Rice on fire: Prairie Plot reborn through controlled burn
Rice’s Crisis Management team supervised a prescribed burn at the Prairie Plots, a 10,000 square foot plot of prairie garden on the south lawn of the James Turrell Skyspace, next to the Shepherd School of Music, on Tuesday, Feb. 28. Prescribed burning is a common practice and involves intentionally setting a controlled fire to maintain prairie vegetation. Maggie Tsang, an assistant professor at the Rice School of Architecture who created the installation, said that the Prairie Plot was installed nearly a year ago to reduce maintenance efforts for the previous turf grass.
“We’ve seen [the Prairie Plot] go through various seasons: the drought, as well as intense growing seasons into the fall and through dormancy in the winter,” Tsang said. “Part of the intention of this prescribed burn was to show how, rather than having regular mowing or maintenance and irrigation of the space, it really only requires a simple annual burn.”
Tsang said that the prescribed burn has been in the works for a few months, requiring collaboration from people and departments across Rice, including Risk Management, Crisis Management Team, the Arboretum Committee and Facilities Engineering and Planning.
“It’s the first time in recent history that we’ve done a prescribed burn, so it was really trying to understand the institutional measures and safety measures that needed to be in place so that we could conduct this burn safely,” Tsang said. “We collaborated closely with the Houston Fire Department, as well as Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to understand the various weather and climate factors that would be optimal for a safe burn.”
Jerusha Kasch, director of Institutional Crisis Management, said that CMT was present during the burn and implemented safety measures to keep burn personnel, nearby buildings and the Rice community safe.
“We [established] a secure perimeter during the burn, and RUPD [was] posted to keep onlookers clear of any danger,” Kasch wrote in an email to the Thresher. “We [maintained] alternative traffic flow – namely closing sidewalks for pedestrians and prohibiting parking for vehicles – throughout the area.”
One of the largest challenges when planning the burn was finding a set date, according to Tsang. A successful prescribed burn depends on a number of factors, including dryness, wind and humidity, which are difficult to predict in advance.
“One of the interesting things about planning for a burn is that there’s quite a lot of contingency,” Tsang said. “It’s hard to plan around uncertainty … It’s not easy to pinpoint an exact date, and that sometimes can be at odds with the planning and scheduling at a university-wide level.”
On a larger scale, Tsang said that the prescribed burn served two purposes: to maintain the natural vegetation of the land and also to keep the Rice students informed about natural ecological cycles.
“It’s important to realize that there’s a seasonality to these landscapes,” Tsang said. “My hope is that the Prairie Plots grow that awareness, even if it’s not so super direct.”
More from The Rice Thresher
NOD permanently canceled, Rice strips away-decades old campus tradition
After 50 years of decadence, Wiess College’s infamous underwear party is no more. Born in the early 1970s after a group of Wiess students poured all their alcohol into a bathtub — creating a brew “so potent it removed the varnish” — Night of Decadence has spent years in the national eye. Allegedly recognized as one of Playboy’s top college parties in the nation, NOD has also been subject to mounting scrutiny over alcohol use and an “explicitly dangerous and sexual atmosphere.” Rice has now permanently canceled the public, Dean of Undergraduates Bridget Gorman and Wiess magister Flavio Cunha announced in a message to campus June 5.
Rice Mutual Aid partners with student organizations to fundraise for Gaza
Rice Mutual Aid launched a fundraising campaign for Gaza on May 13 in partnership with 15 other student organizations at Rice, including Rice Students for Justice in Palestine, Rice Pride, the Hispanic Association for Cultural Enrichment at Rice and the Rice Muslim Student Association. RMA will direct donations towards American Near East Refugee Aid, a non-governmental organization that provides humanitarian aid and emergency relief in Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan. A day after its launch, the campaign raised over $2,000 according to RMA’s Instagram.
UCourt final case rules SA must revert to prior constitution
The University Court has ruled that the Student Association must revert back to the March 6, 2023 constitution after the proposed constitution amendment was found to have been misrepresented on this year’s ballot, University Court chair Beck Hall announced on April 24.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication by The Rice Thresher.