In the summer of 2017, a group of Free State students (Carly Oliver, Juna Murao, and Sandhya Ravikumar) and University of Kansas students (David McClannahan, Lanie McMullin, Daniel Hughes, Kristy Mo, Riley Cooney) worked together as prairie interns on the Free State Prairie.  The group surveyed the site for trees such as elms, honey locusts, and hackberries that are constantly colonizing the prairie from the nearby woodlands.  When found, these and other woody species were removed with clippers and targeted herbicide applications.

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We maximized the learning experience by turning this routine prairie management project into a research experience. Students separated the plants of each species removed from each plot into separate paper bags; these were dried and the “biomass” (dried weight of plant material) was weighed.  Helen Alexander gave students short tutorials in data analysis and the students analyzed whether the woody plants were more common in certain sowing treatments or in locations closer or farther from the edge of the prairie.  The students created posters about their work and presented them to the public at a prairie open house at the end of the summer. 

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Lanie McMullin worked with photographs taken by former FSHS students Christina Craig and Leah Matthews to create an informational Photo Key for prairie plants on the Free State Prairie.