PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #50: Ecological Education. Presiding: A. Wallace.
Wednesday, August 8, 2001. 1:00 PM to 5:15 PM. Hall of Ideas L&M.
Prairie Planting Partnerships: Bringing together undergraduate research projects with third grade investigations.
Wallace, Alison1, Becker, Tanya1, Sorenson, Susan1, Triska, Holly1, 1
ABSTRACT- For the past five years, third grade teachers in our local school district have incorporated a prairie unit into their curriculum that involves collecting seeds, growing seedlings in their classrooms, and transplanting seedlings into a prairie restoration plot at our university field site. This interdisciplinary project really captivates these students, but the year-to-year success in the seedling growth and transplanting was quite variable and needed a closer examination of successful growing techniques and protocols within the constraint of the classroom growlabs. In searching for research projects for beginning biology undergraduates, designing experiments around growing prairie seedlings seemed like a great idea, especially since elementary teachers and students in our community would be interested in these findings. Three undergraduates selected several factors to investigate, and designed simple, but thorough experiments to examine the effects of these factors on seedling survivorship of several northern tallgrass prairie species. These undergraduates also adopted area third grade classrooms and helped the students with their prairie seedling set-ups. An online database was established to facilitate the exchange of data and observations among the undergraduates and the third grade teachers and students. This partnership has brought a certain relevance to the undergraduate research, while providing opportunities for third grade teachers and students to compare, contrast, and combine data on the various prairie species they were growing in the spirit of scientific inquiry and investigation.
KEY WORDS: elementary, undergraduate, prairie, restoration