Assignment submitted for credit

Final Assessment for Licensure Credit: Loess Hills Prairie Seminar 2009
By Ron Schuck, Ames Middle School
Outcome 1:
    This is the 4th Loess Hills Prairie Seminar I have attended since moving from Ithaca, New York to Ames, Iowa in the Fall 0f 1999. In fact I have been to 4 of the past 6 seminars and plan on being a “regular” forever. Understanding the Loess Hills requires some understanding of natural and human history. These Hills have been deposited since the Ice Age that occurred some 10 to 15 thousand years ago. The fine silt that makes the Hills are windblown deposits from the Missouri River. Wind deposited Hills of this sort are a rarity on the planet with the most famous counterpart to our Loess Hills being in China. The native cultures that lived in North America most of the thousands of years managed the prairies as rangeland. Fire was used to burn the prairie to favor species of grass, wildflowers and forbs that would be healthy forage for Elk and Buffalo. Fire caused by lightening also played a role in prairie maintenance. The huge herds of Elk and Buffalo would graze and follow the almost endless prairie. Biodiversity was high on the prairie landscape in comparison to the present highly “disturbed” environments that are now the Iowa landscape. Tilling of the prairie soil and the subsequent low diversity agriculture of early 21st century has left us by most estimates with about 1/10 of 1 percent of the prairie that was here prior to the massive European American settlement that occurred between 1830 and 1870. By 1900 the buffalo, elk, wolves, mountain lions, and Native American culture had disappeared from the Iowa landscape. Preserving remnants and restoring multiuse lands (roadsides, cemeteries, suburban yards, and schoolyards) is a way to remind us of our natural heritage and the beauty of a biodiverse landscape. It is a way to heal our planet and restore more natural hydrology.
    I have learned to follow Tom Rosburg for at least part of each seminar. His knowledge of the species in the hills is encyclopedic. He is a native of the hills and I like to hear his perspective on the Runkel preserve and nearby areas. I attended both his “Grassland Fire Ecology” session and his “Prairie Flora of the Loess Hills” session. We were attempting to name 100 prairie species. (In the paper were listed 36 species including wildflowers, shrubs, trees, birds and mammals of the Loess Hills.)
    I learned from Scott Moats about the bison herd restoration at the Broken Kettle Prairie (very exciting), and about the complications to the Missouri River ecosystem caused by upstream dams from Jim Redmond. The dams are preventing a high percentage of nutrient rich invertebrates and sediment that creates nesting habitat from getting downstream.
    I know that every year a large effort is made to continue to acquire land and to restore ecosystems to prairie through use of prescribed burns and chainsawing of cedar. The burns can scarify seed that has been dormant and increase germination. The fire changes many microhabitats and allows light to penetrate to dark soil and heat the soil. It also allows for more water to get to the soil before evaporating. Fire-resistant trees like Burr Oak (a mainstay of savannah) are selected for. Perhaps the most telling moment for me was standing at the border of prairie and unrestrained cedar forest. About 4 or 5 species of plants were represented among the cedar while about 50 species of plant were in the prairie. The Loess Hills Prairie, especially western slopes are quite dry (xeric) and are habitat right here in Iowa for plants like Yucca that are normally found much further to the southwest.

Outcome 2:
    On Sunday I climbed the Hills across from the campground on the Sylvan Runkel Preserve. I sketched a Prairie Ragwort and also a Prairiescape while looking to the south southwest. I have noticed over the years that it is a ritual for many to simply climb and walk the hills in this area. I never had the pleasure of meeting Sylvan Runkel but have noticed the reverence with which people talk about him. I suspect he had some of those intangibles as an educator that just made people come under a spell of endearment with him and those things he treasured (the hills and knowledge). I find while walking alone in these hills a connection to all that has come before me and am amazed by the changes in landscape that can occur through human choices. I respect the geological history as well as the history of stewardship that preceded a brief but destructive period of landscape domination and detachment. When I sit alone in the hills I try to imagine all the cedars cleared from the landscape and what it would have looked like to peer across miles of prairie. What would it have been like to feel the rumble of elk and bison herds. Would I need be careful to avoid rattlesnakes? What about chiggers? Would this land be habitable in the winter? If so what types of shelters and what types of cultures lived here. Why did I learn so little about the natives of the Midwest when I was in school? What remnants of cultural diversity are there and where do I respectfully find them.
     I look over the hills awhile and try not to think. Let the pre-conceived concepts slip away. Feel the sun and breeze upon my body. Absorb the fragrance, be one with the landscape. Time does not exist.
    Aha, someone is walking by. “Good morning! Great Day!!” Folks are quiet, respectful, content (or tired) as they walk the hills. What an effort has been undertaken for at least 33 years to “dream a dream” and make it so. Reclaim the Prairie and preserve a legacy. A core group of dedicated people have kept the dream alive. Maintaining a project that spans generation is no easy task. I want to be a part of this. I want to help. I see all that has happened from his hilltop and all that needs to be done. I was so happy to see the number of youngsters and families. As a teacher I know I am a critical part of the puzzle. I help young people to understand why it is important to know the history, to know the science and ecology, and to be adventurous enough to spend time in nature.

