about the project
“Thinking Like a Prairie” offers hands-on educational workshops focused on creative and artistic ways to engage with prairie soils and prairie plants combined with hands-on education about how soil health principles derive from the prairie ecosystem. The workshops will be presented to the local FFA chapters in Walsh County, ND, by artist Austen Camille and soil conservationist Joshua T. Anderson with the Walsh County Three Rivers Soil Conservation District.
In the fall of 2025, the project includes a soil pigment-making workshop and a prairie seed paper-making workshop, as well as a ceramic plateware workshop using prairie plants for upcoming programming in the spring of 2026.
“Thinking Like a Prairie” includes participation from local ranchers for field visits, soil sampling, and material collection, and the students will create multidisciplinary projects that will feature what they have learned about prairies, soil health principles, and working lands approaches to grasslands management.
This project is supported by a generous grant from the North Dakota Natural Resources Trust.
media coverage
Journalist Michael Standaert covered the project in the Grand Forks Herald, and versions of the article spread to numerous media outlets across the state of North Dakota.
