Tag Archives: Stafford Creek

So Close to a Million Plants We Can Almost Taste It

By Carl Elliott, SPP Conservation Nursery Manager

SPP’s Conservation Nursery continue to thrive at three facilities in Washington State: Stafford Creek Corrections Center, Washington Corrections Center for Women, and Shotwell’s Landing Nursery. Since 2010, we have delivered almost 1,000,000 plants for restoration and habitat enhancement projects on Puget lowland prairies— just 33,000 more plants and we’ll be there! In 2013 we provided 375,000 plugs for prairie projects (see the table below); this is a 14% increase over what we produced the year before. We achieved the increase by adding nursery capacity at Washington Corrections Center for Women, plus increased support from the dedicated prairie restoration crew from Cedar Creek Corrections Center.

This was the first season for nursery production at Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW). The crew of five inmate technicians carefully cultivated and shipped 80,000 native prairie plants. They were particularly success at growing blanket flower, Gaillardia aristata, a species that in past years showed low germination and growth rates. The warmer conditions in the propagation hoop houses at WCCW proved to be just the environment that allowed this species to thrive. The Conservation Nursery program benefits enormously from having a new site with an enthusiastic crew of technicians and staff.

WCCW Conservation Nursery Crew loading Gaillardia aristata to be delivered to Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Photo by Bri Morningred.

WCCW Conservation Nursery Crew loading Gaillardia aristata to be delivered to Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Photo by Bri Morningred.

SPP’s Conservation Nursery continues to be a highly collaborative effort. Regional coordination is provided by the Center for Natural Lands Management (CNLM); they bring together managers responsible for prairie habitat to develop detailed restoration and habitat enhancement plans for the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly. The plants cultivated by SPP’s Conservation Nursery directly benefit the regional stakeholders such as the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the Department of Natural Resources, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wolfhaven International, and CNLM. This year we also increased the number of plants going to land managers of prairies in the northern portion of the Puget lowlands, Whidbey and the San Juan Islands; we hope to further those relationships in the future.

The delivery truck is almost full with 400 trays, a load of 39,000 plants. Photo by Bri Morningred

The delivery truck is almost full with 400 trays, a load of 39,000 plants. Photo by Bri Morningred

Though we came up just short of the magic number of 1,000,000 in the 2013, we feel confident that in 2014 we will blow right past that goal, and on to our next milestone!

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Americorps volunteers planting out SPP-grown plugs on the prairie at Glacial Heritage Reserve. Photo by CNLM staff.

Americorps volunteers planting out SPP-grown plugs on the prairie at Glacial Heritage Reserve. Photo by CNLM staff.

SPP Plant Profile: Roemer’s Fescue (Festuca roemeri)

By Graduate Research Associate Evan Hayduk

Festuca Roemeri, Roemer’s Fescue

This is the first installment in a new series of pieces we are calling our plant profiles. Over the coming months we will highlight one of the 40 species of prairie or riparian plants that are grown at Stafford Creek Correctional Facility. This is intended to give you an idea of what we are growing, focus on the conservation importance of each species, and offer a few fun facts about each species.

Basic Information: Roemer’s fescue is a bluish, gray-green tufted bunch grass that grows from British Columbia (southeastern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands), and west of the Cascade Mountains in Washington, Oregon and Northern California. These areas are typically temperate, with maritime influence. Roemer’s fescue grows from sea level to about 2500 ft. The species is also found in thin-soiled windswept shorelines on the islands of the Puget Sound, the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Straits of Georgia.

Ecological Importance: A foundation species of the prairies of the Pacific Northwest, Roemer’s fescue is predominately found in the glacial outwash prairies of the South Sound and those which have a history of anthropogenic burning.  Its quick growth makes this fescue an effective ground cover, but its bunch grass nature allows for the growth of other important prairie species, including associated species common camas (Camassia quamash), field woodrush (Luzula campestris), spike goldenrod (Solidago spanthulata), early blue violet (Viola adunca) and prairie lupine (Lupinus lepidus) to name a few.

Who is this Roemer guy anyway? Roemer’s fescue is named for Swiss physician, professor of botany and entomologist Johann Jakob Roemer (1762-1819). Roemer was best known for one of the greatest achievements in the history of Swiss entomology, the Genera insectorum Linnaei et Frabricii. Roemer also published the 16th edition of Carlos Linnaeus’ Systema Vegetabilium.

