Creating a Soil Map PBL Project

Contributed By

California Educators Together

Originally developed by

Katie Titus (View Original)

Subjects

Life Sciences

License

CC BY-SA

Standards

Career Technical Education Framework for California Public Schools

ANR.KP.9.0.9.2 Identify the characteristics of successful teams, including leadership, cooperation, collaboration, and effective decision-making skills, as applied in groups, teams, and career technical student organization activities.
ANR.KP.9.0.9.3 Understand the characteristics and benefits of teamwork, leadership, and citizenship in the school, community, and workplace setting.
ANR.KP.9.0.9.7 Participate in interactive teamwork to solve real Agriculture and Natural Resources sector issues and problems.
ANR.KP.9.0.9.10 Understand how to organize and structure work, individually and in teams, for effective performance and the attainment of goals.
ANR.KP.9.0.9.12 Demonstrate how to interact with others in ways that demonstrate respect for individual and cultural differences and for the attitudes and feelings of others.

Creating a Soil Map PBL Project

In agriculture, the use of soil testing and soil maps are important in determining the nutrients available or finding deficiencies. Soil testing can also be useful to backyard gardeners and homeowners, to allow the successful growth of plants. In this project, students will work in groups to test a local soil sample in the following areas: pH, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium and create a soil map to present to the class. Lesson #1- Students will become familiar with what a soil map is utilizing the USDA soil survey website. Lesson #2- Students will test a local soil sample for pH, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. Lesson #3- Students will utilize soil testing results to create a soil map. Lesson #4- For the final lesson, students will share their soil map with the class and look at the bigger picture of the impact of the soil type on the community. This project is brought to you by Katie Titus (CTE) with support from the CTE Online curriculum leadership team and detailed coordination provided by the Course Team Lead Laura Gallardo.