ESCI/SUST 421/521: Soil & Landscape

3 credits

Course Description: Soils are often taken for granted, yet they are the foundation of society. We build our houses on them and grow food in them. Many are nutrient-rich and store vast amounts of carbon. Today, soils are eroding at a faster rate than they are generated naturally, primarily due to human influence. This class will provide the background and tools needed for you to assess soils in a variety of landscapes from grasslands, forests, wetlands, and croplands – critical information needed for crop production, forest management, and restoration. Goals of this class include: 1) understand how soils form, 2) understand why soils vary across the landscape, and 3) describe soils and their properties in the field.

The class will consist of a mix of lecture and lab-style activities. I will occasionally bring in soil samples for you to describe, and you will also work with soil data. Attendance and participation is key to your success in this class.

Course Readings: will be available for download or pdf posted on the D2L page. There is no book to purchase. We will read from the following books:

1. Illustrated Guide to Soil Taxonomy version 2.0, 2015, Natural Resources Conservation Service. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/survey/class/taxonomy/?cid=nrcs142p2_053580

2. Soils: Genesis and Geomorphology by Schaetzl and Anderson, 2005

3. Soils and Geomorphology by Birkeland, 1999

4. Additional readings will be assigned.

Mandatory Field Trips: You cannot adequately learn how to describe soils in the classroom. This is why field trips are mandatory. Two field trips will be planned for Saturdays. The purpose of these trips is to describe soils in the field.

Soil Reports: You will write a few short reports on soil series or associations that I assign to you, and a report on the soil series that we cover on the field trips, to include with your soil profile descriptions.