Fescue in the teaching gardens at The Evergreen State CollegeFescue plugs

Fescue plugs

 

Blooming Inside the Walls

Blooming Inside the Walls

By Graduate Research Associate Carl Elliott from Stafford Creek Corrections Center

Surrounded by acres of Douglas-fir forest and behind razor wire security fences, a garden tended by the offenders at Stafford Creek Corrections Center is flourishing. Their efforts to cultivate food and flowers has altered the landscape and nourished the spirit of those involved.  These men asked me to provide a documentation of the garden for their families on the outside.  I thought that this service alone was worth providing, but I also feel others outside the prison fence should have the opportunity to see and hear about the garden.

The spring weather on the coast of Washington this year was unusually cool and cool nights persist through July. Night temperatures have rarely stayed above 50° F. The cool weather caused heat loving plants like tomatoes, peppers, and squash to languish.  However, crops such as broccoli, cabbage, peas, and carrots have exploded with growth. The offenders are gathering buckets full of carrots and peas to share with the prison kitchen.

All of the flower gardens were designed by the offenders. They paid special attention to creating habitat for insect pollinators. The plant families they cultivated in the pollinator garden were from the pink or catchfly family, the sunflower family, the pea family, and the mallow family. These plants provide nectar, pollen, and insect prey for beneficial insects.  This is important because the garden is surrounded by concrete which provides poor pollinator habitat.

The other flower gardens include a cutting garden and a native prairie garden. The flowers from the cutting garden are used to beautify the visitor room in the summer. This allows friends and family to see the fruits of the men’s labors and make for a beautiful reception for visitors. The native prairie plant garden overflows with species from the conservation nursery. By seeing the plants they are cultivating for restoration, the men can begin to learn plant families and plant community associations found on the prairies.

The whole garden sits amidst a sea of concrete. Originally, it was a turf covered turn-around for delivery trucks.  Staff grounds keeper, Jon Rydman, took the initiative to open up the space for the men to garden there two years ago.  After a great amount of initial effort to cut the sod, lay the irrigation, and form the beds, the garden was started.  Soil fertility has been improved by compost generated from prison kitchen waste. This unique in-vessel composting system is a pilot project coordinated by plant manager, Chris Idso.  Creating a flourishing garden in a Correction Center requires cooperation and coordination among staff.  The garden produces more than vegetables and flowers; it is also a place for education and change.

To donate to the SPP programs at Stafford Creek Corrections Center, click here.

 

Smoke Water

Posted by Graduate Research Associate Carl Elliott

In a plant nursery that focuses on native plants and restoration, expectations are a bit different than at a traditional commercial nursery. Commercial nursery production has focused on those plants that make a good economic return for the grower. All managers of commercial nurseries know that if you have a rapid and efficient turn-over of plant material through the year, you generate a greater income per square foot. There is an industrial infrastructure and research to support the industry in this process.  For restoration nurseries interested in basic germination protocols or more complex issues of genetic integrity or in-breeding depression, there is not such a well-developed research infrastructure, and a great many questions remain to be answered.

At the conservation nursery at Stafford Creek Corrections Center, we have generated a number of basic scientific questions regarding the germination ecology of the prairie species we cultivate. One of the most engaging is the seeds response to prairie fires. Fires have been an integral tool to maintain prairies in the Pacific Northwest for at least 8,000 years. The fires in this ecosystem are not natural; they were used by First Peoples to maintain the extant and health of the prairies that are surrounded by evergreen woodlands. The seeds of over 250 species of plants have been shown to significantly increase in response to the smoke generated by fires. This is particularly true for species from fymbos matorral, chaparral and grassland ecosystems. So, our project developed a question to determine whether the smoke from fires could increase the germination rates of some of the more difficult to germinate plants.  Rather than apply smoke (and therefore fire) to the seeds themselves we applied smoke infused water as a treatment to seeds.

I took on the scientific design and execution of the seed germination experiments as part of my graduate thesis at The Evergreen State College. However, the experiment is a fully collaborative endeavor. The Nature Conservancy collected and curated the seed from their Shotwell’s Landing nursery. The offenders at Stafford Creek cleaned the seed, counted out replicates and participated in the germination experiments involving six of the species. The experiment involved measuring the germination rate of the six species. The seeds were divided into three treatment groups: two different levels of smoke water and a plain water control. The offenders applied the treatments to 10 replicates of each and the monitoring for germination went for 35 days.

