Introduction to Soil Grade Level: 8th - 9thSubject: Introduction to Agriculture, Food, and Natural ResourcesDuration: 50 minutesDOK Level: 2SAMR Level: Substitution Indiana Standard: IAFNR-4.3 Identify the physical qualities of the soil that determine its use Objective: Students can define the term soil Students are able to identify and describe the 3 major types of soil   Students will be able to understand how soil is formed and its effects on soil properties. Essential Question: What is soil?Procedure: Have students write down their definition of soilHave two glass jars filled with soil setting on the table.  One jar should be labeled “soil” and the other should be labeled “dirt”.  Ask the students to describe the difference between the contents of the two jars. Give the presentation Concepts_SoilStop at slide 10 and show the video Soil Formation Part 1Continue the presentationStop at slide 17 and show the video Soil Formation Part 2Continue the presentationStop at slide 20. Have students  complete the soil textures of the given samplesContinue the presentation / wrap upProduct or Assessment: Students will be evaluated in class.  Set out three different types of soil and allow students to determine the major soil texture of each sample.  Each correct answer will be worth 5 points.

This is an introductory lab for Environmental Science, investigating the bulk density of soil and water holding capacity.

Students observe the decomposition of a pumpkin under controlled circumstances. These observations are used to take notes and develop questions.

This is a field investigation where students will explore and observe sediments within a local gravel pit and from their observation create an investigation that will help to determine the nature of the sediments.

The purpose of this resource is to develop an understanding of some of the relationships between soils of different types and water. Students will time the flow of water through soils with different properties and measure the amount of water held in these soils. They will also experiment with the filtering ability of soils by testing the pH of the water before and after it passes through the soil and observing changes to the clarity of the water and to the characteristics of the soil. Students will be able to explore the concept of Earth as a system.

Our planet is precious. Connecting to our world and becoming aware of our surroundings and ways we can keep Earth beautiful can be empowering to students and adults alike! Our goal with this project is to encourage and empower students to reduce waste in our classrooms, our school, our community and beyond!

In this Lab students focus their attention on an area significantly larger than their study site as they apply their developing knowledge of local Earth system interactions to the regional scale. Although the scale changes, the questions remain the same. How does organism or process or event "A" influence, or become changed by organism or process or event "B"? Specifically, in what ways is my local region interconnected with adjoining regions? What types of matter and energy cross the regional boundaries to help define and shape the neighboring regions?
Although students will investigate the region in which they live, the concept of a "study site" changes: instead of focusing their attention on an actual plot of land, students will investigate their region by combining their personal knowledge of the region with information they can learn from Google Earth.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

In this activity students develop a practical understanding of the causes and symptoms of drought. They read background articles and prepare a physical model to illustrate the role that soil moisture plays in preventing or promoting drought. Students use Google Earth to examine precipitation and streamflow data and use them to predict locations that are experiencing drought. They check their predictions by comparing them to a drought monitor map. In the final section, students examine and interpret the current map of the Palmer Drought Severity Index.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

America's most famous drought resulted in an environmental disaster called the Dust Bowl. From 1931 to 1939, a five-state region of the Great Plains received little rain and experienced horrendous dust storms that stripped the land of its topsoil. The event went on to shape the demographics of the American West as thousands of people migrated out of the plains and on to western states.
In this activity, students will watch a PBS video and/or interact with the video's companion website. They will also examine maps and animations that show the distribution of drought patterns over the past 300 years; these maps were reconstructed from environmental records. Finally, students will examine the amount of time different areas spend in drought.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

When populations live in areas where natural resources are scarce, conserving them becomes critical for survival. The case study presented in this lesson introduces students to a real drought that has been developing in the Colorado River basin for many years. The Colorado River is the major source of water for people in the driest part of the United States. More than 30 million people in 7 states depend on this river as the primary source of their water.
In this lesson, students discover how changes in climate over the Colorado watershed are reducing the amount of fresh water available in the river. They also see how the population of the region that uses this water has grown, resulting in increasing demands on a dwindling resource.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Waste disposal has been an ongoing problem since medieval times. Environmental engineers are employed to develop technologies to dispose of the enormous amount of trash produced in the United States. In this lesson, students will learn about the three methods of waste disposal in use by modern communities. They will also investigate how engineers design sanitary landfills to prevent leachate from polluting the underlining groundwater.

