For students that have already been introduced to the water cycle this lesson is intended as a logical follow-up. Students will learn about human impacts on the water cycle that create a pathway for pollutants beginning with urban development and joining the natural water cycle as surface runoff. The extent of surface runoff in an area depends on the permeability of the materials in the ground. Permeability is the degree to which water or other liquids are able to flow through a material. Different substances such as soil, gravel, sand, and asphalt have varying levels of permeability. In this lesson, along with the associated activities, students will learn about permeability and compare the permeability of several different materials for the purpose of engineering landscape drainage systems.

Los estudiantes exploran la conexion entre la temperatura de los suelos y la germinacion de las semillas.

In this course we will explore topics from disciplines within the solid Earth sciences. In each lesson, we'll also touch on some ways the topic links to other scientific disciplines. Each unit is designed to present both the cutting-edge science as well as the background a secondary-school student (or her teacher) would need to place the research in context. Gaining an appreciation of how scientists choose the subjects they study is as fundamental to Earth science as the discovery of the facts themselves. You will learn appropriate state-of-the-art scientific content relevant to each topic by performing basic data analysis using publicly available data so that you will be able to use the data and lessons in any courses you teach.

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:

"Plants evolved in a world dominated by prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbes. Underneath the surface, plant roots interact with microbes in the soil – the rhizosphere microbiome. But although bacteria and fungi are well-studied in the rhizosphere, other components, including viruses and protists, are less well understood. To better understand the extent to which biological and environmental factors shape protist communities, researchers analyzed protist communities associated with the rhizosphere and bulk soil of switchgrass plants in different developmental stages. They found that the diversity of protists was lower in the rhizosphere than in the bulk soil and that the composition of protist communities changed through the different phenological stages of the plant..."

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

Students explore the physical science behind the causes of quicksand and become familiar with relationship between concepts such as total stress, pore pressure, and effective stress. Students also relate these concepts to soil liquefaction—a major concern during earthquakes. Students begin the activity by designing a simple device to test the effects of quicksand on materials of different densities and weights. They prototype a support structure that works to prevent a heavy object from sinking into quicksand. At the end of the activity, students reflect on the engineering design process and consider the steps civil engineers take in designing sturdy buildings and other structures.

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:

"Underground organisms are critical to supporting plant life above the ground. While the availability of nutrients above and below is likely to affect this lifeline, it’s unclear how. To find out, researchers monitored soil microbes across Chinese National Ecosystem Research Network (CERN) under two conditions with either low or high amounts of nutrient resources. Data showed that the availability of resources affected how the functional traits of organisms in each ecosystem achieved stability. In systems with low resources, stability was achieved mostly by interactions between organisms occupying the same trophic level of their food web. In contrast, systems with high resources achieved stability through microbial interactions across different trophic levels. These multi-trophic interactions ultimately helped ensure the stability of overall plant biomass..."

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

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:

"Plant health is essential for food production, but plants are often affected by pathogens that can threaten plant performance including crop yield. Unfortunately, we can often only predict plant health when pathogens have infected plants and can no longer be controlled – and by then it is too late. To counteract pathogens, farmers often apply extensive amounts of pesticides throughout plant growth. But excessive pesticide use is costly and affects the biodiversity of the surrounding species. A recent study sought to find a way to predict plant health before planting. Researchers investigated different classes of soil microbes throughout the growth of tomato plants. They found that bacterial predators called protists were the best predictors of pathogen dynamics in growing plants..."

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

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:

"The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is the driest nonpolar desert on Earth. The almost complete lack of precipitation means that it can support very little life, especially in its hyperarid core. But this core region harbors expansive fields of ancient boulders that scientists think could shelter unique microbes from the extreme desert environment. To find out, researchers used DNA sequencing techniques to compare the microbes inhabiting the soil directly beneath the Atacama Desert boulders and in the open areas beside them. They found a substantial difference in these microbial communities, with significantly more archaea occupying the soil below the boulders than beside them. Remarkably, the team also discovered that many of these archaea belong to a completely new genus of Thaumarchaeota archaea, which they named Candidatus Nitrosodeserticola. These archaea harbor genes involved in ammonia oxidation, carbon fixation, acetate metabolism, and the ability to tolerate extreme environmental conditions..."

