Scratching the Surface: Soil Formation, Structure, and Chemistry

Students will be introduced to the format of the class series and learn the essential basics of soil science: how they are formed, their physical properties, and chemistry. Students will be provided and introduced to soil management plan and soil assessment worksheets to develop for their own project sites. Instructors will give demonstrations of soil properties assessment techniques to be performed as homework at their project sites.

This class is part of a six-part series, Getting Down to Earth: Understanding Soils for Ecosystem Resilience and Repair. Understanding soils – what they are, how they function, how they degrade, and how to steward them back to health – empowers restoration professionals to design and implement more resilient and self-sustaining ecosystem restoration projects. This series of classes will build from the ground up a holistic knowledge of soils that will enable students to understand how and when to choose soil stewardship techniques and most importantly why they work based on soil science.