Unearthing STEMterprise: Soil in your region lesson
Time to read: 1.5 minutes
Teachers who have tested Ontario Farming STEMterprise have provided wonderful advice and ideas! What you see on the website has been shaped by teacher’s input to be engaging, curriculum-based, resource-rich, and most importantly, easily applied in the classroom. It is also an adaptable program—teach as much or as little of it as suits your needs. You might say this versatile program is ground-breaking!
We want to introduce you to one of their favourite lessons – Soil Types in Ontario. Challenge your students to become an agronomist for a day! Students will learn about the properties of soil, the common soil types in Ontario, collect soil samples and map their school grounds to determine where plants will thrive.
SOIL MAPPING YOUR SCHOOL GROUNDS
This lesson is a great way to bring your students outside for meaningful inquiry! We’ve seen it done in many ways, so be creative to make it work for you.
Before you start, you will want to download the lesson plan, slides and soil type reference sheets from our website.
The lesson
Soil is at the root of every bite we take! Students will learn why soil is important.
Students will get hands-on experience by sampling soil to practise being an agronomist as they learn about soil types in Ontario. What does an agronomist do, anyway? Find out in one of the educational videos linked in the lesson.
An activity students enjoy is the soil shake test (optional). It is supported by the handy charts in the lesson plan that students can use to compare the samples they take.
Aside from determining soil health, environmental protection is one of the reasons for sampling soil. Hear from Justin, an Ontario grain farmer who farms near Lake Erie. He describes how the soil on his grain farm is tested and mapped by GPS and how he keeps it healthy while avoiding harming the local environment.
To bring the lesson into students’ lives in a real way, we ask them to use what they’ve learned to predict the crops that could grow in the soil at their school.
Extension Opportunity – Regions of Canada!
Students will also learn about the seven regions of Canada, three of which are in Ontario, and their suitability for agriculture. We know it’s unlikely you could take a field trip to see these regions in person, so we’ve collected a selection of videos to illustrate them. Extension possibility: which of the landscapes students saw in the video look good for growing grain? Why or why not?
