Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

10 minutes

Tune In: What do we already know about soil?

15 minutes

Find Out: Who knows who in the soil?

35 minutes

Take Action: Soil group task

5 minutes

Reflection

Tune In: What do we already know about soil?

Prior knowledge: This lesson has been designed to allow students to review and demonstrate their learnings from the other lessons in this unit. So long as students have completed one or more of the other lessons in this unit, they will have the background knowledge required to complete this Take Action lesson.

Step 1

Display the following image for students (also available on the Student Worksheet or here as a PDF):

Invite students to complete a Think-Pair-Share about this image. Students can begin by working independently to look at this image and to record anything they see or know about what they see in this image. They can record their ideas in Column A of the table on the Student Worksheet.

They can then collaborate with a classmate to share and discuss their ideas. They should record any new ideas following their discussion in Column B of the table on the Student Worksheet.

Step 2

Engage students in a class discussion around their thoughts and ideas about this image.

Depending on the lessons that you covered in this unit, students may have come up with some of the following points:

soil as a living or non-living thing (it might not pass the living test, but it is full of life, so could be described as alive)
organisms that live in soil, from the microscopic bacteria to the worms, insects and larger mammals
soil that is compacted has less air in it which makes it harder for plants and organisms to live in the soil
soil that is compacted won’t retain water as well, and water retention is also important for soils health
plants grow best in healthy soils. Plants need healthy soils to put roots down into, they absorb water and nutrients from the soil, and they also add nutrients to the soil, which feed the organisms that live there.

Find Out: Who knows who is in the soil?

Step 1

Remind students of their roles as regenerative growers, and explain that being a regenerative grower means thinking about your soil and how you can look after it while growing the food that you, your family and your community might need. It means thinking about what will help the organisms in the soil to be healthy and feed the plants you plant.

Looking after the soil you want to plant won’t just mean you have healthier food plants; it also means that other plants that grow nearby - like native plants - will be healthier, and that means that the animals who need those plants - like native birds, butterflies and bees - will be healthier too! Looking after our soil is a great way of caring for our environment.

The role that students now have is to tell other people about why looking after the soil is so important so that they, too, want to become regenerative growers and can start caring for our environment by caring for our soil.

Step 2

Later in this lesson, students will create a mural of the soil that shows the organisms that live in the soil and how they relate to the health of the soil and the plants that grow in the soil. But first, students need to explore the roles that different organisms play in the soil in detail.

Distribute one of the soil organisms to each student (there will be more than one student with each organism).

Students should read through the details about their organism.

Step 3

Students should then get out of their seats and move around the classroom, meeting other students and their organisms. With each pairing, students should read aloud the details of their organism and identify how each organism is connected (i.e. does one eat the other?).

When students meet someone with the same organism as them, they should take a moment to discuss any vocabulary they don’t understand and see if they can clarify any misunderstandings.

Once complete, take a moment to check through any connections that students identified within and between the different soil organisms.

Take Action: Soil group task

Step 1

Explain to students that they will again put on their regenerative grower hats and work together to create a group work that shares their knowledge about soil and why we should be looking after it, including:

why soil is important
the organisms that live in the soil and how they are connected to each other
information about water and air in the soil
what types of soil plants like growing in.

Note: The depth of information about each of these points will depend on which lessons you have completed in this unit.

There are many ways this work could be produced. Some options could include the following:

take a large piece of paper and create a soil (brown) background. Students could then create drawings or 3D models of different soil organisms, plants, burrows, nests and worm tunnels that you place over the soil background. These could include annotations to explain what each drawing or model is and why it has been included
create a video where students take on the roles of different soil organisms and talk about the organism they represent. Students could act out the interactions between the different organisms.

Step 2

Try to provide students with an opportunity to share their work with an audience (parents, other students and teachers at your school). In your sharing, you could include something like:

students have been taking on the role of regenerative growers, investigating how regenerative agriculture can help growers in the important task of growing food and looking after our environment. Regenerative agriculture focuses on farming practices that improve soil health in ways that align with natural systems rather than trying to control them. The first step in becoming regenerative growers is to understand soil and why it is so important. Students have created this work to show you what they have learned about soils.

Reflection

All living things have basic needs, such as food, water, shelter and air. Through all these lessons on soil, we have learned about what the living things in our soil need to survive, and that means we can now think about what we can do to provide all the living things in the soil with these things.

Invite students to respond to complete the following sentences:

Looking after soils is important because …
I will look after soils by …

Differentiated learning

We trust that teachers are the best equipped to know how to cater to the diversity in their classes. At Cool, we incorporate a variety of differentiation strategies into each lesson. Firstly, each lesson in this unit appeals to an array of different learning preferences. Learning activities can be completed in a number of different ways - if a student feels more comfortable speaking rather than writing, there are opportunities to accommodate this.

In lessons that feature group work or learning stations, we trust that teachers will use their discretion in knowing how to best organise their students in accordance with positive working relationships and ability. Graphic organisers and scaffolds are often included so students can ‘visually think’ and keep a record of their work. While our lessons are designed to be 55 - 60 minutes in length, we trust that teachers will manipulate lesson and segment times according to the needs of their students.

Sharing the News about Soils

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