Lessons and Activities

Students alter distribution of pore sizes in school garden soil and observe the effects of irrigation or rainfall on water infiltration/capture, runoff rate, and/or water ponding.

This poster is rich with information on the 12 orders of soil taxonomy - including images of each. The reverse side provides information on what is the soil taxonomy, a cool map of the US with the soil orders, information on how soils are mapped, soil surveys, and why soils are different. This is designed for the high school, college, and technical level.

Illustrates the factors influencing soil formation and relates these factors to the climate and living plants and animals that are found in the various biomes.

Students explore the wide scope of agriculture, identify the variety of agricultural products and by-products they use in their daily lives, and discuss the difference between needs and wants.

An article about a university student who was participating in a project in which students search through local soil samples for new phages—viruses that infect and kill bacteria.

Students learn about rain garden construction, and eventually student groups create personal rain gardens within surrounding community.

Students travel back in time to the year 1100 AD as serfs, and carry out soil investigations to propose solutions for the problem of poor wheat production on a feudal manor.

A variety of activities for multiple grades with hints on how to tie technology into the lessons.

A distinction between alpine and tundra soils

A movie about tundra soils and the impacts of climate change.

By dividing the soil environments into a model of an apartment building--with inhabitants on the basement, ground level, and upper levels--students learn what animals make homes in each soil habitat.

An article about the discovery of certain clays with antibacterial properties that may eventually lead to new agents in the fight against antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

Students will learn how limited productive soil is as a natural resource on Earth. The students will visually see how very little soil there is available for growing all of the food, fiber, and lumber for the ever growing world population.

Why soil is a scarce, limited, natural resource and needs to be conserved. Show how much of the earth's surface is used in the production of the food, fiber, and lumber used to feed, clothe, and shelter the people on Earth

In this audio slideshow, an ecologist from the University of Florida describes the radiocarbon dating technique that scientists use to determine the amount of carbon within the permafrost of the Arctic tundra.