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"The schools in which I was educated were by most standards first-rate. But they
were, as our schools generally are, indifferent to the place and to the culture in
which they operated.
Among my science courses, I took two full years of biology, but I never learned that
the beautiful meadow at the bottom of my family's pasture was remnant virgin prairie.
We did not spend, so far as I can rememeber, a single hour on prairies -- the landscape
in which we were immersed -- in two years of biological study."
Paul Gruchow, Grass Roots -- The Universe of Home
It is with great pleasure that I present volume 3 of Tillers. The idea for this
journal was stimulated by two significant events at Grinnell College, the inauguration of
the Center for Prairie Studies and changes in the Biology Department's curriculum.
The former is a college-wide effort to connect faculty and students with our prairie
place -- geographically, biologically, historically and aesthetically. It seeks to
undermine our tendency to ignore the lessons of our own locales, and thus cultivate
in ourselves an appreciation of place, wherever that may come to be. Concurrently,
the Biology Department began a series of changes in curriculum that further
emphasize active learning. As one of several sections of Introduction to Biological
Inquiry, Prairie Restoration introduces students to basic concepts in biology while
emphasizing the ways that biologists ask questions, test hypotheses through
observation and experimentation, and communicate their results. Our goal is to
provide beginning students with a sense of the excitement -- and the ambiguities --
of authentic research. The journal creates a community of learning across the years,
allowing students to build upon and modify the studies of their predecessors -- just
like scientists!
The development of this course was supported by a curricular grant from the
Center for Prairie Studies and a grant from Grinnell
College's Fund for Excellence to upgrade equipment at the Conard Environmental
Research Area (CERA), where the class took place. I owe great thanks to Sue
Kolbe, Larissa Mottl and Georgia Hart for their assistance in teaching the class.
Thanks as well to Steph Peterson, who typeset both the print and web versions of
the journal and helped with other technical issues during the semester. Enduring
thanks to Chris Caruso, who was my co-conspirator in developing the course.
The title of the journal is meant to evoke consideration of the interaction between the
botanical, agricultural and aesthetic histories of the tallgrass prairie. I leave it to the
reader to discover these meanings.
Jonathan Brown, Editor
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