The mission of the Prairie Restoration Project is to restore relationships between people and nature and support a healthy, thriving ecosystem through land stewardship rooted in respect and reciprocity.

During the field trip, participants will tour the 1100-acre short grass prairie preserve via vehicle drawn wagon to learn about the ecosystem, get to know the wildlife residents, and learn about the biodiversity hotspot experiment currently underway. The visit will also include some cultural history of Aurora with a tour of our replica tipi camp and homestead village. Both are set in the 1800’s and represent life of indigenous peoples of present-day Aurora and European colonization of the area.

All portions of the tour are outdoors. The trails are all gravel. We have restrooms, microwave, and some indoor space for lunch. We have one Action Trackchair for anyone who uses a wheelchair to get around on our gravel trails.

Recommended for the trip: Long pants, sturdy close-toed shoes, and a water bottle. Sun protection-hats, sunscreen, and sunglasses. Dress for the forecasted weather.

Detailed description

The Plains Conservation Center is an educational center and nature preserve encompassing 1100 acres of short grass prairie steppe. It’s one of the few places in the Denver metro area where people can experience remnant short grass prairie. The PCC has a long history of cultural land use and disturbance.

Various disturbance events from agriculture to bombing practice has left the site with some much-needed healing. The mission of the Prairie Restoration Project is to restore relationships between people and nature and support a healthy, thriving ecosystem through land stewardship rooted in respect and reciprocity. The restoration work at the PCC is focused on changing human perspective and views on land towards one of human reciprocity instead of human supremacy.

We are working to create a culture of land stewardship that will result in lifelong relationships between people and nature. In doing so, we are seeking effective strategies to increase the biodiversity and maintain a healthy ecosystem at the Plains Conservation Center with goals of extending those strategies to other open spaces and urban areas. One of those strategies is to create “biodiversity hot spots” with plants resilient to our current and changing climate, who can compete with non-native invasive plants, and spread outside of the hotspots to increase the biodiversity, and overall health, of that particular space. We have an ongoing experiment on site testing how best to accomplish this. Field trip attendees will learn about the experiment and tour the biodiversity hot spot plots.