WMAES Prairie
What is a prairie?
A prairie is a large open area of grass land with fertile soil.
There are 3 types of prairies:
The prairie that is located on the school grounds is a mixed grass prairie because it is the one with the most ecological species diversity.
A prairie is a large open area of grass land with fertile soil.
There are 3 types of prairies:
- Tall grass prairie- depend on fires and/or a sort of wildlife to survive.
- Mixed grass prairie- located between a tall and a small grass prairie and it is richer in ecological diversity than both tall and small grass praries.
- Small grass prairie- a prairie made up of mostly small grasses and plants like blue grama,asters,purple clover and muc more.
The prairie that is located on the school grounds is a mixed grass prairie because it is the one with the most ecological species diversity.
Things To Do, Sights To See
You might ask yourself what can be done at a prairie?
Here are some things you can do when you find yourself in a prairie.
Here are some things you can do when you find yourself in a prairie.
- Wildlife watching, bird watching
- Taking pictures of the distinctive wildlife
- Checking out long-term research plots
- Avoiding poison ivy
- Looking for Mr.Treman's geocache post
- In the fall you can look for praying mantis, grasshoppers and turkeys
Inhabiting Species
Animals found in the prairie:
- Vole
- Mice
- Rabbits
- Turkeys
- Blue birds
- Black capped chickadee
- Red tail hawk
- Big Blue Stem
- Little Blue Stem
- Cinquefoil
- Raspberries
- Asters
- Poison Ivy
- Autumn Olive (invasive)
- Goldenrod (invasive)
School Projects
There is a long-term research project that was started by the Environmental Science 1A class in the Spring of 2013
Information on the long-term research project:
Information on the long-term research project:
- Looking at how fire grazing and fertilizer affected plants
- Set up 8 permanent plots
- Sections of each plot were either burned fertilized or cut with scissors (grazing)
- Students are looking at species richness and cover assesed once each trimester
Interview with Mr. Shaun
1. Question: When did you guys start to incorporate the prairie with school learning?
- Answer: At first the prairie was plain and dull and connected with the soccer field until Mrs.Holly came along and started to plant seeds about 10 yrs ago.
- Answer: The school has a mixed prairie.
- Answer: We have the prairie burn that helps to burn all of the invasive plants by burning them down to the roots since they aren't used to that, but unlike native plants they're used to the burning conditions so when they get burned the roots are still intact and they just grow again.
- Answer: The school has 5 acres of prairie.