Resources

Grades K-12 -- The GLOBE Soil (Pedosphere) investigation is available in the six United Nations languages (select any of the following links to open the corresponding document): Arabic (2005 edition), Chinese (1997 edition), French (2005 edition), Portuguese (1997 edition), Russian (1997 edition), and Spanish (2005 edition).

Grades K-Adult -- Soil intro; Soil Temperature; SMAP Soil Temperature; Soil moisture gravimetric; Soil Characterization; Selecting, Exposing and defining a soil characterization site; Horizon sampling

Grades K - Adult -- MO DIRT (Missourians Doing Impact Research Together)

Grades K - 12 -- Underground Adventure exhibit at the museum until December 31, 2020. Get a bug’s-eye view of the world when you magically “shrink” to 1/100th of your actual size—smaller than a penny—to explore an immersive environment of worm tunnels and soil chambers. This exhibition reveals soil to be home to an incredible diversity of living things, and shows how not a single plant or animal could survive without it. After regaining your regular size, become a soil scientist to investigate how life above ground connects to life below.

Grades K - 8 -- A five-year rotation for stewardship topics – water, soil, habitat, forestry, and a topic of interest (the highest grade level says grade 6 and above)

Grades K - 6 -- Games, lesson plans, fact sheets, videos, water challenges, videos

Grades K - 6 -- Soil materials: lesson plans, activities

Grades K - 12 -- Learning Center: Books, bulletins, videos, curricula, fact sheets and much more! SARE's Learning Center is a treasure trove of sustainable agriculture information. Use the keyword filters or search box to begin exploring.

Grades K - 12 -- Variety of links to activities and publications

Grades K - 12 And Adult -- State Soil Booklets: Information on each "state soil"

Grades K - 12 -- Soil Activities and Water education materials (water lessosn plans, books, guides, maps, posters)

Grades K-12 -- Natural resource education material - several soil activities

Grades K - 12 -- Water Games and Activities, classroom lessons

Grades K - 12 -- The National Agricultural Literacy Curriculum Matrix: an online, searchable, and standards-based curriculum map for K-12 teachers.

Grades K - 12 -- Matrix of lessons plans and activities for teachers

Grades 6 - 8 -- Kiss the Ground teamed up with Life Lab to develop a middle school curriculum that allows students to understand the vital role soil plays on our planet. The 5-lesson curriculum, written to serve as supplemental material for the Next Generation Science Standards, teaches about the carbon cycle, photosynthesis, soil science, various agricultural practices, and concludes with a regenerative soil-based project.

Grades 4 - 10 -- These informative graphics provide a glimpse of just some of those secrets—and newspaper and magazine editors are encouraged to download and publish these graphics (royalty-free) to help their readers “Unlock the Secrets in the Soil.”

Grades 3 - 5 -- Elementary school curriculum. Focusing on grades three through five, the curriculum’s activities take the student on a journey through the benefits of irrigation, including agriculture, landscape and its history.

Mighty Mini Microbe’s Tale, coloring book for Grades 2-4

Alternative Continuous-Cover Dairy Forage System for Profitability, Flexibility and Soil Health: A fact sheet available online about an "alternative continuous-cover forage" system that is based on soil health management and applicable to dairy farmers

Cover Cropping for Pollinators and Beneficial Insects: A bulletin (available online and in print for free) to help farmers and ranchers use cover crops to encourage populations of pollinators and beneficial insects on farm while also addressing other resource concerns.

Building Soils for Better Crops: A book (offered online and in print) offering a one-of-a-kind, practical guide to ecological soil management.

Managing Cover Crops Profitably: A book (offered online and in print) exploring how and why cover crops work, and provides all the information needed to build cover crops into any farming operation.

Cover Crops & Soil Health Images, Illustrations, and PowerPoint Templates: topics include cover crop economics, cover crop selection, biodiversity, water quality, impacts of cover crops and soil health, ecosystem services of cover crops, etc.

Cover Crop Topic Room: Bulletins, fact sheets, books (online and print versions available), PowerPoint presentation templates, infographics, images, illustrations.

This resource hub from For the Love of Soil offers teaching materials, including slides, assignments, videos and virtual field trips, for use in soil science courses.

Soil Health section topics include how a healthy soil should look and smell, economics, increasing OM, and urban gardening.

Soil Basics includes lessons on soil origins, profiles, components, structure, pesticides, and ag soils.

The Purdue Soil Health photo and video library gives you easy access to photos and videos that may be useful in your efforts to inform and educate others about soil health.