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🌾 Fall 2025 Seed Collection Day!🌾
DGF 5th Graders & Conservation Crew Join Forces with the United Prairie Foundation
DGF 5th graders & our new HS Conservation Crew teamed up with the United Prairie Foundation to collect native seeds and make a real impact on our environment. Students explored the prairie, learned about native plants, and discovered how even the smallest seeds can spark big change for conservation. The classes gathered seeds from our Educational Prairie Trail to support next spring’s trail expansion.
NEW!!
NEW!!
2025-26 DGF Conservation Crew Underway
2025-26 DGF Conservation Crew Underway
The DGF Conservation Crew, in collaboration with Conservation Minnesota, is an extracurricular program tailored to each school’s unique needs. Students build leadership skills by designing and implementing conservation projects that make a positive impact on their schools and communities.
This year, the DGF Student Conservation Crew is helping advance our Prairie Restoration and Outdoor Classroom initiatives through this Conservation Crew program. To showcase and celebrate their efforts, we’ve added a new student-led webpage to this site, featuring student-created content and project updates.
2025 Spring planting is underway!
The Class of 2029 is set to plant their pollinator garden during the last full week of school (May 22), marking the second phase of this student-led project. This year, the current 8th graders took an active role by transplanting their seedlings into larger pots in early April, with assistance from the United Prairie Foundation. Since then, they've been nurturing the plants, observing their growth throughout the spring.
By engaging in this project, students not only contribute to the local ecosystem but also gain hands-on experience in environmental stewardship and sustainable gardening practices.
We have some great news !
DGF, in collaboration with United Prairie Foundation and Wildlife Forever, has been awarded a MN Pollinator Pathways project grant.
The project will take place in Glyndon, MN at the Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton H.S. and M.S. campus. The project aims to restore four acres of previously farmed school land, transforming one acre into a wetland and three acres into a diverse tallgrass prairie. Additionally, it will include an Educational Prairie Trail within the restored area. This space would foster a sense of stewardship, curiosity, and conservation while leaving a lasting impact on the agricultural community, local pollinators, and the environment.
The trail will be public, accessible, and will help students and the local community better understand, protect, and conserve pollinator habitat in Clay County.
Planned Project
Fall 2024 Seed Collection Day
DGF 5th Graders and
United Prairie Foundation
Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Lauer's 5th graders spent an afternoon learning about seed collection from the Unite Prairie Foundation. The classes collected seeds from our Educational Prairie Trail for next spring's trail expansion. Way to go!
Educational Prairie Trail
Class of 2028 Inaugural Planting Day
May 23, 2024
IMG_4631.MOV
The Problem
The Problem
Some think one key to saving the planet from extreme climate change may be using soil for carbon sequestration. The goal of this project is to inspire and empower students to better understand, protect, and conserve native prairie grasslands. The project seeks to have students design and restore a significant portion of underutilized land on school grounds back to native tallgrass prairie for carbon sequestration, and create a thriving outdoor classroom and educational trail within that prairie. This space would foster a sense of stewardship, curiosity, exploration, and conservation while leaving a lasting impact on the community and environment.
Our Plan
Our Plan
Create a thriving native prairie ecosystem from student design following a project-based learning model to ultimately answer “How can we mitigate climate change at a local level?”
Engage environmental organizations & local Native American communities (Mdewakanton, Očhéthi Šakówiŋ) to gain support and participation; gather input from community stakeholders.
Promote environmental awareness and conservation.
Have questions? Contact Kerri Westgard, DGF Social Studies, kwestgard@dgf.k12.mn.us
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