Robert Loeb: Using the A Growing Concern Module in Introductory Soil Science at Pennsylvania State University-Penn State DuBois

About this Course

Introductory course for majors in the agricultural and earth sciences.

students

Online but equivalent to

three 50 minute lecture sessions

per week

Syllabus for Soils 101 (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 27kB Jun8 16)

Show the catalog description of my course

Show more about the course goals and content

The course goal is to introduce you to the study of soil properties and processes and relationships to land use, plant growth, environmental quality, and society.
The six course objectives are listed as follows.
Examine a range of soil characteristics and seek to understand their relationship to soil function, land use, plant growth, environmental quality, and society/culture.

Introduce the variety and complexity of soils on a local, national, and international scale.

Identify the physical, chemical, and biological properties and processes of soils and relate these to the way that societies use and abuse soils.

Introduce the technical terminology of soil science and begin developing observational skills needed to describe and/or locate soil properties for specific locations and to interpret those properties for various uses.

Recognize and explain various land use and management practices and to select those that are appropriate at a given site.

Evaluate the impact of land use and management decisions on agricultural productivity and sustainability, environmental and ecological health, and on community relationships.

A Success Story in Building Student Engagement

The goal of Introductory Soil Science is to introduce the study of soil properties and processes and their relationships to land use, plant growth, environmental quality, and society. My offering of the course is online and serves a population of students who are primarily majors in the agricultural and earth sciences. Transforming the six units of a Growing Concern from the face-to-face format to the on-line setting resulted in valuable additions in regard to environmental quality and society.

Students in an introductory course are typically receiving a great deal of knowledge and conceptual frameworks but the Growing Concern module enabled me to add components that gave the students opportunities to integrate and translate their learning into public oriented products, which are much like what will be expected from them in their professional roles.

My Experience Teaching with InTeGrateMaterials

The six units of the Growing Concern module were transformed from the face-to-face format to be a project in the online course.

Relationship of InTeGrate Materials to my Course

The Introductory Soil Science course was offered in a 15-week semester. Before the project was open to the students, they completed the course components on soil formation and soil classification. The project was not integrated into the course sequence but instead the units were used to build to the outcome of creating a informational document for use by the public.

A Unit-by-Unit Breakdown of How I Taught this Module

The transformation from the face-to-face orientation of the learning process in the units of A Growing Concern to the on-line setting was a conservative process. I went in with the assumption of keeping the parallel structure of PowerPoint documents for illustrations and a separate instructions document that included the assessments. The following statements briefly describe areas of emphasis I made in adapting the learning objects in the six units.

For Unit 1 Impacts of Land Use, I emphasized the comparison of natural landscapes to agricultural landscapes and the relative severity of erosion in both landscapes.

For Unit 2 Soil Characteristics and Their Relationship to Land Use Practices, the components on soil porosity and permeability were not emphasized as much as the students modelling the role of the soil assessment expert.

For Unit 3 Exploring Natural and Agricultural Erosion Rates, the images of natural and agriculture were quickly reviewed so that the students could focus on comparing erosion rates associated with natural and agricultural landscapes and gain an appreciation of the need to view erosion associated with agricultural from the soil sustainability perspective.

For Unit 4 Using SoilWeb to Investigate the Soil Beneath You, I was concerned about the value of the unit, since the students in my class use the SoilWeb for an exercise. Of great value to me was the jigsaw activity comparing local soil erosion rates, soil horizons, and soil organic matter and how the comparisons informed decision making about alternative solutions which reduce the losses of soil resources.

Unit 5 Predicting the Effects of Climate Change on Soil Loss added systems analysis to my course. The unit wisely started with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) to provide the basis for performing the systems analysis by well defining rainfall-runoff erosivity, soil erodibility, slope characteristics, cover management, and agricultural support practices. The systems analysis diagramming process was learned and applied by the students to create a systems model.

Unit 6 Creating an Agricultural Fact Sheet was the big outcome I was hoping to have the students achieve as result of using the Growing Concern module. The icing on the cake was the unit's focus on the effects of climate change on erosion in guiding the students' work on producing the Fact Sheet for landowners.

Assessments

There was no need for me to develop assessments beyond those created for A Growing Concern. Matter of fact, I did not use all of the assessments available because I found some to be beyond the scope of my course. Of course, there was a need for me to modify the instructions to go from the face-to-face setting to the on-line setting. For me, the key assessments were the systems diagram and the agricultural fact sheet because the students were able to demonstrate their higher order understanding of the information and concepts presented in the module.

Outcomes

My vision for implementing the Growing Concern module was for the students to gain experience with systems thinking and translating their learning into recommendations to the public for changing practices in order to reduce soil losses. Specifically, my goals for the students were to be able to produce a systems diagram for reducing soil erosion and an agricultural fact sheet providing information and recommendations. The diagrams and fact sheets submitted by the students well demonstrated that they could analyze problems using systems thinking and transform their knowledge into statements that are comprehensible by the public.

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