Soil Science

Last week I was responsible for another school-age summer event.  Our topic for the week was soil, so I chose to focus our activities not only on dirt, but also on all of the good things that grow in the dirt.

Our first activity was actually a cooking project.  We made dirt cake!  I shared a recipe for this tasty treat in my last post, and while this recipe is decadent it uses more dishes and has a few more preparation steps than I wanted for this program.  Fortunately, there are many different ways to make dirt cake and I was able to track down this simplified recipe.  This version has the added bonus of being served in individual cups, so everyone could easily pick out their own servings.  Everyone took turns with the steps by adding ingredients, stirring, and crushing Oreos for the group.  Everyone spooned the pudding mixture into their own cups and topped it with the crushed Oreos and gummy worms.  We then put all of the dirt cups in the refrigerator to set while we did our other activities.  Everyone got to eat their treats at the end of the program.

Next came our biggest project of the day:  Soil Testing.  Before we got to the testing itself, I took a few minutes to talk about soil pH and the nutrients nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium and why they are important for gardens.  I also explained that I had used a special soil testing kit to check to see if these minerals were found in potting soil that I had purchased at a garden store.  As a group we made predictions and everyone correctly guessed that the specially-formulated potting soil had a fairly low pH and had more than enough of the essential nutrients.

Then it was the kids' job to run the test themselves on a sample of soil from a co-worker's garden.  The kids divided themselves into four groups, and each group was responsible for testing a sample of soil from the garden for a different nutrient.  My co-worker had actually mentioned that her garden was not producing as well this year as it had in the past, so we expected to find that the garden was deficient in at least one resource.

To do this project, I purchased a simple soil testing kit.  We bought ours at Nasco a couple of months ago when we bought the supplies for my geode program, but these kits are readily available at a variety of other locations as well, including Amazon.  Each group was lead by a teen or adult volunteer, who helped keep everyone on task.  Each group was assigned a different test (one group tested the soil's pH, one tested for nitrogen, etc.) and a corresponding set of instructions on how to test the soil.  As a group we also made a chart that we used to compare the results of their tests with the results of my test on the potting soil.  (If anyone is curious, my co-worker's soil was severely lacking in nitrogen and potassium.)  The kids really loved this project, and I think it really helped that the experiment had actual real-life applications that they could readily understand.

My group of 2nd and 3rd graders took quite a bit longer than expected to complete both of these activities, but the group of 4th-6th graders had time for one last project.  We got some bean seeds started on damp paper towels.  I borrowed my plan for this activity from similar project I had seen on Pinterest (check it out here).  Each kid actually set up two bags (four seeds in each bag).  They were able to take one bag of seeds home to observe directly, and the second bag was left here at the library.  We taped these seeds up in one of our windows and have invited patrons to visit them daily to watch them grow.  It's kind of a nice bonus to have something here at the library that patrons can watch grow and change over the course of the next week or two.

All in all, this was a very successful program.  The kids had a great time, and they got very excited about all three of our projects.  I was very glad to have four good volunteer helpers to guide the kids directly while I floated between groups to help where needed.  I definitely couldn't have made this program the success it was without them!