Rangeland Project

What is it All About?

Wisconsin has a vast array of rangeland to explore. This project allows you to study rangeland plant types and how/where they grow. You can learn more about the habitat and nutritional resources rangelands provide for livestock and wildlife. Identify, collect, and develop a management plan to benefit the needs to the rangeland.

Grow in Your Project

Starting Out

Understand what rangeland is including concepts of topography, ecosystems, forbs, grasses, shrubs, and wetlands
Use observation and interpretation skills to identify the water cycle in rangeland
Identify grazers and browsers that may utilize the rangeland
Understand how grazing animals can digest grasses

Learning More

Gain better understanding of the parts of an ecosystem
Identify microclimates and know what causes them
Explain how microclimates and an animal’s ecological niche are connected
Learn the steps of primary succession from bare rock to grassland formation
Know what causes secondary succession

Going Further

Understand sustainable ways to manage rangeland
Identify local land issues and investigate possible solutions
Learn historical rangeland events
Learn about local land use and the history of local lands
Learn more about the agencies that work with landowners on range management issues

Resources

5311 At Home on the Range

Take Your Project Further!

Contact the University of Wisconsin Department of Ecosystem Science and Management to tour or help with local range plots
Take a range tour to identify plants that live there
Build a plant press and collect range plants and grasses to press
Seed your own native grass nursery or complete your own grass trials
Create and implement a range improvement plan
Evaluate strategic locations for placing salt that will enhance grazing management
Understand different monitoring systems and use in grazing plan
Learn about differed grazing systems
Learn animal stocking rates
Leave about wildlife and livestock interaction on the range
Explore the difference between warm and cool season grasses
Learn the different between native grass and introduced grass

Applying Project Skills to Life

Enhance Your Communication Skills

Do a demonstration on ways to sustainably manage land
Research internship opportunities in the Natural Resources field
Develop a video about water on the rangeland

Get Involved in Citizenship and Service

Participate in a highway cleanup effort
Volunteer with a land management agency to gain a better understanding of their role in range management
Participate in a Conservation District work day

Learn about Leadership

Host a range tour for your club or community
Contact your local University of Wisconsin Extension Outdoor Educators or the Bureau of Land Management Office and ask them to give a talk at your club meeting
Teach others how to identify range plants

Showing What You’ve Learned

Pictures of rangeland during different times of the year
Plant press
Poster on rangeland careers
Display of a ruminant digestive system
Explain how forages are broken down
Poster on range animals
Grass and rangeland plant dentification display
Poster on grass palatability
Display of a microclimate
Make a rangeland monitoring notebook
Display about common range disturbances
Display of range plants that will and will not grow in Wisconsin
Display of clipped and weigh grasses
Poster on differences in stocking rates of various classes of livestock
Parts of range plants
Display on home domestic grazing animals and wildlife species eat
Results of a clipping study

Adapted with permission from Wyoming State 4-H, Project Information Sheet, Rangeland. Retrieved from: https://www.uwyo.edu/4-h/projects/natural-resource-education/range-management.html

*Resources available at your local Extension office or shop4-H.org.

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