Initial Publication Date: January 13, 2021

Explore - Part 2 State Soil, Horizons and Soil Formation

Key Point: Soil horizons have different origins and characteristics

Part A. Know Your State Soil

Time required: 45 minutes
  1. Hand out the State Soils booklet from your local state. Booklets available here: State Soils booklet.
    Additional resources are listed in Module 1. State Soil Worksheet
  2. Use the pictures in the State Soils book and The Twelve Orders of Soil Taxonomy Poster to review the concept of soil horizons. Soil Horizons were introduced in the video clip in the Engage portion of this lesson.
    3. The Twelve Orders of Soil Taxonomy Poster
  3. Show a range of State Soils booklets and talk about how soils vary by location. Ask students why this might occur. Leave the answer open-ended for now and return to the activity in Module 5 "Postcards" activity.

Part B. Horizons take a long time to form!

Time required: 2-3 class periods to complete the activites and return to their home teams to explain the factors influencing soil formation.
Key Point: Properties of Soil are due to CLORPT
In this activity, students break into expert teams and use the labs and written materials available to learn about their team's CLORPT factor. Once they have researched their factor they then return to their home team to teach one another in their groups. (Note: this activity uses the Jigsaw method example described here -- Jigsaw method

Note: Prior to class educators will need to download, select, and prepare the instructions from Part 2 of the Soils Overview Unit for distribution among the student teams.
  1. Break into groups of 5 students. In each group assign one student to investigate one of the five soil formation factors, Climate, Organisms, Relief, Parent Materials, Time, as described in Part 2: Soil Formation – Introduction to CLORPT (linked above).
  2. After students have completed the investigations and shared their knowledge and information with their "home" teams, have them work together to complete the following student worksheet with built-in questions. Soil Formation Worksheet
  3. Return to the State Soil Investigation worksheet, introduced in Module 1 and linked below, to fill in any remaining questions. State Soil Worksheet