Can You Find the alien plant species
and the road into Fort Spokane?

                                                                                    Photo Credit: Mark Goddard

We often look out over dramatic and beautiful landscapes and interpret what we see as the "natural landscape."  We take for granted that many of the plant species we see are truly indigenous species to the area, while others that seem out of place are native.

Aliens In Your Landscape is designed to help students look at the landscape with a critical eye, to understand the impact of humans upon the landscape, and provide critical thinking skills towards the day that they too, may have an unintended impact on the land.

The photo was taken at Fort Spokane, Washington, 
on the upper Columbia River of the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area.
With a background of lupine, the foreground of green vegetation just below the lupine hides the road into Fort Spokane, while cheatgrass, mixed in with the foreground grasses, spreads like a living wildfire, consuming natives in it's path.

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