Preserve the Prairie Before It's Too Late!

As part of their Earth Force experience, the students in Ms. Martinek’s gifted and talented class at Sky Vista Middle School learned about prairie ecosytems and how they are disappearing in much of the world.

The students agreed to make the lesson local - by studying the small prairie area at their school, which had just been built, to learn more about short-grass prairies.

Earth Force staff helped with a number of presentations and lessons about prairie ecology, water quality and erosion. The class took a trip to a local wastewater treatment plan and hosted a visitor from the County Planning Department, who discussed the area's history and future plan for building in Arapahoe County (where the school is located).

While investigating how preserve the small prairie area on the school grounds, they students discovered that the large prairie area next to the school was threatened with complete destruction to make way for a new housing development.

The students used mapping and GPS techniques to study the school grounds and prairie area, and begon work on a GIS map for the school.
The project plan was to develop a display for the whole school about prairie ecosystems and to try to preserve the prairie area as teaching and learning area.

In the spring during one of the planning sessions, the students voted to do some kind of development, either a food court or some student court area, on the area. In the end the students created a number of position papers on a variety of environmental topics, and capped off their project with some future visioning.