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Local students continue habitat restoration on public lands in Gas Hills; nearly 7,000 sagebrush seedlings planted to date

Dec 3, 2024

LANDER, Wyo. – The Bureau of Land Management partnered this fall with Fort Washakie Middle School, Lander Middle School, Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and other partners to continue a sagebrush habitat restoration project on public lands in central Wyoming.

Students and volunteers planted, watered and placed protective cages around more than 1,200 seedlings across 2 acres at an abandoned uranium mine in the Gas Hills.

Lander Middle School students have participated in the Abandoned Mine Land (AML) Native Plants Project for six years and have planted over 6,300 sagebrush plants across almost 15 acres at two mine sites. This year, Fort Washakie Middle School students were able to participate for the first time. They planted 665 seedlings.

A group of young people watch and listen as a BLM employee shows them how to plant a sagebrush seedling. — BLM AML Archaeologist Gina Clingerman demonstrates how to plant sagebrush seedling to Lander Middle School 8th grade students.

“It’s so important for young people to experience the outdoors like this, to see an area that was once extensively mined be turned back to the mule deer and antelope that we see on the hillsides as we plant,” said Gina Clingerman, project manager and BLM AML archaeologist.

The annual planting project begins early in the school year with special in-classroom education days for the students who have volunteered. Team leaders teach about the importance of habitat restoration and sagebrush steppe ecosystem threats.

Planting days pair students with adults from the BLM, WDEQ and other state agencies, local organizations, and other environmental and cultural scientists who live and work in the community. The outdoor classroom provides the students with experiential education related to STEM disciplines and careers, public lands, and environmental issues. Interactions between the students and adult volunteers have been meaningful.

Adults and young people plant sagebrush seedlings in an open, grassy landscape. — John Westenhoff from WDEQ-AML Division plants with Lander Middle School 8th grade students.

“I want the students to see that science is not purely done in a lab...that you can have a passion for wide open spaces and wild places, and build a career in science around that passion,” said Clingerman.

Established in 2017, the AML Native Plants Project began as a collaborative partnership between the BLM’s AML Program, WDEQ AML Division, and the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement. This partnership has grown to include other agencies like Fremont County Weed and Pest and the Popo Agie Conservation District, as well as non-government organizations including the Institute for Applied Ecology, Wyoming Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservancy, and the Wyoming Outdoor Council.

For more information, please contact Gina Clingerman at gclinger@blm.gov.