​

Over the past century, much of northeastern Kansas has been completely altered, uprooted from its tallgrass prairie/deciduous forest heritage.  Before Free State High School was established in 1997, the area had already been converted to farmland.  The school district brought in gravel and fill dirt to level a playing field and planted cool season, non-native grasses, tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) and Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis), to create a Free State High School football field in 1997.   As a result of this time-honored landscaping strategy, there was minimal biodiversity on the school campus.  When the new football stadium was constructed, there was little use for the grass practice field.  The land was underutilized until science teacher, Julie Schwarting, requested permission to create a prairie restoration where students might experience a more complex, native ecosystem.

​

Soon afterward, Julie had a fortuitous encounter with Dr. Helen Alexander, a professor at the University of Kansas from whom she'd taken a course decades earlier.  Julie proposed the idea to Dr. Alexander and, with her deep-rooted devotion to K-12 science education, she was immediately intrigued by the idea of collaborating on a prairie restoration project.  The Free State Prairie grew out of this unique collaboration between a high school science teacher and a university professor.  

​

At that time (Spring, 2013), Helen was teaching a graduate seminar in conservation biology and her students were more interested in conducting “hands-on” projects rather than simply reading about conservation.   So, Helen challenged her students to develop plans for the project and they eventually proposed creating not just a prairie restoration, but an actual restoration experiment.  In this way the site could be used to understand more about prairie restoration while at the same time sharing the process of scientific inquiry with both high school and university students.  Helen's students had great ideas, but the semester ended before detailed plans could be developed for the project.

 

Over the summer months, Helen, Julie, and several students discussed various kinds of questions and various kinds of experiments with a large team of scientists and community members.  There is only one opportunity to initiate a long-term experiment, so it was important to maximize the opportunity for research.   In the end, they focused on the following questions about the restoration process:

​

1. What factors determine the rate at which prairie plants establish?  Can the establishment of plants be sped up?  For example, if twice the recommended density of wildflower seeds is planted, will twice the number of plants result?  

2. Does a greater density of established wildflowers lead to suppression of non-sown weedy species?  

3. Once prairie plants are established in one location, how quickly do they spread to other areas within the site?

​

As Julie and Helen worked on this project, they also solidified their goals.  Specifically, the goal of the project was to restore a prairie ecosystem that would be accessible to the community, used by K-12 students and classrooms, and be devoted to ongoing ecological activities and research.  The latter would be conducted by Free State students and University of Kansas students in collaboration with professional research scientists, environmental groups, state agencies, and educational organizations within the community.  In late 2013, Julie and Helen applied for and were fortunate to receive a substantial grant form the Elizabeth Schultz Environmental Fund to start the project.

​

On October 12, 2013 the site was sprayed with herbicide to kill the cool season grasses that dominated the site.  After much discussion, herbicide was applied instead of tilling the soil due to concerns that tilling would create disturbed areas prone to colonization by weedy species from the soil seed bank or nearby areas.  There wasn’t enough time to do repeated tilling in order to deplete the seed bank of weedy species.  Native grass seed of ten grass species was drilled across the entire site on April 11, 2014 using a tractor with a no till prairie grass seeder. 

​

The site was then divided into 18 large plots; paths were mowed between plots and around the entire field so all plots were accessible on all sides.  The experimental design consisted of having six replicate plots of each of the three treatments with sowing as follows:

     1) only prairie grasses (typical of many conservation plantings)

     2) prairie grasses and wildflowers (a typical tallgrass prairie restoration)

     3) prairie grasses and twice the amount of wildflowers

​

We refer to the first treatment (only prairie grasses added) as the "G" treatment (G=grass).  The other two treatments are known as the "GF1" and "GF2" treatments indicating the sowing of both grasses and forbs (non grass, non woody, flowering plants).  Forb is a more technical name for what many of us call wildflowers.  Forb seeds of 31 species were either hand collected in the fall of 2013 or purchased from seed companies.  At the University of Kansas, we mixed the different species and then applied cold treatments to the bags of seed to enhance germination.  Seeds were hand sown by students, teachers and community members on April 17 and 18, 2014.  After each plot was sown, the seeds were worked into the ground by going over the plots using the back of a garden rake.  Later that spring, four 1m x 1m permanent vegetation sampling plots (designated A-D) were established in each of the 18 treatment plots.

​

In spring 2014, seedlings of a few forb species were planted in small plots as part of a soil microbe study (see research paper by Lubin et al. 2017 in Activities/KU)).  Additionally, in May 2017, we sowed 8 pounds of grass seed of six species (big bluestem, Canada wild rye, blue grama, buffalograss, side oats grama, and Indian grass) to supplement prairie grass establishment at the site.  We have not added any other plants to the site.  We have removed musk thistle and mullein plants, and done targeted herbicide treatments of various woody plants and shrubs as needed to maintain the grassland environment.

​

Early on, our focus was on the main experiment and we knew it would be a long process with lots of weeds growing among the prairie plants.  To hasten the establishment of an “instant” prairie, Free State students collected and germinated seed from native plants, and then grew and planted these plants in a "Demonstration Garden" next to the large prairie restoration experiment.   Overall, 160 students transplanted about 40 species of plants grown in the high school greenhouse to the demonstration site in April of 2014.

​

In the summer of 2014 the field was weedy as expected.  Some prairie grasses established, along with Black eyed Susan and Plains Coreopsis.  The most predominant weed this first year was prickly lettuce. In the summer of 2015 the field was still weedy, but more different prairie species were appearing.  At this point, horseweed was the most common weed.  Over the next several years, more prairie plants and fewer weedy species have established.

​

Over time, the plots have become an invaluable resource for both teachers and students at Free State and for a variety of researchers within the local academic community.  Collaborative meetings with researchers at KU have confirmed that novel, valid, ecological questions can be investigated within the parameters of our reconstructed prairie.  Science classes, for example, have used these plots to test hypotheses about how vegetation types alter animal communities, soil properties, fungal and bacterial compositions, and ecosystem processes.   Since the experimental area includes replication and randomization, this project provides students with authentic research opportunities that incorporate valid statistical analysis.  

​

There continues to be endless potential to make connections with art and writing activities, statistics, ethnobotany, geography, and geology among other disciplines.  Studies show terrific emotional and attention benefits to being outside in nature, so teachers and students often retreat to the prairie for solace and relaxation.  More informally, the presence of these plantings exposes all students and the community to the natural heritage of Kansas and provides an accessible location for students to observe plants and animals on their own time.

​

This project could not have been accomplished without the help and guidance of so many members of our community who have devoted countless hours to the prairie. We greatly appreciate the generous funding awarded by the Elizabeth Schultz Environmental Fund.  Many other people and organizations have helped over the years, including Applied Ecological Services, the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism, the Douglas County Conservation District, and the Grassland Heritage Foundation.  We thank the Lawrence Public Schools and the University of Kansas for their support.  For the latter, we particularly highlight the support of scientists and staff at the Kansas Biological Survey (including the University of Kansas Field Station) and at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.