The Camas Meadows Project will take a hands-on, student-led approach to urban land management research. This initiative will first and foremost help students gain research and field experience by studying an existing project on UW campus at the new Burke Museum. Often, landscape architecture students are taught that once in practice, they have considerable creative control over conceptual and construction plans but rarely get to work on the management and maintenance of a given site once the firm has completed the design. Planting plan documents have detailed instructions around planting written by landscape architecture professionals but how does that ensure that information is implemented, improvised upon and passed on? And how does that go beyond planting instructions and into maintenance, management and care? And how can the management of a given site become an educational opportunity to communicate that site’s ecological and cultural significance to the public at large? How can a given site not only become a sustainability model but stay a sustainability model years after its design and construction? This project provides students with the opportunity to work directly with landscape architects, interpretive specialists, land maintenance professionals to understand the issues, concerns, and opportunities in translating the design of urban camas meadows into established and managed landscapes. While we will build knowledge from the several existing research projects on camas meadows in the region such as Novel Plant Communities and Partnerships: Creative Strategies for Habitat Conservation and Restoration in Western Washington Prairies by the Center of Natural Lands Management and Evaluating the Purpose, Extent, and Ecological Restoration Applications of Indigenous Burning Practices in Southwestern Washington published by UW Press, our proposal is unique in that it is investigating the establishment of this plant community type in an urban condition.

With the support of the Campus Sustainability Fund, this project will employ students to collaborate with a diverse team of project stakeholders, develop research methodologies, conduct field research, synthesize findings and communicate those findings to diverse audiences from academic publications to public information. The students for this project proposal will act as interlocutors to bridge the gaps of communication between seemingly disparate entities (private firms, clients, maintenance services, plant nurseries, students, visitors) with the intention of developing management strategies that reduce UW Grounds’ maintenance workload of the meadow.

This project will employ a total of five (5) students over three (3) years. In year 1 and year 2, two students will be employed, with one as lead researcher. The assistant researcher will then become lead the following year to ensure that knowledge gained from the project continues within the student body network and that the management plan stays active, pertinent and evolving. This also will build stronger relations between partners and stakeholders (UW Landscape Architecture Department, the Burke Museum, wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ [Intellectual House], UW Grounds, Urban@UW, GGN and Oxbow Nursery) to be informed of project progress on a biannual basis and continue in the development of interpretive strategies and management practices.

With the support of the faculty advisor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and other partners, the students’ key roles will be: research best management practices of the camas meadows, perform and monitor said best practices as experiments, design interpretation for the meadows and eventually create the management plan document. A student lead researcher will primarily research best practices and establish methods to conduct experiments. The student lead will work alongside an assistant researcher student by the second or third academic quarter to monitor management plan implementation (mowing regularly or semi-regularly, hand-weeding, flame weeding/controlled burning, seed-saving, bulb harvesting and propagation). The intention is that the student lead will transition out of their position so that the student research aide can take their place after their one year contract is finished. At times, the two student researchers will implement the management practices themselves with the help of fellow students (through landscape architecture courses or wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ [Intellectual House]) and Carlson Center service learning volunteers. There will be programming opportunities for campus-wide volunteer work and education days, especially during April (weeding) and June (harvesting) that coincide with UW annual events like Earth Day and graduation celebrations.