Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

5-10 minutes

Tune In: Soil as a living thing

30 minutes

Find Out: Investigating soil in the schoolyard

20 minutes

Take Action: Observing soil organisms

5 minutes

Reflection

Tune In: Soil as a living thing

Step 1

Begin this lesson by sharing these two images with students:

Pose the following questions:

What do you see in these images?
How do you think these images might be connected?

Through your discussion, explain that most of the food that we eat comes from the ground! The fruit and veggies that we eat are grown in the ground, the meat and dairy that we eat come from animals that eat food from the ground. We need healthy soils so we can be healthy. Today we’re going to put on the hat of a soil scientist and explore the ground underneath our feet and why it’s so important.

Step 2

Hold up a tub of soil and invite students to respond to the following:

do you think soil is a living or non-living thing?

Invite them to justify their answers. You could do the Living Test to check!

Through your discussion, explain to students that according to this test, the soil is a non-living thing. However, many people describe soil as being alive! In this lesson, students will explore why soil could be described as alive.

Find Out: Investigating soil in the schoolyard

Step 1

Lead students on a walk around the schoolyard.

Differentiation: You will be engaging students in discussions as you walk. You could ask students requiring extension to be the scribes for these discussions.

As you walk, invite them to think about the soil that’s under their feet:

can you see any soil?
what does it look like?
what does it feel like?
does it feel like it is a living or non-living thing?

Step 2

Still outside, lead students to a place where there are plants growing and invite students to look around and pose the following questions:

what can you see growing in the soil? What types of plants can you identify? For example, trees, shrubs, grasses, flowers
imagine there was no soil for the plants to grow in - what would it look like in the schoolyard? What would it look like beyond the schoolyard and around the world?
what would our lives be like without plants? What do we need plants for? Suggested answers: food (most of the food we eat relies on plants in some way - fruits, veggies and grains are grown in the soil, while meat, dairy and eggs come from animals that eat plants), fresh air (plants absorb Carbon dioxide and release Oxygen), protection from weather (many plants act as windbreaks), protection from heat (plants provide shade that helps to keep things cool), medicine (many plants provide us with medicine), clothes (many fabrics come from plants such as cotton and bamboo), and building materials (wood for furniture and houses comes from trees).

Before heading back inside, you could pose one last question:

soil is obviously important to plants and to those of us who need plants (all of us!). So what is soil? What is it made of?

Invite students to suggest their answers and keep note of some of these suggestions.

Step 3

Back in the classroom, hold up your tub of soil again, posing the question again:

what is soil made of?

Explain to students that soil is made up of small rocks (minerals), water, air, and organic materials (living things and things that were once living but are now being broken down in the soil). Write these on the board.

You can then explain that there is no standard ‘recipe’ for the soil because the composition of soil will vary from place to place, but broadly speaking, the composition of soil could be 45% minerals, 5% organic matter, 20-30% water, and 20-30% air.

Extend: Refer back to the suggestions about soil composition that students made outside. Did anyone guess the materials for soil composition?

Step 4

Now pose the question:

none of the ingredients of soil seem like they are living things. Soil does seem to have a lot of plants growing in it - could this make it alive?

Encourage students to think about what else soil might have that might make it alive and lead them to the idea that soil has many, many organisms living in it.

Share the following image and discuss it with students (also available here):

Discuss this image:

what do you see in this image?
what do you think about this image?
what does this image make you wonder? What questions do you have?

Explain to students that

bacteria in soil are tiny organisms that get their energy (food) from the soil. You would need a microscope to see most of these organisms
fungi is a scientific term for a group of organisms that includes mushrooms and toadstools. Fungal hyphae are tiny little threads they put out through the soil to absorb nutrients.
taxa are the different species. Some of this will be microorganisms that are too tiny to see, but others will be creatures like earthworms, nematodes, ants, springtails and mites.
another way to think about this is to pick up a handful of soil and explain that in that one handful of soil, there are more living things than there are people on Earth!

Extend: Invite a student volunteer to measure out one gram of soil into a tub and think about this one gram of soil in the context of this image. Now imagine you had a cup or a bucket of soil - how many living things might there be in this amount of soil. Soil is full of life!

Take Action: Observing soil organisms

Step 1

Students will now have the chance to observe some of the living things in the soil using a magnifying glass and a microscope.It would be useful to have a selection of different soil types for students to look at. These could be sourced from the schoolyard or backyards or local gardens (with permission).

Some questions students could attempt to answer could include:

what types of non-living things can you see in the soil?
how many different organisms can you see in each sample?
how many different types of organisms could you see in each sample?
how many of each organism type could you find overall? Which was the one you found the least of?
identifying organisms can be tricky - can you give your own names to these organisms? (e.g. Wriggly Long Thing or Waddle Round)

Differentiation: Students could represent the results of their counting assessment as a table, as number sentences or as a picture graph.

Step 2

Students will need to have a go at drawing the organisms they see.

Differentiation: Students requiring extension could create more complex drawings using the Scientific Drawing Guidelines. You could also ask students to write down their ideas about what the different features are and why the creature has them.

You could display student drawings in the classroom.

Reflection

Engage students in a class discussion around the following:

what do you now think about soil as a living or non-living thing?
is there an argument that soil is a living thing? Why or why not?

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.

What's in the Soil?

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