I (Hazel) utilized this lesson for 2 schools K - 8th grade in Apache County, AZ. It was very effective to use soils that students were able to recognize from their community. At one of the schools I collected a uniquely colored soil sample from the local bus stop. In another school one of the soil samples was cinders from a local volcanic area. Some of the locations I used for samples are a greenhouse, potting soil, soil from a field behind school, soil from garden bed, sand from the playground, forest soil, stream bed soil, volcanic cinders from a local volcanic field, unique soil layer from the local bus stop. The options are endless!

Students were very engaged in this lesson. I encouraged students to be good scientists and gather the data to determine where these soils came from and what the soils would be good for. Students liked having the opportunity to play with soil and use magnifying glasses. In one of the schools the Kdg teacher had a digital microscope that allowed us to look at samples as a group and discuss the soil components.

I also encouraged students to use as many descriptors as possible for each sense. For K-2 I wrote the descriptors for students on graph paper to keep within time limits. I gave older students more time to write in science journals individually, including the evidence they used to predict locations. To further extend, I had groups present their findings/predictions orally to the classroom using the scientific method to show how they determined where the samples came from.

During the reveal I discussed what grows in each soil. With the students, I explored how soil affects what can grow there and how humans have learned to amend/change soil to grow what we want.

After we did this lesson we moved on to amending soils and planting seeds in different soils to see how well they grew. Students were able to analyse soil better after the soil sensory lesson and transfer that knowledge to predicting how plants were affected by soil conditions.