Finding Your Place in the Prairie
Join us for our annual online conference February 12 to February 15, 2025!
Photo by Caleb Dewitt.
Finding Your Place in the Prairie
Join us for our annual conference February 12 to February 15, 2025!
Photo by Caleb Dewitt.
To download the Whova app:
Our annual virtual conference brings together people of various prairie and savanna knowledge-levels. Whether they’re just discovering prairies or are looking to deepen their skillset, we strive to provide opportunities for all to connect and learn. The 2024 conference had 568 attendees come together to learn, share and find a prairie community.
The best news? If there’s a session you’re unable to attend live or you would like to revisit, you can view the recordings for up to three months following the conference! Access to these recordings is included with all registrations.
Our 2025 “Finding Your Place in the Prairie” conference will focus on:
-
- Examining individual species examinations, connections, dependence
- Engaging volunteers and supporters to partake in land stewardship
- Showcasing the uniqueness of prairie ecosystems
- Providing opportunities to connect with fellow Prairie Enthusiasts
Register for the Conference

Share your love of prairies, savannas and other fire-dependent ecosystems by submitting a photo in these five categories: flora, fauna, seasons, landscapes and people.
You may submit up to 5 photos (only 1 per category). To submit, email Cassidy at CCoulson@ThePrairieEnthusiasts.org with the subject line “Conference Photo Contest” and include the category your photo(s) should be considered in and any other photo description(s).
Deadline to submit is Sunday, February 9 at midnight.

Share your love of prairie through poem!
Anyone who registers for the conference can submit one haiku for consideration to the discussion board on the The Prairie Enthusiasts Conference Whova platform. If you would like your haiku to be anonymously considered, email your haiku to Cassidy at CCoulson@ThePrairieEnthusiasts.org and she will include your submission anonymously on the discussion board.
Submissions will close Friday, February 14 at noon.
The winner will be chosen by poet Athena Kildegaard and read during her Friday night presentation (see details below!). The winner will be sent out in a subsequent eNewsletter and published in an upcoming issue of The Prairie Promoter.
Keynote Speakers

Dan Flores
Dan Flores is a Santa Fe, New Mexico, writer who formerly held the Chair in the History of the American West at the University of Montana. His essays have been published in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and Time Magazine. Along with appearances on the History Channel, on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown on CNN, and in The Joe Rogan Experience podcasts, he was featured in Ken Burns’s 2023 film on the story of the American buffalo.
Dan has written 11 books, the most recent of which are American Serengeti, winner of the Stubbendieck Distinguished Book Prize in 2017; Coyote America, a 2017 New York Times Bestseller, winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, and Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award; and Wild New World, winner of the 2023 Rachel Carson Environmental Book Prize, and winner of the 2023 National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature.
His keynote presentation is titled, “Loving the Prairie, Hating the Prairie, Saving the Prairie.”
To learn more about Dan and his work, click here.

Mariah Gladstone
Mariah Gladstone (Blackfeet, Cherokee) grew up in Northwest Montana. Mariah has been recognized as a “Luce Indigenous Knowledge Fellow” through the First Nations Development Institute, a “Culture of Health Leader” through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and an MIT Solve Indigenous Communities Fellow. She serves on the board of the FAST (Food Access and Sustainability Team) Blackfeet.
Mariah is founder and CEO of Indigikitchen. A portmanteau of Indigenous, digital, and kitchen, Indigikitchen is an online cooking show dedicated to re-indigenizing our diets using digital media. Using foods native to their Americas, Indigikitchen gives viewers the important tools they need to find and prepare food in their own communities.
Her cookbook, Mountains to Oceans: Kids’ Recipes From Native Land (September 2024), features 40+ kid-friendly recipes for cooking with Indigenous foods.
Her keynote presentation is titled, “A Recipe for Resilience.”
To learn more about Mariah and her work, click here.
Sponsor the Conference
Questions?
info@theprairieenthusiasts.org / (608) 676-0985
Made possible with help from:
Presenting Sponsor

Platinum Sponsor

Gold Sponsors


Silver Sponsors



Bronze Sponsors
Blue Mounds Area Project (BMAP)
Illinois Public Media
If you would like to attend the conference but need financial assistance, we can provide a discount. Please contact Cassidy Coulson for more information.
Refund Policy: Conference presentations and materials will be available on Whova for 3 months after the conference ends. Since you will be able to access all the presentations and materials whether you can attend live or not, conference tickets are non-refundable.