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Community Spotlight: A Pocket Prairie for Channelview, TX
Channelview High School students and community members worked together to install a pocket prairie at the local sports complex. Credit: Kate Unger
In April of 2025, culminating two years of community engagement work and NWF’s Resilient Schools and Communities (RiSC) program at Channelview High School, NWF and our local partners created a Pocket Prairie at the Channelview Sports Complex in Channelview, Texas. The beauty of this project lies in the collaboration. It was chosen, implemented and funded, in part, by the Channelview community and thoughtfully lead by 10th-12th grade teacher and Interact Club Sponsor, Ms. Erica Villareal and her students at Channelview High School.
Through teamwork, challenges, and a deep love for our community, our pocket prairie will demonstrate how larger environmental issues can be addressed through small scale projects which could be repeated in other community areas or at our homes to shape a more sustainable and hopeful future. This is more than a garden. It’s a movement. It’s Change for Channelview!
– Carolyn Stone, with Channelview Health and Improvement Coalition (C.H.I.C.)
The RiSC Program
The goal of the Resilient Schools and Communities (RiSC) program and curriculum is to increase the climate science and resilience knowledge, and critical thinking skills, of middle and high school teachers and students, and to also empower them to build resilience in their communities.
Resilience can be thought of as adapting to changing conditions in a way that increases the well-being of communities and improves the health of the natural environment.
NWF launched RiSC – Houston, in 2018 in response to Hurricane Harvey as a two-year program for high school students in the greater Houston area. RiSC empowers students, teachers, and community members in marginalized communities to be watershed stewards.
Through a watershed study and vulnerability assessment of their community, students apply critical thinking skills to identify and design practical, nature-based solutions to mitigate flooding such as rain gardens and pocket prairies that will reduce storm water run-off and the associated pollutants from entering the water supply.
Students learn how efforts to make their communities more resilient to real and increasing threats of flooding also contributes to the health of Galveston Bay. First year projects are campus based and second year projects are community based.
What is a Pocket Prairie?
A pocket prairie is a small prairie (under one acre) that is rich in native plant diversity and a haven for songbirds, pollinators, and small mammals. Many prairie plants have deep roots which help control erosion. They also help slow down and absorb stormwater runoff, filter out pollutants, improve water quality, and sequester carbon. Once established, pocket prairies are highly resilient and drought tolerant.
Community Engagement in Channelview
NWF and our community-based partner, Channelview Health and Improvement Coalition (C.H.I.C.) spent two years laying the groundwork for a successful student-led community-based project. The first year was spent facilitating conversations and getting to know the community’s needs through a series of community engagement sessions.
The sessions were designed to help NWF understand the environmental and cultural history of the city, how the community has been affected by flooding, what resilience projects are taking place in the community, what community green spaces exist, their relationship to those spaces and their top environmental concerns.
While air pollution is a huge concern in Channelview, it was agreed that given the parameters of this project, flooding and heat were the top issues the community could help address. At the final meeting, student leaders from Channelview High School presented to the community about the solution they chose to mitigate flooding on their campus—a rain garden.
During the 2024-2025 school year, with the help of TBG Partners (a landscape architecture firm), students practiced what they had learned during the previous school year, and helped the community determine what type of resilience project would benefit the city and where they would like to locate it.
After four community meetings, it was agreed to implement a pocket prairie at the Channelview Sports Complex to help mitigate flooding and to serve as a community amenity that would add biodiversity and provide a place to relax and enjoy wildlife viewing opportunities.
What interested me about this project was that I get to be part of something that can change people’s lives by taking care of the community and making sure we have a safe and healthy environment.
– Channelview High student
Why Channelview, TX?
A major concern about flooding in cities is that the residents who are most vulnerable, those who live in the lowest-lying areas or in neighborhoods without green space to absorb water, are often poor and members of minority groups. The Greater Houston region highlights a prime example of this.
Channelview, TX is a marginalized community and Channelview High School is a Title I High School serving predominantly students of color—where 79% of the student population is economically disadvantaged.
Communities like Channelview have been historically underrepresented. Nature-based solutions to a changing climate, such as those presented in the RiSC program, are scalable and easily replicable providing a more economical approach to flood mitigation and improved water quality.
Project Implementation
The community selected a highly visible 1,000 square foot area at the Channelview Sports Complex close to a pavilion and picnic tables. On April 10th our project partners removed sod from a 1,000 square foot site. The following day, 22 students from Channelview High School helped prepare the site for planting.
They dug post holes for a rope fence that would create the border of the prairie and help prevent mowing while the prairie establishes itself. These kids dug down 24” to place a total of 30 posts—wow! The students worked incredibly hard and were super focused on the job. After setting all the posts, they spread the 10 yards of topsoil that were delivered to the site.
On Saturday morning, community volunteers and students spread the remaining soil, participated in a wildflower seed stomp, and then planted 305 native plants! In the afternoon, a wonderful group of students from Texas Southern University (TSU) helped water all of the plants. Next steps include creating interpretive signage and the occasional rain dance!
A huge shout out to our dedicated local project partners: Channelview High School, Channelview ISD Education Foundation, Channelview ISD, Channelview Health & Improvement Coalition (C.H.I.C.), Harris County Precinct 3, LyondellBasell and the North Shore Rotary Club, and also to the Galveston Bay Foundation, Houston Parks and Recreation Department, Coastal Prairie Conservancy for the valuable field experiences they provided students and to TBG Partners for their guidance and technical knowledge.
I really enjoyed learning how nature and city planning connect, especially seeing how green spaces can help fight climate change and protect our communities.
– Channelview High student
Learn more about the RiSC program on our program page here.
