Ohio vocational agriculture students are required to identify soil forming factors and explain how they produce variability in soils; and to collect, test and analyze soil samples for physical and chemical properties.
Luke Ryan participated in the 2-day Feed the World workshop and used activities from the Soil and Sustainability curriculum to cover those standards.
Ryan said his students responded well to these activities. He had them each bring soil from their own yards to test, as well as working with soil from the farm plot at the school. He said the students were surprised to find that the soil could change so quickly in just 100 feet when they investigated soil from different spots on the farm field.
Attending the summer workshop was helpful, Ryan said, in giving him more outdoor activities to use with his students. “These hands-on lessons help students understand why we learn these things.”