Publications from the Project

Authors: Campbell, et. al. Bees are fascinating creatures that play a crucial role in pollination and ecosystem health. However, misconceptions about bees are widespread. Understanding the facts about bees helps us appreciate their significance and take a...

Authors: Trundle, et. al. The average family in the U.S. uses about 320 gallons of water per day, with about 30% of that water being used for outdoor purposes like landscape irrigation (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], 2025a). The EPA (2025b) r...

Authors: Campbell, et, al. All bees belong in a group of organisms (i.e., order) called “Hymenoptera.” The word Hymenoptera comes from two ancient Greek words: "hymen," which means membrane and "pteron," which means wing.

Authors: Campbell, et. al. Citizen science, also called community-based science or participatory science, provides a way for anyone to gather data, along with scientists, around a scientific question or phenomenon.

Authors: Mohr, et. al. Companion planting is an agricultural practice in which two or more plants are intentionally grown together to enhance mutual productivity. The special relationships that plants have with other organisms help create balanced ecosyst...

Authors: Mohr, et. al. This fact sheet on organic pest management outlines sustainable gardening practices that promote ecological balance and biodiversity. It defines organic pest management as a proactive method, using natural insecticides like sulfur a...

Authors: Weber, et. al. This fact sheet explores using drones to enhance garden projects at home and in schools. It covers the benefits of drones, such as monitoring garden health, planning layouts, and assessing plant conditions through advanced imaging ...

The weather impacts every aspect of our lives, from the clothing we choose to wear each day to our travel plans and activity choices. The weather also impacts our school and home gardens and landscaping. Whenever you check the weather on your phone or any...

Chirps, cheeps, and croaks! Animals use sounds to communicate with each other, just like humans. Humans can listen in on animals by using a bioacoustic monitoring device, a passive device that quietly records surrounding sounds.

Insects and arthropods, some of the most abundant residents in school and home gardens, play many significant roles as predators, herbivores, detritivores, and parasites. Predators are particularly important in the garden because they help keep the “bad,”...

Compost, a mixture of decayed organic material, can be used as a natural way to enrich soil and fertilize plants. You can create compost for your home or school garden by using food scraps (e.g., vegetable and fruit peels, coffee grounds, tea leaves, egg ...

Trail cameras (also called game or wildlife cameras) have been used for decades to document wildlife for personal use (for example, identifying key areas frequented by game animals), education, and scientific use (documenting distributions of animals arou...

Many flowering plants and trees, as well as vegetables, are critical to healthy and biodiverse habitats. Installing a smart foodscape in which you integrate edible plants into an existing landscape is a great way to do just this! The key is to create mult...

When most people think of a home for a bee, they probably picture the white wooden hives or domeshaped skeps associated with beekeeping. Those homes are just for honeybees, a single social species of non-native bee that is kept around the world for honey ...

In the United States, many houses have roofs that allow water to flow down the sides, being directed into a rain gutter and then a downspout. Traditionally, this water is dumped into the ground, a ditch, or the street as it flows back into the ground or i...

Raised garden beds, also called garden boxes, are great for growing small plots of veggies and flowers. Raised beds are different from container gardening as they do not have bottoms; they are open to the ground, which offers the benefit of permitting pla...

Vertical gardening is the practice of in-ground gardening that grows plants up a trellis, arch, or vertical support. It can be used in container gardening by growing vertically. Some vertical gardens employ hydroponics to feed their plants. Vertical garde...

Insects play a very important role in your garden as pollinators, prey for beneficial wildlife, predators controlling insect pests, and as soil nutrient recyclers. Follow the best gardening practices below to promote insect conservation and create healthy...

Authors: Zubair Barkat, et. al. With this viewpoint, we propose the inclusion of nostalgia as a temporal and emotional thread to be woven into the key dimensions of the sense of place (SOP) framework in working landscapes: place attachment, physical-place...

Authors: Muzzo, et. al. Beef production on chemically uniform grass monocultures can limit nutrient synchrony and contribute to uneven pasture use. We evaluated whether supplementing tannins with bioactive plant secondary compounds improves foraging dynam...

Authors: Barkat, et. al. This research explores the application of feminist standpoint theory in rangeland social science to enhance theory and practice.

Authors: Muzzo, et. al. This study used random test split (RTS) and cross-validation (CV) machine learning data partition methods to test different models to classify cattle behavior, including activity and posture states as well as foraging behaviors, us...

Authors: Villalba et.al. Researchers used the MINDY model to study how adding tannin-rich legumes to grasslands affects cattle's environmental impact. Methane and nitrogen emissions increased with legume intake, but strategic legume allocation reduced env...

Authors: Muzzo et. al. Climate change is a global challenge that impacts rangeland and pastureland landscapes by inducing shifts in temperature variability, precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events. These changes alter soil and plant conditions...

Outreach and programs aimed at encouraging the adoption of conservation practices in agriculture often rely upon insights from past, current, and potential users. However, collecting feedback can be challenging, especially for innovative or complex practi...

Tannins are naturally occurring polyphenolic compounds increasingly recognized for their potential benefits to ruminants. Tannins can be extracted from plants' roots, bark, leaves, and seed husks. Management of plant communities to produce a diverse array...

Climate change is a global challenge to ecosystem services, altering crop yields and food security worldwide. In the context of climate change, Onobrychis viciifolia Scop. (sainfoin) can offer a multitude of ecosystem services conferred by its multifacete...

Plant secondary compounds (PSCs) were thought to be waste products of plant metabolism when first identified in the mid-1800 s. Since then, many different roles have been recognized for these chemicals

Legumes and forbs contain bioactives or plant secondary compounds (PSC) with potential to enhance animal health through their antibiotic, antioxidant and immunomodulatory properties that are evident even at small dietary concentrations. In turn, ruminants...

Feed is the greatest input cost for cattle producers. The studies summarized here employed non-bloating, tannin-containing irrigated perennial legume pastures or hay of legumes or a hydrolysable tannin-containing forb that were grown in the Mountain West ...

Western rangelands are dominated by native and exotic cool-season grass species. These species exhibit high forage nutritive value in Spring but decline in early Summer as the plant approaches maturity. To address this, costly protein supplementation is o...

Approximately six million beef calves are produced annually in the western U.S., and ranchers must maintain profitable operations while addressing the growing number of consumers seeking environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable food. In res...

The nutritional value of grasslands declines as the season progresses, negatively impacting cattle nutrition. Protein supplementation may reverse this trend, although high rates of ruminal proteolysis reduce the efficiency of N utilization.

The following garden-based, interdisciplinary STEAM lesson challenges students to consider the costs of planting, watering, and growing a garden. Students use mathematical thinking to determine if gardening is worth the cost and reward.

During this lesson, students engage with the phenomenon of the coevolution of structures of pollen and pollinators and their functions. Students collect pollen, prepare pollen slides, and make observations of the features and structures of pollen. Next, s...

Children are full of wonder concerning the natural world. They instinctively ask how, what, and why questions about their surroundings. Fostering this interest supports the development of children’s ideas about the world and their budding understanding of...

What do birds and bees have to do with flowers and trees? How do pollinators connect to this thing called “love”? This 3-D lesson distinguishes itself from classic flower dissection lessons in that we tell the flowering plant story from the perspectiv

Social connections are crucial for today’s middle and high school students. We address this social need through a 3-H Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Cycle. Through the Three Sisters Garden activity presented here, we teach secondary school students a...

Authors: Vela et al. A real-world integrated activity allows middle school students to design a scale drawing for a garden at their school.