Soils Mapping
This activity is part of the On the Cutting Edge Peer Reviewed Teaching Activities collection.
HideSummary
Students collect a soil near their house or other location, analyze it using grain size, plot the locations and collectively create a soils map of campus or larger area. This exercise can be tailored for many different grade levels. I've used it from 4th grade through Physical Geology classes
Collapse
Context
Audience
This is an in-class activity for introductory physical geology for non-maj0rs
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered
For an introductory geology course, they need to know about grain size and weathering. Elementary age groups can be guided through this without background knowledge.
How the activity is situated in the course
This in-class activity is done with the weathering and soils chapter in Physical Geology class. Our classes do not have required labs.
Goals
Content/concepts goals for this activity
To create a map using sample data. I've used soils as a medium instead of rocks.
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
data analysis, synthesis of ideas, developing mapping skills,
Other skills goals for this activity
Sample collection to get meaningful data. How to extropolate when there are areas in a map that do not have data.
Description and Teaching Materials
Student Handout for Soils Mapping (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 2.1MB May31 17) Example of soil data used to create map (Acrobat (PDF) 2.3MB May31 17)
Teaching Notes and Tips
You will need to discuss how to get a meaningful sample such as avoid mulch, get soil from undisturbed location away from where construction may have disrupted soils. This will only map the top soil horizon. Most introductory geology students do not have much experience with maps and so creating a contour map is difficult for them. I have done this exercise in classes as large as 210 with the help of several TAs. Bring towels for students to clean their hands after doing the soils/grain size analysis. To do the map, have students use colored pencils to make dots for each simplified soil group. Then it is easier for them to distinguish different soils by color instead of letters. This lab exercise could be modified to exclude using Google Earth to find lat/long data as so many students have cell phones to determine their location.
Assessment
Rubric is on the exercise.