The Hidden Prairie within Morrill Hall

Chris Helzer, a local nature photographer and Nebraska director of science at The Nature Conservancy, was looking for a new way to tell people why prairies are interesting and important when he came up with the idea of proving the diversity of prairies on a smaller scale. And so the project “Hidden Prairie” was born.

Helzer’s project originally started as a book that features images and stories about the species he discovered in a square meter over a year in Lincoln Creek Prairie in Aurora, close to where Helzer lives. “Hidden Prairie” was published in May of 2020 but has since extended beyond...