Inmates at Stafford Creek Corrections Center count seed.

To prepare for the experiments, the offenders participated in workshops designed to facilitate discussions about the scientific methods used to come to robust conclusions. It was not the first time that offenders were exposed to a scientific reasoning process. Many have previous educational experience or have attended enough lectures organized by the Sustainable Prisons Project to be confident about offering their opinions to a discussion on scientific methods. At this point the experiments are nearly complete on most of the species and we can compile and analyze the results. My goal is to be able to go over some of the statistical methods used and get the offenders input on how the results we get can be used in the nursery to increase our propagation success. Look forward to the results in future posts.

A New Season

By Graduate Research Associate Carl Elliot

The nursery sowing season at Stafford Creek Correction Center (SCCC) opened amidst mud and construction.  Excessive rainfall throughout the spring led to great volumes of mud around the nursery, just as we completed the moving of the greenhouses from one area of the prison to another. I know that sounds redundant – excessive rainfall in Aberdeen, Washington – but it was truly more rain that usual.  April 2011 was one of the top five coldest April’s on record and one of the top ten years for precipitation. The State Climatologist’s report has some interesting facts about our anomalous weather. The rainfall combined with construction made for a muddy mess, but the building was well organized by the construction supervisors and crew at SCCC. Though they had to apply more foundation rock into the muddy morass than was budgeted, the green house and two hoop houses were up and running by the middle of April.

The greenhouse is beginning to get full as offenders sow seeds

Sowing began with some new species this year and some of the target species from previous years. Lomatium triternatum, the nine leaved biscuit-root, was a new species to the nursery and the early sowing in April should make for well rooted plants by October. Castilleja hispida (harsh Indian paintbrush) and Viola adunca (blue violet) are two species vital to the pollination ecology of the Salish Sea (Western Washington) prairies. We will probably be sowing these two species every year at the nursery for as long as it is in existence; the need for them for pollinator restoration is inexhaustible. With these two species, our goal this year is to perform trials, testing the germination rate in response to varying lengths of stratification. Stratification is the process of subjecting seeds to cold and/or moisture to replicate environmental conditions required to break seed dormancy.  Through trials, we hope to determine the appropriate amount of stratification time these seeds require to generate a high germination and seedling success rate.  To date, our experiences germinating these species in the nursery has not corresponded with what is indicated in the published literature. 

Research Associate Carl Elliot teaches about the ecology of the plants offenders are learning to sow.

We’ve also had several new members join the crew.  These new offenders have benefited from the training and experience of those that have returned from last season. The training video that was produced last year is very helpful in providing and introduction to nursery techniques.  We’ve partnered each new member with a mentor to learn about nursery production.  By learning each aspect of the nursery from soil making to record keeping, the offenders develop a greater range of skills to use when they re-enter society.

Good News

By Graduate Research Associate Alicia LeDuc

The Sustainable Prisons Project (SPP) is in the news! We have received extensive press coverage from media sources nationwide. The common threads emphasized by all are the innovative nature and the collaborative mode of the work that have contributed to the inspiring success of the SPP. Click on the links below — and feel free to provide your comments.

KBTC Northwest Now: Click here to watch the episode

Northwest Now’s Daniel Kopec hosts SPP Project Co-Director Dan Pacholke, Project Manager Kelli Bush and Cedar Creek Corrections Center Superintendent Douglas Cole to explore how the unique collaboration between the DOC and The Evergreen State College is addressing some of Washington’s pressing social and scientific concerns.

KBTC Full Focus: Being Green: Click here to watch the episode

This episode of Full Focus takes a look at how the Sustainable Prisons Project is engaging offenders in the rearing of endangered frogs and the inspiring stories that have resulted.

KCTS 9 Connects: Click here to watch the episode

KCTS 9 reporter Leslie McClurg takes the show behind bars when she visits the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Gig Harbor, Washington to discover how the SPP has inspired one offender to pursue college credit by studying sustainability while incarcerated.

