Protocols for Including Indigenous Astronomy in the Planetarium Setting.” International Planetarium Society Conference Proceedings (2020): 1-16.
Lee, Annette S. and Jim Rock. “Native Skywatchers and the Makoce Wicanhpi Wowapi-D(L)akota Star Map–Building Community Around Native Star Knowledge.” APS Conference Series 473, no. 29 (2013): 1-13.
Lee, Annette S. “Native Skywatchers and the Ojibwe Giizhig Anung Masinaaigan–Ojibwe Sky Star Map.” ASP Conference Series 473, no. 29 (2013): 1-12.
Lee, Annette S., Jim Rock, William Wilson, and Carl Gawboy. “The Red Day Star, the Women’s Star and Venus: D(L/N)akota, Ojibwe, and Other Indigenous Star Knowledge.” The International Journal of Science in Society 4, no. 3 (2013): 153-166.
Lee, Annette S. and Travis Novitsky. Spirits Dancing: The Night Sky, Indigenous Knowledge, & Living Connections to the Cosmos. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023.
Milliken, Charlotte. “Whose Time Is It Anyway?: A Brief History of Standardized Time Zones in the United States.” Library of Congress Blogs. November 1, 2024.
Public Broadcasting System (PBS). The Elegant Universe: String Theory. September 2007.
Rock, Jim. “Rattlesnake Effigy Mound Ancestors Still Teaching.” Open Rivers: Rethinking Water, Place & Community 17 (2020).
Sanders, Thomas L. “Elder Dialogues on the Sacred at Jeffers Petroglyphs Historic Site: A Case History of an Intersection of Sacredness and Archaeology.” In The Intersection of Sacredness and Archaeology. Edited by Donna L. Gillette and Thomas L. Sanders.
Sanders, Thomas L. “Jeffers Petroglyphs.” MNopedia, February 26, 2019.
Sauter, Michael J. “Clockwatchers and Stargazers: Time Discipline in Early Modern Berlin.” The American Historical Review 112, no. 3 (June 2007): 685-709.
Sundstrom, Linnea. “Mirror of Heaven: Cross-Cultural Transference of the Sacred Geography of the Black Hills.” World Archaeology 28, no. 2 (October 1996): 177-189.
Thompson, E.P. “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism.” Past and Present 38 (December 1967): 56-97.
Trautmann, Frederic. “Johann Georg Kohl, a German Traveler in Minnesota Territory.” Minnesota History 49, no. 4 (Winter 1984).
Walker, Malea. “How Newspapers Helped Crowdsource a Scientific Discovery: The 1833 Leonid Meteor Storm.” Library of Congress Blogs (September 2, 2020).
Westerman, Gwen and Bruce White. Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2012.