Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 23
Great Plains Environmental Education:
A Personal Reflection
WILLIAM S. WHITNEY
While many people in my Great Plains landscape are sustained by the bounty of
wheat, corn, and soybeans, the Prairie Plains Resource Institute (aka Prairie Plains or
the Institute), a nonprofit organization that I cofounded in 1980 with my wife, Jan,
and two other friends, has been sustained by a vision that includes additional possibil-
ities for the region. The roots of Prairie Plains are grounded in rural, small-town agrar-
ian values, but its foundation rests firmly upon nature, specifically the native prairie
ecosystem, and upon the view that conservation is about service to people. Although
the majority of our work is presently focused on central and eastern Nebraska, our
goal for the near future is to share our experiences with more people, increase the pro-
gram activity at our new education center, and expand our scope of activity beyond
Nebraska to the rest of the Great Plains and beyond.
We are centered in Aurora, Nebraska, a small farm community of roughly 4,500
people along Interstate 80, about 120 miles west of Omaha. The Institute is an educa-
tional land trust with an interdisciplinary approach to nature and culture. We promote
sustainable management of human and natural resources, preservation of plains nat-
ural areas, and educational development. By its original charter, Prairie Plains is re-
ally about bringing people together; nature provides the stage on which we act. This
has always presented us with an enormous and vexing question. How do we involve
more people in meaningful ways, weaving new and colorful threads of subject matter
into the mainstream fabric of an aging and lackluster agrarian culture, particularly in
a conservative and sparsely populated region of the country?
It is easy to forget now, during the Institute's thirtieth year, how challenging it was
to actually turn an idealistic, if not vague, set of founding purposes into a functioning
institution, molding dreams and ideas, administrative protocols, technical processes,
and financial details into an integrated whole. Conventional logic in 1980, often ex-
pressed emphatically by friends and family, maintained that (1) A young couple can-
not survive trying to change or save the world by creating an organization in Nebraska
(Why don't we get a job?); (2) Nobody cares much about prairie (What good is it?);
and (3) A small town is the wrong place to do such a thing, and you will waste your ed-
ucation (Why not go where the money is?).
