Notice: This is an outdoor event and attendees are expected to dress for weather. Long pants and hiking boots are recommended!

Tom Rosburg to give a walking tour of the prairie and trails surrounding the Prairie Heritage Center as well as identify and discuss native plant communities of the Waterman Area. The Waterman area offers some of the most breath-taking views of nature in the area. Formed during the last ice age by the movement of glaciers, the Prairie Heritage Center is nestled near a geographical wonder known as a hanging valley. These glaciers carved the beautiful bluffs, valleys, rivers and lakes we see today. They also deposited some of the richest soil, known as till, in the world. In addition to the landscape, the Waterman Area offers a wide variety of flora and fauna, indigenous to the area for thousands of years. Much of the native prairie grasses, wildflowers and tree growth look the same today as they would have when the first native peoples inhabited this land. There are even plots of land in the vicinity that remain virgin prairie, untilled by human hands or machinery.

Dr. Thomas Rosburg has been a faculty member in the Department of Biology at Drake University since 1996. He has a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, a Masters in Plant Ecology, and a Bachelor of Science in Fish and Wildlife Biology, all from Iowa State University. Early in his career, Tom worked as a wildlife biologist for the Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming, the Fish and Wildlife Service in Colorado, and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Tom grew up on a farm in western Iowa and was self-employed in sustainable agriculture from 1983 to 1986. Currently, he teaches ecology, botany, biological research and statistics, natural history, and nature photography. He regularly incorporates field trips and service projects into his classes.

Tom Rosburg

Prairie Heritage Center