Students learn about landslides, discovering that there are different types of landslides that occur at different speeds from very slow to very quick. All landslides are the result of gravity, friction and the materials involved. Both natural and human-made factors contribute to landslides. Students learn what makes landslides dangerous and what engineers are doing to prevent and avoid landslides.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Long-term mono-cropping often suppresses plant growth, but the mechanisms behind this are poorly understood. The key may lie in the soil surrounding the plants’ roots. This region, the rhizosphere, is filled with important microbes and the carbon-containing photosynthesis products, rhizodeposits, that plants exude from their roots. Rhizodeposits are part of the link between plants and their rhizosphere microbes. So, a team of researchers examined the interactions among rhizodeposits, rhizosphere microbes, and mono-cropping long-term. They found that years of mono-cropping led to a gradual decrease in carbon deposition and the chemical diversity of the rhizodeposits. These decreases were strongly correlated with decreases in the rhizosphere microbial diversity and metabolic functioning. Mono-cropping long-term also slowly led to a decrease in the abundance of plant-beneficial microbial groups..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students leach organic matter from soil to create a water sample with high dissolved organic matter content (DOM), and then make filters to see if the DOM can be removed. They experience the difficulties of removing DOM from water, and learn about other processes that might make DOM removal more effective.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Studying the microbes present in meanders — the bendy, curvy paths of rivers — may prove to be a way of understanding much larger processes happening on the scale of entire watersheds. That’s the finding of a new study by researchers at the University of California Berkeley. Scientists tested the idea that floodplain soils share a core microbiome that can be used to predict biogeochemical processes in watersheds. The group analyzed soil samples from the upper, middle, and lower parts of Colorado’s East River. While the specific microbes from the various sections of the river differed, there was a core set of shared microbial activity across the three meanders. This included microbiomes enriched for aerobic respiration, aerobic CO oxidation, and thiosulfate oxidation with the formation of sulfur. The results suggest that meander-bound floodplains serve as functional zones that might be able to predict biogeochemical transformations in riparian zones..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students explore how different materials (sand, gravel, lava rock) with different water contents on different slopes result in landslides of different severity. They measure the severity by how far the landslide debris extends into model houses placed in the flood plain. This activity is a small-scale model of a debris chute currently being used by engineers and scientists to study landslide characteristics. Much of this activity setup is the same as for the Survive That Tsunami activity in Lesson 5 of the Natural Disasters unit.

The nitrogen cycle game helps you learn how nitrogen atoms move through various forms including soil, the atmosphere, plants and animals. Actions such as lightening, bacteria digestion, plant assimilation, plant death, animal death, herbivorism and nitrogen fixing plant bacteria move nitrogen from one form to another.

Students conduct an experiment to determine how varying the composition of a construction material affects its strength. They make several adobe bricks with differing percentages of sand, soil, fibrous material and water. They test the bricks for strength by dropping them onto a concrete surface from progressively greater heights. Students graph the experiment results and use what they learn to design their own special mix that maximizes the bricks' strength. During the course of the experiment, students learn about variables (independent, dependent, control) and the steps of the engineering design process.

How do agronomists use data to diagnose nutrient deficiencies and make prescriptions to improve soil health? In this lesson, students will act as detectives to investigate soybeans displaying unusual symptoms, and combine their visual evidence with soil data to identify nutrient deficiencies.

Against the backdrop of the devastating 1930's Dust Bowl, this video segment adapted from Interactive NOVA profiles an organic farmer and the techniques he uses to conserve topsoil.