EDUCATION AND ENGAGEMENT

The parent project of this work, the Prairie Project, has an exciting education and outreach component. Our education effort takes an approach that combines intensive and extensive activities and targets students and the general public from urban areas as well as future natural resources professionals.

The intensive education activities involve organizing teacher/faculty cohorts to develop high-impact learning resources and agents of change in secondary and undergraduate education. Intensive faculty/teacher development and curricular development help build learning communities of educators as agents of change and help them bring relevant science and technology to secondary and undergraduate classes. We will also form 4H/FFA group cohorts and facilitate their development as future ranch managers and professionals and critical agents of change, through experiential learning and monitoring research programs at private demonstration ranches.

The extensive education activities involve collaboration with universities and conservation organizations to develop education and outreach programs for students and the general public from predominantly urban areas. Activities include public lectures and prescribed burn tours at field labs near universities, social media campaigns, as well as citizen science activities.

Citizen science activities hold the key to the synergies among research, education, and outreach efforts. They can help connect students in secondary and undergraduate classes with researchers and professionals, ranch managers, and 4H/FFA groups. The work at our research centers and private demonstration ranches, which represent a broad range of biophysical settings and cultural management contexts, is essential for establishing a solid research basis and facilitating cultural change in land management and conservation. Organized citizen science activities make these integrated research-education-outreach efforts feasible and cohesive.