This summer with Team Echinacea, I developed a storyline-based ecology curriculum for high school students, using the team’s ongoing tallgrass prairie research as the anchoring phenomenon. The goal was to design a unit that moves beyond textbook facts, engaging students in authentic, place-based science that mirrors the work of real ecologists.
Traditional high school ecology units often feature distant or abstract examples—ecosystems in the Serengeti, Arctic wildfires, or urbanization in far-off cities. While these are important, they can feel disconnected from students’ own communities. My curriculum instead places the tallgrass prairie, and specifically the fragmented habitats of the upper Midwest, at the center of the learning experience. This approach ensures relevance for students in the central U.S. and for any community impacted by agricultural land use and habitat fragmentation.
The unit uses real graphs, models, datasets, and field techniques generated by Team Echinacea’s long-term studies. Students will engage with authentic data on plant reproduction, population dynamics, and pollinator interactions, learning the same methods our team uses in the field—such as pollinator mark-recapture, flowering plant demography and measurements, and mapping remnant populations. These activities are paired with opportunities for students to collect and analyze data from local sites, allowing them to connect global ecological concepts to their immediate environment.
By aligning with NGSS and applying a storyline structure, the curriculum guides students through a sequence of investigations driven by their own questions. Each lesson builds on prior discoveries, deepening understanding of ecosystem function, biodiversity, and conservation strategies. The emphasis is on sense-making, not memorization, fostering higher-order thinking skills and scientific reasoning.
Ultimately, this project aims to make prairie ecology personal, urgent, and inspiring. Students will see themselves as active participants in ecological research and conservation, gaining not only knowledge but also the confidence and skills to address environmental challenges in their own backyards.
Stay tuned for updates as I pilot this curriculum in my high school ecology and environmental science classes, and with my school’s Environmental Awareness Club. I’m excited to see how this collaboration between Team Echinacea and the classroom can cultivate the next generation of conservation-minded scientists!
I also want to take this opportunity to thank Stuart, Ruth, and the entire 2025 Echinacea Project team for welcoming me into the work this summer and allowing me to learn from the many individual projects—both short- and long-term—that make up this incredible research effort. I’m excited to bring my love for prairies back to my students, but I’m equally grateful for the personal learning this experience has given me. It reconnected me with my “research brain,” something I know will only strengthen my doctoral work on science literacy equity. While I won’t miss pulling weeds or walking around in soaked socks and shoes all day, I will miss searching for Echinacea in prairie remnants, the thrill of correctly identifying stipa (porcupine grass), and the stunning Minnesota sunsets. This truly has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience—at least until I reapply in a few years because I will miss the prairie too much!
