Ask a kid in Lincoln or Omaha, Nebraska, where their clean drinking water comes from — chances are they won’t say “grass,” because no one is encouraging them to be curious about their natural surroundings. Yet the grasslands, soils, rivers and aquifers are part of the natural systems that supply clean drinking water across the state.
For over a year, Nebraska classrooms have had free access to a resource built to change that: five fully stocked grassland biome education trunks stored across the state, packed with hands-on materials and ready-made lesson plans on the state’s grassland ecosystems.
But many teachers still don’t know they exist.
Cheryl Dunn — lecturer, herbarium curator and plant biology undergraduate advisor — spent years developing the trunks to give teachers a tool that make grasslands impossible to overlook.
“The creation of the trunks with the Nebraska Game and Parks is meant to show kids — especially those in urban areas — that grasslands are hiding in plain sight, doing the essential work that almost no one notices,” Dunn said.
There are five grassland biome trunks places across Nebraska — one each in Lincoln, Scottsbluff, Norfolk, Schramm and one Dunn keeps on hand — and are free to check out through Nebraska Game and Parks.
What’s included in the trunks?
The trunks are designed to provide classroom teachers, scout leaders, home schoolers and Master Naturalists with the resources they need to help educate students about Nebraska’s grassland biome. Each trunk provides interactive, inquiry-based resources suitable for a wide range of grade levels and learning environments; every lesson plan ties into specific state learning objectives, so teachers can match a lesson to what they are required to cover.
Contents include resin plant specimens and identification guides, parent material samples for hands-on texture and horizon activities, Nebraska maps showing land use and vegetation, student worksheets, carbon cycle role-play cards and field guides and posters of native prairie plants.
The five accompanying lesson plans build in complexity. Grassland Ecosystems and Environmental Factors and Native Nebraska Plants lay the basic groundwork. Soils and Carbon Cycle Role Play dig into hands-on activities — in the latter, students physically act out carbon moving through plants, animals and the atmosphere. Finally, Threats to Grasslands introduces Prairie Protector, a game in which students calculate the rate of spread of invasive red cedar trees and use tools like prescribed fire to remove the threat.
Success rate
Since launching, the trunks have reached far more people than the circulation rate suggests. Most recently, Dunn showcased the trunks to 22 middle school teachers. In the past year, Dunn has hosted two workshops — timed with 2026’s International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists — where she introduced educators to the trunks and their five accompanying lesson plans.
In the second workshop alone, teachers reported class sizes ranging roughly from 160 to 350 students apiece, meaning even small groups of educators can introduce the value and intrigue of grassland science to a large portion of state classrooms.
“It’s important to get this resource in front of the teachers and administrators who might never hear about them,” Dunn said.
Turning a shared vision into a statewide resource
It’s thanks to a dedicated group of individuals that Nebraska classrooms have grassland science resources at their disposal.
Angie Peterson, a teacher at North Platte High School, built several portions of the project at the Nebraska West Central Research, Extension and Education Center under Jerry D. Volesky, professor emeritus. Her contributions include the plant and resin specimens and a rare photo series documenting vegetation across an entire growing season — material Dunn says she’s never seen replicated anywhere else. Jessica Milby, former research technologist at WCREEC, collected material along the way.
Walter H. Schacht, professor emeritus and interim director of the Center for Grassland Studies, funded the project’s start and wrote one of the five lesson plans. Becky Young, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture, wrote the soils lesson plan while Dunn wrote the other three. At Nebraska Game and Parks, Monica Macoubrie reviewed the lesson plans and Andrea Foss helped get the finished trunks distributed across the state.
Trunks are free to check out for two-week periods through Nebraska Game and Parks in Lincoln, Scottsbluff, Norfolk and Schramm. The same person must be the one to check out and return the trunks.
Almost all the material is free to download online for anyone without access to a physical trunk, and users are encouraged to source their own plant and soil materials.
