Page 8 • The ReMarker • April 13, 2018 • News
SAVING WHAT HE CAN Alpha male
Junior Trevor Burke is trying to save the rapidly shrinking Blackland Prairie. Working with many different organizations, he’s bringing the prairie closer to a healthier size and state.
James Rogers: What exactly is the Blackland Prairie? Trevor Burke: The way the Blackland Prairie works is that it’s this stretch of land up from the tip of southern Oklahoma all the way down to San Antonio. It’s a thin strip of land that used to be about 20 million acres in area, and now it’s less than 5000 acres. The Blackland Prairie had very rich black soil, which is where it gets its name. JR: What has been causing the reduction in size of the area? TB: Throughout history, because it was so fertile, many farmers used the land to let cattle graze and planted crops on it. Unfortunately, the prairie grasslands can grow relatively fast but not nearly as fast as the cows eating the grass. Cows despise the Blackland Prairie grasses, so the keen farmers would plant Johnson grass, which is similar to a weed that grows really fast, and the cows love it. This began crowding out other native
grasses in fields until all that was left was Johnson grasses. JR: What organizations have you worked with in your conservation efforts along with Boy Scouts? TB: The Connemara Conservancy, the Twelve Hills Nature Center and the Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area. It’s become almost a hobby. Some of what I do fits into the realm of Boy Scouts, and some doesn’t. I do it because it’s fun, and I really enjoy helping out and making an impact. JR: Describe your experience as one of the speakers for the TEDx event at SMU. TB: The TEDx experience was really cool for me. I’ve had a lot of experience with the TEDx people in my life. I was initially a participant there in the seventh grade, and in recent years I was an attendee chaperone, so I helped herd the other participants who came to the TED talk. This past year, I sent in a script and
• Story James Rogers Photo Courtesy Trevor Burke
FOR THE PRAIRIE Junior Trevor Burke learns all that he can about the small bobwhite quail to teach more kids about the Blackland Prairie bird.
applied to be a speaker. I filled out my idea about saving the Blackland Prairie and making a difference. They really enjoyed my idea and thought I could give a good talk, so they accepted me. I definitely wanted to work really hard to make sure [my speech] was a good image and a good representation of all the work I have done. I worked really long over the Thanksgiving break in typing it up and memorizing it. JR: What was your role in We day? TB: My official title for We day was Social Media Champion. I was a volunteer there, and I helped out the Social Media team. All the speakers sent in their speeches, and the team snagged excerpts from the speech that sounded really empowering. I also played a game called Plinko. I
plopped [the disc] in, and it ended up in one of the $1000 spots on the bottom. That money goes to the school. JR: Looking forward, do you anticipate continuing your environmental conservation work? TB: I absolutely intend to continue on with my efforts to save the Blackland Prairie. Right now, I’ve done a number of projects with the conservation of prairie grasses. I’ve moved on to the conservation of endangered animals, and I want to work to restore the full environment as much as possible. I do definitely plan to make an impact wherever I am for any conservation effort, whether it’s this Blackland Prairie or another endangered environment. I’d hate to see any sort of environment go extinct. I plan to make a difference wherever I can and encourage others to do the same.