This week I implemented an introductory lesson that
looked at soil profiles. Like an excited
child I decided to take 40 unknown students outside to dig (What am I really
thinking sometimes???). For this to
happen I had to enlist the help of several of my colleagues who stood watch over
several different digging stations (not sure what I owe them). However, the students really enjoyed going outside
and digging in the dirt. This dirt profile
that the students collected served as their initial model of the different
layers that can be found in soil. Using
this as a discussion piece students were able to build their knowledge of how
soil is formed and what each layer means.
To increase students understanding (and my frustration) I decided that
not only did we need to dig but, we needed to inspect our soil profile, draw an
illustration of the profile (in our handy dandy IAN notebooks), and share this
information with the class. As if this
was not enough I then thought it would be neat to create a foldable of the different
soil layers. This modeling activity
provided students with another concrete example of the different layers of the
soil. Unfortunately, as you can probably
already tell, we were not able to get through the whole lesson. The class was halfway through the foldable
when the bell rang. However, I can say
that the use of models for this activity helped students to see that soil is comprised
of different distinct layers. Without
these hands-on approaches, I believe that students would have had a more
difficult time picturing the concept of soil horizons.
Below is an example of student work.
