Broadening Soil Science Education Through On-line Lessons

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Soil science has traditionally looked to students in agricultural science as its primary audience and failed to demonstrate the relevance of soil science to students from other disciplines. This project is developing a set of interactive web-based lessons on the origins, development, and properties of soils for use by undergraduates. These freely available lessons are portable and can easily fit the instructional objectives of many Geoscience and Environmental science disciplines. The approach is intended to teach fundamental concepts that are critical for students to understand in introductory college-level science courses, while still underpinning the instructional objectives of advanced science courses. The lessons are being developed using case studies or problems in areas such as ecology, geology, geography, and environmental sciences and are directly integrated with the same principles or concept lessons. Application of soil science to case studies in various disciplines will enhance student appreciation for the importance of soil science in their field of study. These technology-enhanced lessons are being evaluated for student learning of soil concepts in various disciplines, as well as for enhanced intellectual engagement, recruitment, and retention of students in the earth sciences. This project is multi-institutional (University of Nebraska, Oregon State University, Colorado State University, Trinity College Pennsylvania) and inter-disciplinary (Soil Science, Geology, Environmental Science, Ecology), and thus, will benefit a broad population of students.