Connecting Soils and Glacial Geology
This lab activity allows students to connect soil information to geologic processes/history.
Context
Audience: This activity was designed for an upper division undergraduate course in geomorphology. This activity could also be used for a soil pedology course.
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered: This activity assumes that students are familiar with glacial landforms and associated sediment types, as well as a basic understanding of soil profile descriptions. No prior knowledge of Soil Survey's is needed, although I generally begin with some background information.
How the activity is situated in the course: This activity is a stand-alone excercise completed in lab.
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity: Demonstrate the ability to find soils information using a soil survey, identification of landforms from soils and topographic maps
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity: Analyze and interpret soil profile descriptions and soil maps, connect soils information to geologic processes
Other skills goals for this activity:
Description of the activity/assignment
The goal of this activity is to provide students an opportunity to connect soil science to surficial geology by using a Soil Surveys. By the end of the activity, students should be able to use a Soil Survey to identify and interpret landforms and surficial features. This activity can be adapted to variety of process (ex. eolian deposits, glacial deposits, bedrock weathering, etc.). County-level soil surveys are available in both paper and online formats for the majority of the United States.
Designed for a geomorphology course
Has minimal/no quantitative component
Determining whether students have met the goals
Assessment is based on their hand-in sheet.
More information about assessment tools and techniques.Download teaching materials and tips
- Activity Description/Assignment (Acrobat (PDF) 21kB May2 08)
Other Materials
Supporting references/URLs
