Reading the Outdoors: Soil

by Kelly Koller

Determining soil texture type

Soil….it’s incredible!
It sustains life on Earth by giving plants nutrients.
It purifies water and it stores carbon.
And one tablespoon of soil has more organisms in it than there are people on Earth.

Recently I did one of my favorite field studies with my third and fourth graders…a simple test to determine soil texture type. The why behind doing the test is as fun as the test itself — finding soil texture to figure out what plants will be best adapted to the area for a restorative planting. With the overarching context of doing a planting, this activity is especially engaging because students are in a role as soil scientists with an accessible, easy-to-implement test. With the simple materials of a soil sample, clear container, soap, water and a ruler, this activity can be done by our youngest learners and easily scaled up grade levels with more complex background knowledge and context.

By throwing together a quick “how to” video, this activity was also easily applied to hybrid or remote learning scenarios. Instead of using a soil sample from their school yard, students could use one from their yard or a park near their home (while being careful to “leave no trace”). This guide that I made has a complete overview of the test and references where I first found this several activity years ago, Colorado State University Extension.

A full lesson plan with other extensions and resources can be found here on the Outdoor Education Collective website. One of the extensions listed is a recent documentary, Kiss the Ground, which teaches viewers about the vital importance of soil in our lives, not only as the medium for our sustenance but as a solution to drawing down CO2 levels contributing to climate change.

In the end we determined our soil was loam, and we used the plant guide on Prairie Nursery’s website to identify that what we wanted to plant, Black-eyed Susans and Butterfly Weed, are adapted to that soil type. I love how the website categorizes plants by soil texture type, it makes sense — -after all, if the environment is not right for what we are planting, we will not be getting the growth we seek. It all starts from the soil.