Note: These are questions that may be used as an evaluation of what students have learned about the prairie.

They can be used in a game format, by dividing students into teams.

Questions About The PRAIRIE

1. What are native prairie grasses? (grasses that were not planted by people, but were growing when people arrived)

2. Name a native prairie grass on the prairie. (big bluestem, little bluestem, switch grass, sideoats gramma, Indian grass)

3. What season of the year do native grasses grow the best? (during hot weather of summer)

4. What are two ways to manage a prairie, that is, to keep it growing well. (burning, mowing)

5. Why might a prairie be burned? Give one reason. (burn off dead grasses so new grasses will get sunlight, carbon from burn provides nutrients, blackened grass absorbs more sunlight)

6. Name two insects found on the prairie. (spiders, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers)

7. Name the prairie outside of Lincoln. (Nine-mile Prairie)

8. Nine-mile prairie is a virgin prairie as opposed to a restored prairie. What is the difference? (virgin prairie has never been plowed, so is unchanged from the past. A restored prairie has been reseeded to restore what used to be there)

9. What is a perennial plant? (plant that dies above ground in the fall, but has underground roots that remain alive and grow again in the spring)

10. What is a forb? (a plant that is not a grass, tree or woody plant; wildflowers are forbs.)