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

Students investigate the critical nature of foundations as they learn differences between shallow and deep foundations, including the concepts of bearing pressure and settlement. Using models representing a shallow foundation and a deep pile foundation, they test, see and feel the effects in a cardboard box test bed composed of layers of pebbles, soil and sand. They also make bearing pressure calculations and recommendations for which type of foundations to use in various engineering scenarios.

This class presents a detailed study of soil properties with emphasis on interpretation of field and laboratory test data and their use in soft-ground construction engineering. Topics to be covered include: consolidation and secondary compression; basic strength principles; stress-strain strength behavior of clays, emphasizing effects of sample disturbance, anisotropy, and strain rate; strength and compression of granular soils; and engineering properties of compacted soils. Some knowledge of field and laboratory testing is assumed for all students.

The online Soil Biology Primer is an introduction to the living component of soil and how it contributes to agricultural productivity and air and water quality. The Primer includes chapters describing the soil food web and its relationship to soil health and chapters about soil bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, and earthworms.

The online Primer includes all of the text of the printed original, but not all of the images of the soil organisms. The full story of the soil food web is more easily understood with the help of the illustrations in the printed version.

Over the course of three sessions, students act as agricultural engineers and learn about the sustainable pest control technique known as soil biosolarization in which organic waste is used to help eliminate pests during soil solarization instead of using toxic compounds like pesticides and fumigants. Student teams prepare seed starter pots using a source of microorganisms (soil or compost) and “organic waste” (such as oatmeal, a source of carbon for the microorganisms). They plant seeds (representing weed seeds) in the pots, add water and cover them with plastic wrap. At experiment end, students count the weed seedlings and assess the efficacy of the soil biosolarization technique in inactivating the weed seeds. An experiment-guiding handout and pre/post quizzes are provided.

Students learn about contamination and pollution, specifically in reference to soil in and around rivers. To start, groups use light sensors to take light reflection measurements of different colors of sand (dyed with various amounts of a liquid food dye), generating a set of "soil" calibration data. Then, they use a stream table with a simulated a river that has a scattering of "contaminated wells" represented by locations of unknown amounts of dye. They make visual observations and use light sensors again to take reflection measurements and refer to their earlier calibration data to determine the level of "contamination" (color dye) in each well. Acting as engineers, they determine if their measured data is comparable to visual observations. The small-scale simulated flowing river shows how contamination can spread.

Students learn about one method used in environmental site assessments. They practice soil sampling by creating soil cores, studying soil profiles and characterizing soil profiles in borehole logs. They use their analysis to make predictions about what is going on in the soil and what it might mean to an engineer developing the area.

This lesson from Common Thread Farms is geared for elementary ages, grades 1-4. It introduces students to erosion and then challenges them to implement a design that will mitigate erosion on a model dirt mountain.

Students learn the basics about soil, including its formation, characteristics and importance. They are also introduced to soil profiles and how engineers conduct site investigations to learn about soil quality for development, contamination transport, and assessing the general environmental health of an area.

Soil and Water Conservation: An Annotated Bibliography highlights freely-available online resources covering various aspects of soil and water conservation, and is designed to be a resource for conservation students and practitioners. The thirteen chapters in the annotated bibliography are grouped into four sections, including History and Fundamentals, Conservation Practices, Conservation Implementation, and Careers. Types of cited resources include extension bulletins, USDA NRCS conservation practice standards, and other government reports and resources. Cited resources are generally concise, easily read, and meant for general audiences. Annotations and images are used to provide context for each resource. Many contributors made Soil and Water Conservation: An Annotated Bibliography possible through their assistance with technical edits, outline development, identifying resources, or writing annotations. Chapter authors are experts and practitioners of soil and water conservation, or students of soil and water conservation who worked under the supervision of the editor, Colby Moorberg. The annotated bibliography is used as the primary text for Kansas State University’s AGRON 635 – Soil and Water Conservation, which is taught by Moorberg.

Students will be able to describe the types of soil erosion and explain the methods for prevention