Soils
Lesson 1
What Is In Soil?
Students explore a sample of garden soil, sharing what they know and predicting what they might find in the sample. Students provide the teacher with a baseline measurement of their knowledge of soil.
3. Lesson set up and Management
SYSTEMS 1.1-Properties: Understand how properties are used to identify, describe, and categorize substances, materials, and objects and how characteristics are used to categorize living things.
GLE 1.1.1 Understand simple properties of common natural and manufactured materials and objects: Sort common materials and objects using a simple property and Identify and describe the differences between common natural and manufactured materials and objects using properties.
GLE 1.1.5 Understand physical properties of Earth materials: Sort rocks based on size, shape, and other physical properties and Explain how some Earth materials are used by living things.
SYSTEMS 1.2-Structures: Understand how components, structures, organizations, and interconnections describe systems.
GLE 1.2.3 Know that common materials are made of smaller parts: Sort objects based on component parts and Show that people use magnifiers to observe things they cannot see with their eyes.
Students express current knowledge and understandings they have about soil. No new concepts about soil are introduced.
3. Lesson set up and Management
Materials:
Teachers need garden soil for this lesson (about 500 ml for the class). Garden soil will also be needed in Lesson 2 and local soil will be needed for Lessons 14 through 16. Collect two gallon re-sealable plastic bags of soil now and have it on hand throughout the unit.
Student Management:
Be sure to have students think about and predict what they will find in soil before having them gather the soil they will examine. Once the soil is in front of them, they are too eager to dive in to effectively think of their ideas, questions and predictions.
Students examining soil with hand lenses.
Have lots of newspaper on hand throughout the unit. Spread a half sheet of newspaper for each partner pair as a "drop cloth" to work on throughout the unit. Then it is an easy clean-up to fold the sides in and discard soil. Be sure students don't discard needed tools with the soil.
In this unit, lots of 1 oz. cups and, later, test tubes are needed. Teachers should try to clean and reuse as much as possible or they will run short. The clay used in later lessons is the toughest to clean so rinse or soak right away for longer cup life. If you have a bucket of soapy water available near the sink, students can swish out the cups and rinse, then leave them to air dry upside-down on a paper towel. Have one partner be cup-cleaner while the other puts away other materials and clears the drop cloth away.
Writing Support:
Students write their ideas and questions about soil in their science notebooks. To give them practice writing to a prompt, the teacher can provide a prompt such as: "What is soil? Describe what it looks like, how it feels, and what it is made of."