The Promised Land featuring Nalini Nadkarni: Click here to listen to the episode

SPP Co-Director Nalini Nadkarni escorts host Majora Carter from the treetops of the Olympic Rainforest canopy to the incarcerated men at Stafford Creek to lead them in a lively and insightful discussion of “what should happen next” for the SPP and sustainability in society.

Science Nation: Click here to watch and read

Science Nation explores how the SPP  and inmates at Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen, Washington are helping themselves and nature to recover by working together to raise endangered prairie plants for restoration.

PBS News Hour, Oregon Public Broadcasting:

Click here to watch the PBS news hour segment (short version)

Click here to view the OPB Oregon Field Guide segment (long version)

Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter Jule Gilfillan details how the SPP is helping the military and two Washington prisons to reduce waste and protect the environment by training offenders as conservation scientists; all while saving money and supporting biodiversity.

To donate to the Sustainable Prisons Project, CLICK HERE to visit the Evergreen Foundation’s website.

Inmates Restore Prairie, Make Video to Teach Others

By Graduate Research Associate Carl Elliott

The end of the growing season brings a lot of clean up and preparation for the Sustainable Prisons Project.  This year’s native prairie plants, raised in conjunction with offenders at Stafford Creek Corrections Center, are ready to be shipped off to their permanent homes. While some of the plants will be sent to Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM), others are being distributed across various restoration sites around the south Puget Sound prairie landscape. Many are being planted to enhance habitat sites for Taylor’s (Whulge) checkerspot (Euphydryas editha taylori) butterflies.

Delivery and installation of the 173,336 prairie plants began a few weeks ago and will continue through early spring 2011. For all the partners involved in this fantastic restoration project, this is a great accomplishment. Together we have increased the amount of plants produced by 70% compared to 2009.

Offenders at SCCC sort prairie plant seeds.

Reaching the delivery and planting phase  is the result of a lot of hard work. One of our biggest challenges has been working with wild collected seed and recalcitrant or difficult germination strategies. The various species of native prairie seeds are sown into yellow tubes or cells, then stored in larger trays. The total number of cells sown by the offenders was 338,485 with 2 to 6 seed sown per cell.  In the end, approximately 5o% of the cells contained plants.  This low fill rate may be caused by the quality of the seed material, the low viability rate of the seed, or the variability in the dormancy to germination process.  The prairie plant restoration project at Stafford Creek Corrections Center is an evolving process – there still a lot to learn about how to best grow these native prairie plants.  Our cooperators at The Nature Conservancy are working every season to improve seed quality through better collection, threshing, and processing techniques.

Offenders raise thousands of prairie plants each year.

Another factor in the low success rate per cell may be human error. Working with so many plants is just plain difficult sometimes. However, with time and experience the tasks become easier and more expertly accomplished. The current crew of offenders has worked diligently this summer to hone their skills and improve the efficiency of the nursery project while also improving morale and camaraderie. This effort shows in the number and quality of plants produced. They will also be able to help train and pass on these skills to offenders in the future, which will add to the success of the project.

Part of mastering any skill is the ability to teach it to others. The process of teaching a skill causes us to look more closely than we usually do to the mechanics of how we perform a task. Work conditions in a corrections center lead to frequent turn-over in the offender employees. Some sort of training tool was needed to get new offender employees up to speed and give them an understanding of the context and purpose of the nursery project.  The well-trained and skilled crew at SCCC recently helped create a video to serve as a training tool for new offenders working on the project.  Over the course of a few weeks, offenders practiced developing a script around their particular expertise in the production process. We decided to focus on five skills: 1) preparing soil and fertilizer in the cell trays, 2) sowing the seed of three species with differing seed sizes, 3) covering seed with soil or gravel grit, 4) record keeping  and 5) watering, weeding and cultivation skills.

Filming at Stafford Creek Corrections Center

The Center for Creative and Applied Media (C-CAM) at The Evergreen State College provided the production help and equipment for a day of filming at Stafford Creek. The students and staff from C-CAM did a fantastic job drawing out the script from the offenders, as well as setting up and framing the video.

Mixing the potting soil and adding the appropriate quantity of fertilizer.

Record keeping is vital to improving the long-term success of the project.

Applying the right amount of cover soil over the seed.

Preparing to water in newly sown seeds with a gentle spring rain of water.

