Broadening Soil Science Education Through On-line Lessons

土壤科学传统上把农业科学的学生视为其主要受众，未能证明土壤科学与其他学科的学生的相关性。该项目正在开发一套关于土壤的起源、发展和性质的互动式网络课程，供本科生使用。这些免费提供的课程是便携式的，可以很容易地适应许多地球科学和环境科学学科的教学目标。这种方法旨在教授对学生在大学水平的入门科学课程中理解至关重要的基本概念，同时仍然支持高级科学课程的教学目标。这些课程是利用生态学、地质学、地理学和环境科学等领域的案例研究或问题编写的，并直接与相同的原则或概念课程相结合。将土壤科学应用于不同学科的案例研究，将提高学生对土壤科学在其研究领域的重要性的认识。正在对这些技术强化课程进行评估，以帮助学生学习各学科的土壤概念，以及提高地球科学专业学生的智力参与、招生和留用。这个项目是多机构（内布拉斯加大学、俄勒冈州立大学、科罗拉多州立大学、宾夕法尼亚州三一学院）和跨学科（土壤科学、地质学、环境科学、生态学）的，因此，将使广大学生受益。

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.