Outcome 3:
    Introduction: I have been teaching grade 7 life science since 1985. In 1988 I retired the textbooks and ventured into a place based format of biology with the planet earth as my textbook. The influences on me are too numerous to do justice to them all. Lets just say I was influenced by my own experiences in nature, my parents, a woman named Anna Comstock (Cornell University circa 1920), the writing to learn research of the late 1980’s, and numerous great educators. With this understanding my textbook (the planet) was complete with free easy access and an infinite number of lessons. Upon arriving in Ames I knew I needed to develop a sense of this place that was new to me. My wife and I met a woman named Jean Eells and our journey to understanding “prairie” had begun.
    My middle school has about 40 acres of wildlife habitat. This includes riparian zone, coniferous forest, deciduous forest, mowed fields and 7 acres of replanted restored prairie (a work in progress). It is the 7 acres of replanted prairie that is the subject of my action plan.
Rationale:  The foundation of sustainable planet is a sound understanding of the basics of life science. Experiences in one’s own backyard allows for the application and evaluation of new knowledge with immediate feedback. These basic lessons can later be broadened to include a worldview that is meaningful. Reading a landscape is as important as reading a sentence on a written page. My seventh graders begin with experiences in nature to formulate episodic memories that I can refer to as our academic year progresses. In plain English, we go outside and explore with all our senses without grade pressure. My students smell, feel, hear, see, and sometimes taste our local ecosystem. Later I can build the meaningful science understanding based on our periodic visits with nature. The natural heritage of this landscape is a prairie ecosystem. I will seek to help students understand healthy, diverse, sustainable ecosystems and compare and contrast those with high input, high maintenance, low diversity ecosystems that are now dominant on the landscape.
Audience: My primary audience is my seventh grade students in Ames. Good pedagogy says their learning should be based on experiences that are authentic and meaningful. Therefore, restoring prairie, filtering stormwater, maintaining and improving water quality and wildlife habitat are all goals that are best met by having my students prepare to demonstrate for the greater Ames community. Our prairie will be a demonstration project for the community in sustainable resource management.
Prerequisites:  We have land, a supportive administration, a strong commitment to ecological principles, a strong life science staff on the same page, observation tools, access to and cooperation with maintenance staff, scientific tools. We still need help in understanding and educating the public about prairie burns as a maintenance technique. We will need access to burn equipment and an experienced burn team. I have some potential help in this area at ISU and Drake but need to do more communicating and networking. The underlying science ideas for the prairie restoration and maintenance are all included in the State of Iowa Core Curriculum and my students and I will be able to justify these.
Subject Matter:  The basic science concepts needed to understand prairie ecology are life criteria (including cell theory), the relationship between traits and genes, natural selection, competition for habitat, and biodiversity. Filtering stormwater, maintaining and improving water quality and wildlife habitat are all tangible present day issues being addressed in our community. I will link these all to our prairie restoration.
Goals and Objectives:  Now that our prairie has been planted to a local ecotype prairie seed we need to develop and implement a long term management plan for the prairie. Presently, periodic mowing by the maintenance staff is being used to prevent natural succession to a forest environment. I envision some alternative management techniques to be applied to the prairie and that my students will document quantitative and qualitative results of these management practices. Alternatives would include timed mowing and grass removal, seventh grader bison mimics (model to be developed by students), and prescribed burning. Monitoring would include species identification and quantification, digital photos, journaling. Plants, insects, and vertebrates can all be monitored.
Instructional Plan: Monthly visits and journaling. Fall insect collection and identification in classroom with field guides and dissecting microscopes. Population estimates and identification of species diversity among plants. “Oh Deer” game from Project Wild to develop habitat and competition concept. Homework assignment to apply concepts to our prairie. Compare contrast Venn diagrams with insects and plants. A prairie management plan will be developed by groups of students and will be presented via Powerpoint software. I can use a template to incorporate student ideas of what should be in a management plan. We will brainstorm these ideas with class discussion and Socratic questioning. Later in the year (spring semester) we will learn genetics and cell theory and will use our fall ecology studies and those episodic memories as a basis to apply our new knowledge. Each group of students will specifically investigate grazing, mowing, and/or fire as management techniques for restoring prairie
Materials: Insect nets, plant presses, field guides to everything, composition book as a journal, pencil, digital camera and computer access, internet access, sinks, collection buckets and insect-tight, field containers, prairie plant posters. 325 seventh graders, 3 teachers, ISU student teachers and faculty, other local experts including parents of students.