Award-winning video focuses on Urban Pocket Prairies

The Katy Prairie Conservancy's Prairie Builder Schools & Parks program is the focus of an award-winning video by Karen Loke, produced for Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.

This video about Urban Pocket Prairies in the Houston area was celebrated by the Outdoor Writer's Association of America's Excellence in Craft contest and won first place in the Family Participation/Youth Outdoor Education category.

The video highlights pocket prairies that have been created in partnership with Katy Prairie Conservancy (KPC), a conservation land trust, and Westside High School and Kolter Elementary School in the Houston Independent School District, which enable students to get outside and learn on their own school grounds. Another pocket prairie at MD Anderson Cancer Center creates a natural place for patients and families to connect with the outdoors.

"In addition to saving grand places like the Katy Prairie, KPC is also helping people in the community find nature right where they live, work, and play," KPC's Executive Director Mary Anne Piacentini said.

KPC's Prairie Builders Schools & Parks program is one of many KPC educational initiatives which engages public schools and public spaces, often located in economically depressed areas, to establish on-site pocket prairies. These prairies become bridges for learning about science, history, culture, economics, and global environmental stewardship. Further, these prairies preserve a lasting location where students can interact with the land.

To date, 10,000 students have participated in educational programming through this project. KPC has also assisted six public parks in creating native grasslands habitats. Now, KPC turns its work to colleges and universities. In the spring of 2016, KPC partnered with the University of Houston to create a pocket prairie on its campus for student research. In 2017, KPC will collaborate with Rice University, University of Houston-Downtown, and the University of St. Thomas to accomplish this same goal.

Since its inception in 1992, the Katy Prairie Conservancy has been working to protect a sustainable portion of the prairie. The Katy Prairie is an important piece of the much larger Coastal Prairie, which was a vast expanse of tall grasses stretching from the Texas Gulf Coast all the way to Canada and has been reduced to a small fraction of its original size.

KPC now protects more than 20,000 acres in Harris, Waller, and Fort Bend counties.

KPC's preserve system is located in the middle of the Central Flyway and is a safe haven for more than 300 resident and migratory bird species; 110 species of mammals, amphibians, and reptiles; 600 species of wildflowers and grasses, and thousands of terrestrial insects and aquatic invertebrate species. Restored Showcase Prairies are rich with native grasses and wildflowers and refueling stops for migrating Monarch butterflies. The Katy Prairie has been designated a Global Important Bird Area by National Audubon – one of only 17 sites in Texas – due in large part to the incredible habitat on the prairie that is available to upland species in decline.

KPC supports a vibrant ecosystem that plays an important role in flood control, cleaner air and water, and local food production, according to Piacentini. Prairie grasses absorb and hold floodwaters back from downstream, native grassland soils store carbon, and wetlands filter water and help improve water quality. KPC works with the local community including sports enthusiasts, conservationists, landowners, local residents, farmers, and developers who are interested in the continued health and vitality of the prairie.

Moving forward, KPC seeks to protect the prairie lands that remain and to connect the people in the region with their prairie heritage on a vast Katy Prairie Preserve. To accomplish this vision, KPC will use direct land acquisition and voluntary partnerships with local landowners, collaborate with other organizations, educate the public through programming and outreach, and support sound land-use decisions through public policy and research. Visit katyprairie.org for information.