About the Tallgrass Prairie

Tallgrass prairie, at one time the world’s largest ecosystem, once sprawled across North America. An ocean of grass stretched from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River, with a complex ecosystem that was equally as vast. Today, the 170 million-acre span that was once tallgrass prairie has dwindled down to an estimated 4% of its original territory, with the largest remaining unplowed area made up of the Flint Hills – a region stretching from Nebraska to Oklahoma, with Kansas in the middle.

To teach children and adults the importance of this endangered, rapidly shrinking land mass, the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center maintains a tallgrass prairie restoration on our grounds. The prairieruns between the Discovery Center’s entrance and S.W. 10th Street and includes trails and interpretive signage. The Discovery Center’s prairie sees a wide variety of wildlife, including pollinators such as monarch butterflies, native bees and hummingbirds, as well as various types of birds, turtles, toads, lizards and small mammals such as rabbits. The Powell Memorial Butterfly Garden & Monarch Waystation provides designated space for the milkweed plants monarchs need to grow.

Native prairie grass habitats take three years to fully establish. In 2014, our Native Tallgrass Prairie Restoration became three years old and we began regular burns of the prairie. Burning the native grasses is proper maintenance. Burning fertilizes the soil and promotes regeneration and species diversity. The removal of taller plants make way for sunlight to hit the smaller vegetation as it takes root. Some seeds only germinate under the presence of fire and other disturbances. It also removes invasive plants and weeds. Prairies thrive amid drought, fire and grazing due to root systems that are up to fifteen feet long.

In 2023, students from the University of Kansas School of Architecture and Design collaborated to design and construct a Pollinator Pavilion, which now serves as the entrance to the prairie. The project posed various design challenges, including the creation of a visually compelling structure that could anchor educational programs and withstand prescribed prairie burns. In addition to its practical functions, the pavilion is an intriguing piece of public art, symbolically conveying themes of adaptation, camouflage, coloring, and life cycles. The pavilion’s design mimics pollinator wings, featuring two intersecting panels made from overlapping tiles that resemble the natural pattern of feathers and scales.

In 2004, the Discovery Center dedicated two new installations of children’s artwork in the prairie designed by Topeka Public Schools’ Native American Summer Camp. Children were invited to create artwork using a butterfly template. Our team reproduced the artwork on aluminum shapes that are arranged on bicycle wheels on top of 8-foot-tall poles. They have been designed to spin freely as the wind blows through the prairie.

We invite you to walk through the prairie, view the natural habitat of many native animals and birds, enjoy the butterflies, and see how many different wildflowers you can see. The prairie is open to visitors to explore, and since it’s outside the museum grounds, admission is not required.