Students can read about prairie, wildlife habitat and Nebraska’s natural heritage.

Or they can harvest wildflower seeds, mix them with native grasses and plant them in land that once was tallgrass prairie.

Which sounds like a more effective way to learn?

In a first-of-its-kind project, the wildlife habitat organization Pheasants Forever has joined with the Norris High School FFA chapter to plant and manage an educational prairie on school property.

The 65-acre prairie, which was planted two weeks ago, will serve as a natural classroom where students can learn about agriculture, natural history and a conservation ethic. Doug Malone, an FFA adviser and ag teacher at Norris, said the project even includes a plot the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will use to include students in biofuels research.

“It will go as far as we’ve got time, and effort and brain power to take it,” Malone said.

Ken Hesser, a board member with Cornhusker Pheasants Forever in Lincoln, approached Norris School with the idea more than a year ago. Hesser, whose daughter and son both graduated from Norris, thought the project could teach students the value of wildlife habitat and the work required to manage it properly.

The school board and administration embraced the idea, and Malone immediately got the school’s 89 FFA students involved. Last fall, they used tractors to mow smooth bromegrass that dominated the field. The mowed grass was then sprayed with a herbicide to kill it.

Other FFA members joined Nebraska Game and Parks Commission staff members in harvesting the seeds of compass plant and other wildflowers from other prairies. Other students did additional work preparing the ground for planting.

In the meantime, Hesser lined up expertise to help with the project. Biologists with Pheasants Forever and Game and Parks helped determine the mix of native grasses, forbs and wildflowers to be planted.

They came up with a plan to plant 12 different grasses and 40 different forbs, another name for broad-leafed plants.

On April 20, about a dozen FFA members, some using tractors from their family farms, planted the seed using no-till drills. Seed drilling greatly reduces soil disturbance and erosion that occurs with traditional plowing. But it takes longer, so they worked at it for nearly 10 hours.

They planted the land so that examples of shortgrass, mixed-grass and tallgrass prairies will grow. They also planted buffer strips designed to grow bobwhite quail habitat. Finally, they included special plots of prairie grass to demonstrate the raw material for cellulosic ethanol, the alcohol-based fuel made from carbohydrates found in plant cell walls.

Some of the grasses and plants should start growing this summer, but it will take another two growing seasons before the prairie really fills in. But students from cross-country runners to Envirothon team members to grade-school kids will be able to use the field right away, Malone said.

The students also learned that prairie restoration isn’t cheap. Both Malone and Hesser said the project would not have been possible without lots of help.

For example, they obtained $16,000 worth of prairie seed from Star Seed of Osborne, Kan. The company waived $10,000 of the cost while Cornhusker Pheasants Forever and Husker Covey Quail Forever contributed the money to cover the rest.

In addition, Countryside Cooperative in Firth donated and applied the herbicide, and Gana Trucking and Excavating in Martell provided the heavy equipment to remove trees from the field that were damaged in a 2004 tornado.

The project also led to a more formal partnership between Pheasants Forever and the National FFA Organization, which has close to 500,000 members in 50 states.

In January, Hesser and several Norris FFA students attended Pheasant Fest in Des Moines, Iowa, where they gave a presentation on their project.

The partnership makes sense for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever because many FFA members belong to farm families and they’re the future owners of rural land, Hesser said.

“The seed planted in their minds is far more important than the seeds we planted in the ground,” he said.

For the students, the project has given them a glimpse into the complexity of nature, something they took for granted if they thought about it at all.

Amanda Docter, a 16-year-old Norris FFA member, said she’s never paid much attention to habitat and wildlife. She knows a lot more about what wildlife needs to survive now that she’s got a stake in the project, she said.

It also feels good to be involved with something bigger than herself.

“It’s beneficial for everyone,” she said. “The whole school is going to benefit.”

FFA member Elise Edgar, also 16, said she knows about pasture grass and alfalfa from growing up on a farm. Learning about species like big bluestem, sideoats grama and lead plant has been interesting, she said.

Like the other students, she looks forward to visiting the prairie as it grows and evolves in the future.

“I know I’m going to go back and take graduation and possibly some wedding pictures in it,” she said.

It’s not every day you hear a kid say they want to have their graduation pictures taken at school.

Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.