BY ANDREW MORKES, FOUNDER AND AUTHOR OF NATURE IN CHICAGOLAND
Prairies are a special part of our natural world, and they’re sometimes overlooked amidst the forests and Great Lakes of the Midwest. They are key to the health of the natural world, and they must be preserved, protected, and appreciated so that they can be passed on to future generations. In pre-settlement Illinois, 70 percent of the “Prairie State” was comprised of prairie. Today, only about 2,300 acres of high-quality prairie remain in Illinois. While we’ll never regain the virgin prairie that existed in the early 1800s, dedicated volunteers throughout our state are working to both protect existing prairies and increase their acreage.
One such group are the students and teachers of Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, Illinois. In 2001, students began the prairie restoration of Eola Hill on the school grounds under the supervision of environmental science teacher Tim Gerk—who led the restoration until fall 2008, when science teacher Carl Armstrong took over the program. “We’ve continued to plant (or seed a couple years) every year in May,” explains Armstrong. “Today the restoration (really reconstruction) is spread over a linear mile and occupies roughly a dozen or so acres. It is a part of the Fox Valley Monarch Corridor. If there’s a larger or longer-running high school prairie restoration, please tell me about it. I’d like to meet them and chat.”
Carl was happy to answer my questions about the prairie restoration project. He; Sara Young, the other teacher who assists on the project; the Fox Valley Park District (and other agencies); and the students should be commended for creating a high-quality native habitat that is home to plants, insects, butterflies and other pollinators, and other animals. I have to admit that I have yet to visit Eola Hill. A few weeks ago, Carl was kind enough to invite me to see the prairie restoration firsthand, but family and work obligations kept me from checking out this great project. I hope to soon see the restoration in person.
Q. Can you please tell me more about the program?
A. The program has evolved over the years. In addition to the assistance of the Fox Valley Park District (FVPD), the following groups/entities have either donated seed or plants:
- Fermilab
- Forest Preserve District of Kane County
- Forest Preserve District of Kendall County
- Forest Preserve District of DuPage County
- Private citizens
- Former teachers
- Indian Prairie Education Foundation
We also have a second enviro teacher, Sara Young. She is a part of the program and supports it and brings out her kids to plant. While I’m the lead teacher when it comes to the prairie restoration project and all of the greenhouse/botany work, it’s not a one-person show. It couldn’t be. I have a lot of support from her, my department chair, building administration, and the FVPD.
For many years, FVPD brought in germinated seeds that needed transplanting into cell trays. AP Environmental students would spend a few days each winter (usually the darkest months of January/February) transplanting. They got to see the root structures and we used it as a hands-on lesson. FVPD then took the plants back to their greenhouse, grew them, and the AP Enviro students planted them in May.
The COVID shutdown year, Sara Young and I got four trays from FVPD and we showed up one day and planted a small segment—only 150 or so plants—to keep the planting streak alive. No students. It was very hot and I hadn’t had a haircut in months. It was one of the few highlights of the early COVID days, keeping the planting going.
For the last two years, Botany students (a new course offering in my school district) have taken on the full task of growing all of the prairie plants, from seed, and all that entails (e.g., stratification, scarification). Last year they grew 3,500 plants. This year they grew 5,000. We use the school greenhouse. FVPD provides the materials. Students hand-collect all of the grass seed from the site. Forb seeds come from Prairie Moon Nursery. It takes most of the school year and they do this in parallel with the rest of the Botany curriculum.
We have, over the years, planted and seeded along Eola Hill and Waubonsie Creek shoreline. Seeding was done after FVPD burned; the students watched the burn and then threw out seed over the smoking, blackened ground.
Q. Can you describe the steps that you and your students take from fall seed collection to planting in the spring? What do the kids learn and how hands-on are these activities?
A. Students do everything except burn the prairie (but they watch!). I imagine school admin might take pause if we tried having students conduct a burn.
Students learn about prairie ecosystems in class. We walk outside during the periods in the fall and learn about them firsthand as well. We do some plant ID work so they aren’t plant blind.
Students hand-collect the grass seeds from the site. This year they collected Indian Grass, Canada Wild Rye, Switchgrass, Cordgrass, Dropseed, and Big Bluestem. We also purchased some Side Oats Grama.
Students selected most of the forb species we grew, and FVPD ordered and supplied the forb seeds. I also purchased, with Botany funds, some White Wild Indigo, Prairie Blazing Star, and Plains Oval Sedge. I knew these represented absent species/niches, and the restoration would benefit from their addition.
Students learned about stratification/scarification, etc.
Students themselves had to figure out germination protocols for each species. I did not hand it to them. They created their own steps based on research, and I helped troubleshoot. For example, for scarification, we put the White Wild Indigo seeds into a metal water bottle with some coarse sand and shook the heck out of it. It worked: the stuff germinated like mad.
Students prepped the trays, seeded, watered, you name it. All I did was troubleshoot and guided them from the side when they needed it, and I came in during winter and spring break to water the plants.
Students plant outside for two days during the week before the seniors finish. This year, that was the 16th and the 18th. FVPD hauls the plants from our greenhouse to the site (800 meters as the crow flies) and provides guidance and preps the site. I suggest places to plant for the year and FVPD picks one based on manpower availability. Helen Wohlfeil, FVPD greenhouse manager, is the person from FVPD I work most closely and consistently with.
