photo by: Bremen Keasey

The visitor center at Prairie Park Nature Center in Lawrence is pictured Wednesday, July 24, 2024.

Haskell Indian Nations University and the City of Lawrence have entered a five-year agreement to offer educational activities and research programs at the Prairie Park Nature Center.

The nature center, a 100-acre preserve at 2730 Harper St., close to Haskell, provides Haskell staff and student interns the opportunity to give an Indigenous perspective and knowledge of the land, culture and methodologies through new events, on-site research and classes funded through the university’s U.S. Department of Agriculture Extension program.

Mackie Moore, head of the extension program and the dean of business at Haskell, said the program would offer a chance for students to conduct research and hold internships that could expand their careers and help local communities.

“Haskell students and staff have a responsibility to Lawrence and the greater community and vested interests in them, and we are stronger together through partnerships like this,” Moore said in a news release Wednesday.

Already, some Haskell students have completed internships at the center, where they have conducted summer youth programs, researched native grasses and helped with prairie restoration. The work provides real-world experience for the students and the expansion of Indigenous knowledge on land management.

Luis Ruiz, the director of Lawrence’s Parks, Recreation and Culture Department, said the collaboration would help promote environmental awareness, sustainability and respect for nature and add new programs.

“It will allow us to enrich environmental education at the nature center and offer valuable insights into the cultures of Indigenous people and their relationship with the environment,” Ruiz said.

Moore said the internship program encourages Haskell’s students to “not spend all their time on campus” and get them into the Lawrence community. Moore said students from many different academic disciplines — not just the sciences — have benefited from the internships, like business majors who helped create new signage or marketing material for the park.

The Prairie Park Nature Center has created other partnerships with Haskell, including a program stemming from a $71,000 grant to help restore and monitor the waterfront at nearby Mary’s Lake, as the Journal-World reported back in August.