Prairie Day Returns to the FWCD Campus

FWCD seventh-graders and their teachers celebrated FWCD Prairie Day for the first time since 2020. View the slideshow. The Prairie Day program began about 15 years ago as a way to connect the FWCD campus to the prairies being depleted across Texas. In the early years, seventh-grade teachers took their students to the small native prairie FWCD has on “The Hill” by the Ropes Course to find native plants and help eradicate invasive species.

In recent years, Prairie Day has evolved to include field trips to several different locations: the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT), the Rains’ Ranch run by FWCD teachers Jackie and James Rains, other ranches in the metroplex, and a partnership with the Texas Wildlife Association. At these locations, experts would speak on different environmental topics. No matter the location, the day always is filled with fun, hands-on science where students learn the importance of environmental preservation and sustainability.

Prairie Day 2022 was a daylong event and featured guest speakers from the following organizations: 

• The University of Tennessee Animal Science Department 
• Native Prairie Association of Texas
• Texas Parks and Wildlife Fisheries Department
• Texas Wildlife Association
• Tarrant Regional Water District
• Texas Master Naturalists
• Fort Worth Nature Center

Students and teachers began the day with a Zoom presentation in their classrooms with the University of Tennessee Animal Science Department, which focused on beef cow genetics. They then rotated through seven stations every 30 minutes to learn about such things as how to make seed balls, fish and pond ecology, skins and skulls, watersheds, the benefit of caterpillars, plant diversity, and prairie wildlife. FWCD former faculty member Sharon Hamilton, who taught Upper School science, returned to campus as a Texas Master Naturalist through the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension of the Texas Parks & Wildlife, sharing her knowledge of the benefits of caterpillars. The mission of the Texas Master Naturalist Program is to develop a corps of well-informed volunteers to provide education, outreach, and service dedicated to the beneficial management of natural resources and natural areas within their communities for the state of Texas. 

“I want students to see that it is natural and necessary for humans to develop and maintain land, but also understand and value the importance of protecting our wild areas, like natural prairies and forests,” said Christine Spikes, Seventh-Grade Teacher. “I hope that they see the biodiversity of these areas as a vital part of our biome.”

For Seventh-Grade Teacher Jimmy Brockway, the goal of the day was to give students multiple opportunities to connect what is learned in the classroom to the real world. “We did this by touching skins and skulls of animals we have seen on our own campus, touching fish living in our pond, manipulating a river and seeing its effects on the land around it, and comparing our prairie to our practice fields, Brockway noted. “At the end of the day, I hope the students left campus excited about science and that they had a fun day being in outdoor classrooms.”