The training video would not be complete without providing the context for why this nursery project exists. The nursery work and skills are good training for offenders, but another goal is to restore important prairie habitat for threatened and endangered species throughout the south Puget Sound. Some of the plants from SCCC were delivered to a prairie on Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM). During the first week of November, a hard-working field crew was on hand to plant out 30,000 plants to increase butterfly nectar sources and serve as larval hosts.

Filming at the Joint Base Lewis McChord Plant Out

Up close and personal with some of the plant out crew; each of the 30,000 goes in one at a time.

Filming the plant out crew with Kimi the prairie dog.

Luckily, nature provided us with a spectacular backdrop and view of the prairie lands at JBLM, perfect for filming a training video.  The students from C-CAM were able to practice filming a wide variety of shots.  The resulting video will be edited over the next few months, voice-overs added, and it will be finished in February. This will be a valuable training tool for new offenders joining the nursery crew during 2011.  As training improves and new discoveries are made each season, we look forward to improved native plant propagation operations.   Watch for the finished video on our web site February 2011.

Rod Gilbert of the Fish and Wildlife Division of Joint Base Lewis McCord explaining the importance of the plant production to prairie restoration for the film.

Change is in the Air!

Posted by Graduate Research Associate Carl Elliot

The nursery infrastructure (greenhouse, hoophouse, water, power) and the original garden area at Stafford Creek Correction Center is being moved across the central facilities area this month. At first this task may seem a bit demoralizing, deconstructing buildings and digging up growing plants to only leave empty space behind. However, the offenders remain upbeat and active, carefully tending to the transplants and picking out their favorite flowers and vegetables to relocate. The promise of more room for the gardens and nursery, as well as an updated infrastructure, is an added incentive to get them through the hard work. The cool maritime cloud layer that has been especially persistent this year helps minimize transplant shock for both people and plants.

Temporary Home for Prairie Plants

Temporary Home for Prairie Plants

The moving process not only adds to the physical workload, but also has provided intellectual challenges for the offenders. A number of them have contributed to the design and layout of the new garden, as well as providing detailed design assistance with the greenhouse. They are making sure the internal drainage system is improved, the water supply system is more efficient, and that the movement of materials such as flats and finished plants takes less work and physical strain.

The staff and offenders have put in a lot of hours above and beyond the call of duty to make sure this late summer move is an opportunity and not a loss.

Greenhouse With no Walls

Greenhouse With no Walls

Growing Plants and Potential: Stafford Creek Nursery Project

Carl Elliott, one of our Graduate student Research Associates, has been documenting his work with the project since April.  The following are a few of his entries.
Introduction

4/01/2010

Throughout the spring of 2010, the Cargill Fellowship supported the Sustainable Prisons Project staffing in the nursery at Stafford Creek Corrections Center.  We wanted to create a learning environment where incarcerated men gain the knowledge, skills and confidence necessary to participate in the emerging green economy.  The nursery project provides a framework to clearly explain important ecological principles related to sustainability.  Additionally, the nursery skills provided in the training can be transferred to numerous other job pathways after the inmate’s release. Inmates also build significant confidence as they produce real products that will assist other agencies in restoring a threatened landscape. The concrete success in growing plants for restoration is inspiring for incarcerated individuals who have not often had many concrete successes in their lives. 1.CNTRGRD_6_17

Seed Cleaning

4/18/2010
The Sustainable Prisons Project developed a curriculum for offenders curriculum for the offenders involved in the nursery program, which complimented the production schedule of the nursery.  Before offenders could understand the importance of nursery work, they needed to understand the context of why restoration is needed on south Puget Sound prairies. We held a number of informal workshops this month where we cleaned seed or prepared the sowing flats and soil.  This allowed a lot of time just to discuss restoration and humans impact on natural ecosystems.  The offenders discussed and debated amongst themselves, questioning “what is the definition of ecological restoration?”  This discussion led to lead to questions about why restoration is even needed. The South Puget Sound prairies are anthropogenic ecosystems, affected by human activities.  Though soil, climate and biotic factors play a role in the ecosystem, the primary driver influencing the prairie ecosystem state is periodic fires, lit by humans.  With a return to prairie burn regimes on South Puget Sound prairies instituted by The Nature Conservancy and Joint Base Fort Lewis McChord, the nursery project will be able to supply need plants and seed to return forb diversity to the prairies. 2.Riparian_Seeds.jpg

