Greetings from the green prairie! After a few days in the field, I feel I have a good handle on the projects done in the past and the current research. My name is Greg Diersen and this is my first year with Team Echinacea. I teach Biology (happy pollinator week) at Great Plains Lutheran High School in Watertown, South Dakota. That location in NE South Dakota is about a 2-hr drive from the Kensington/Hoffman area. They both have a “prairie pothole” landscape and have many of the same flora/fauna. My initial projects for this summer are to become “prairie literate” – able to identify the majority of plants and many insects in addition to the larger organisms with which I am already familiar. As I learn the “tallgrass” plants and insects – I will be comparing and contrasting the “mixed” prairie types of Eastern South Dakota.