This year, Waubonsie Valley students planted about 4,000 of the 5,000 plants we grew. We ran out of time. FVPD interns will plant the rest this week (and might have already finished). We had about 250 students in total participate this year.
Q. What do students like most about the program?
A. Students have told me that they enjoy how hands-on it is, how it has forced them to learn patience and perseverance (“these seeds take months to grow!”), and communication with their classmates. If they are absent, they have to figure out someone to take care of their plants. These are skills that a lot of kids have deficits in as a result of either COVID or their phones, or both. I don’t explicitly rag on them to do these things, either. They figure it out. “Learn by doing.” They also enjoy the sense of having grown something from start to finish. There’s an indelible sense of ownership/parentage of their plants, and they’re protective of them. Probably because they had full ownership of the process. They literally hand-collected the seed or picked out what they wanted to grow. Contributing to something that’s been added to consistently for more than two decades is also kind of cool.
Q. What have been a few of the challenges with restoring and expanding the prairie?
A. FVPD sometimes has manpower issues beyond their control. Burning consistently has sometimes been a challenge, through no fault of their own.
In early years, a lot of people didn’t know about native plants or burns. Public understanding changed a lot in 20 years and it’s better now. Never perfect, but better.
Finding consistent sources of plants and seeds over 20 years has been hard—as you can tell from the list of donors. It’s always a scramble, but as I’ve done this more, I’ve learned and developed relationships, and championed the student work. Public awareness helps in many ways. It’s a community resource, after all.
Our school’s greenhouse is 30 years old and really shows its age.
Q. What environmental benefits have been created by the prairie restoration? What types of insects, birds, and other animals have you observed at the prairie?
A. The buffer strip along the waterway has drastically improved water quality. We see beavers, soft-shelled turtles, and eagles. These were not present before we did the shoreline work (which started around 2012).
Migratory birds, especially warblers, use it as a flyway. We see monarchs every spring and fall. Foxes, skunks, and loads of native bees of all shapes and sizes. Huge ant hills. There are flowering species from spring Prairie Smoke to late-fall Gentians. Someone with more time could probably notice a lot more.
The land is a carbon sink now. Before the prairie, it was turf grass and non-natives. Ecologically useless.
It’s benefited the community in regard to mental and physical health.
Q. What do you like most about the project?
A. I like that it’s done by teenagers. When you walk past it, I can look at you and say, “young people made this.” And it’s not a demonstration garden at the front of a school, it’s the real deal. It’s a full, urban fragmented ecosystem with all of the flaws and benefits that come with it. A good part of it is older than the students themselves. It is paid forward. It is something that they will remember and take with them when they leave Waubonsie, and it’ll be something they can come back to later in life; many do. And to anyone saying the work is too hard or difficult: “teenagers did this. All of this. You can too.”
“I like that it’s done by teenagers. When you walk past it, I can look at you and say, ‘young people made this.'”
–Carl Armstrong
Practically, I like that I don’t need a bus for field trips. Or money. We literally walk outside during class and have a robust ecosystem to study, and it’s there because we created it. That’s not hyperbole: students planted and seeded nearly all of it, consistently, for decades (and it’s spread naturally, too). It would not exist if it weren’t for them. Other schools need to bus their environmental science students to “show them nature.” I like that Waubonsie students can literally inhabit the “humans are a part of nature” end of the spectrum, and they don’t see it as something separate and apart from humanity, but it’s instead in their backyards and their neighborhoods, and that they are capable of recreating these rare ecosystems to high levels of fidelity and functioning.
Copyright (opening text) Andrew Morkes
Copyright (interview) Carl Armstrong
Copyright (photos): Carl Armstrong
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ABOUT ANDREW MORKES
I have been a writer and editor for more than 25 years. I’m the founder of College & Career Press (2002); the editorial director of the CAM Report career newsletter and College Spotlight newsletter; the author and publisher of “The Morkes Report: College and Career Planning Trends” blog; and the author and publisher of Hot Health Care Careers: 30 Occupations With Fast Growth and Many New Job Openings; Nontraditional Careers for Women and Men: More Than 30 Great Jobs for Women and Men With Apprenticeships Through PhDs; They Teach That in College!?: A Resource Guide to More Than 100 Interesting College Majors, which was selected as one of the best books of the year by the library journal Voice of Youth Advocates; and other titles. They Teach That in College!? provides more information on environmental- and sustainability-related majors such as Ecotourism, Range Management, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Built Environment, Sustainability Studies, and Sustainable Agriculture/Organic Farming. I’m also a member of the parent advisory board at my son’s school.
In addition to these publications, I’ve written more than 40 books about careers for other publishing and media companies including Infobase (such as the venerable Encyclopedia of Careers & Vocational Guidance, the Vault Career Guide to Accounting, and many volumes in the Careers in Focus, Discovering Careers, What Can I Do Now?!, and Career Skills Library series) and Mason Crest (including those in the Careers in the Building Trades and Cool Careers in Science series).
My poetry has appeared in Cadence, Wisconsin Review, Poetry Motel, Strong Coffee, and Mid-America Review.
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