Practical Nursery Techniques

5/19/2010

The offenders, DOC staff and SPP staff worked on practical nursery techniques this month.  The details of cultivating wild plants provide a lesson in patience that growing that pansies and petunias do not.  Wild plants do not germinate with the same regularity and consistency as cultivated plants and their germination and stratification protocols are not as well documented as the economically important cultivated species. This year over 380,000 prairie and riparian plants of 30 species are being sown, germinated and cultivated at Stafford Creek.  Each species has unique stratification, handling, sowing and cultivation requirements.  This diversity of protocols has presented challenges in communication and documentation and both offenders and staff have shown that they are up to the task.  Everyone involved has learned there is both an art and a science to cultivating wild plant species.  We have been greatly assisted by our partners at The Nature Conservancy of Washington, who have provided protocols developed at their Shotwell’s Landing Nursery.  TNC staff came out this month to do a workshop and provide quality control to make sure that all the prairie plants are being grown to their specifications.

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Plants Up and Growing

6/17/2010

Our nursery work has progressed well this spring. We are about one halfway through the sowing process.  Most of the plants sown to date are slow growing and erratic germinators. Prairie forbs such as Lomatium nudicale, Lomatium utriculatum, Viola adunca and Castilleja hispida have germinated at rates around 20% and we should expect twice that rate over the next four to six weeks.  The majority of plants will go into the restoration sites from October to January when the rains come (of course this year as of June, the rains have not stopped). The offenders are monitoring germination rates between the plants in the green house that have temperatures higher temperatures than the hoop house which also has a greater range of temperatures from daytime to nighttime.  The process of detailed record keeping coupled with producing almost 400, 000 plants has been a challenge. SPP staff has provided templates and education on keeping accurate field journals to each offender.  As a project, we hope to collectively create documented plant production protocols that would raise the inmate’s participation from simply labor to one of being active stakeholders in the restoration process.  This is also providing interesting data that helps us understand which plants grow faster, in what environments. 

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Earth Day, Sustainable Prisons Project Style

Posted by undergraduate research associate Sarelle Caicedo.

Earth Day is here! People are often very creative in the ways they celebrate, and there seems to be no exception with Washington Corrections Centers. The Stafford Creek Corrections Center (SCCC)  held their Earth Day celebration event on April 14, 2010, and the Sustainable Prisons Project was there.

About 10 different environmental organizations and businesses set up information tables in a large visiting room in the Corrections Center.  This was the 3rd annual Earth Day at SCCC, and it was a great success. The inmates and the staff had very positive responses to the various information tables.

Greg Falxa explains a "bat condo," one of many constructed at Stafford Creek

Greg Falxa explains a "bat condo," one of many constructed at Stafford Creek

Greg Falxa, a bat biologist at Cascadia Research, came to the event with Sarah Clarke and Sarelle Caicedo, Sustainable Prisons Project student Research Associates. Greg will be giving the May scientific lecture on bat biology and conservation on May 12 at SCCC, so this visit enabled him to promote his upcoming talk with inmates and staff and build enthusiasm. Inspired by the growing success of the bird box project, inmates are now constructing bat boxes (known by the inmates as “bat condos”), and Greg was able to display a recently built bat box.  

Project Research Associates Sarelle Caicedo and Sarah Clarke with SCCC Superintendent Pat Glebe

Project Research Associates Sarelle Caicedo and Sarah Clarke with SCCC Superintendent Pat Glebe

Pat Glebe, Stafford Creek superintendent, was present, continuing to motivate and steer Stafford Creek’s efforts to be a leading practitioner of sustainability. 

Next week, on April 28th, Graduate Research Associate Carl Elliott and undergraduate assistant, Sarelle Caicedo will be giving a joint lecture at SCCC, and they are very excited! The topic of the talk will be prairie plant conservation and conservation of the Purple Martin and Western Bluebird. This talk has been of keen interest to he inmates because they have been involved in hands on projects concerning both prairie plants and these two species of birds. Carl and Sarelle have worked together in the past, propagating plants with The Nature Conservancy, and feel that their joint talk will go well. Stay tuned for details next week on how it goes, and happy Earth week!