National Curriculum
Says "Scientific understanding is changing our lives and is vital to the world’s future prosperity, and students should be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science. They should be helped to appreciate the achievements of science in showing how the complex and diverse phenomena of the natural world can be described in terms of a small number of key ideas relating to the sciences which are inter-linked, and which are of universal application.
These key ideas include:
1• the use of conceptual models and theories to make sense of the observed diversity of natural phenomena
2• the assumption that every effect has one or more cause
3• that change is driven by interactions between different objects and systems • that many such interactions occur over a distance and over time
4• that science progresses through a cycle of hypothesis, practical experimentation, observation, theory development and review
5• that quantitative analysis is a central element both of many theories and of scientific methods of inquiry.
6 The sciences should be taught in ways that help students to develop curiosity about the natural world, insight into working scientifically, and appreciation of the relevance of science to their everyday lives"
Applying these 6 key ideas, 'Bringing science to soil life'...
I would have thought 'Bringing the Soil to Life' can do most of this..
1. We use the conceptual model of "Soil Wide Web" (akin to WWW) to explain the relationships of the creatures, flora, fungi and bacteria - their web.
2. The effects of changes in soil practices, from many causes, need to be addressed in order to determine their influence.
3. While soil looks solid, it is continuously changing, as conditions around change. Through the seasons, the interactions between plant roots, fungi, bacteria, and soil animals change, that can have dramatic effects on wider environment.
4. Does science progresses through a cycle of hypothesis, practical experimentation, observation, theory development and review or by revolutionary overthrowing of the present way of thinking? K. Popper v T. Kuhn in relation to Soil?
5. Counting the creatures is essential - with an estimated 12 quadrillion in British Soils, (link to Countryside Survey). there is a lot of counting to go at. I counted 1/2 million - at that rate I would have to live twice as long as the earth has existed tp count all those in Britain.
6. This is the last kingdom to explore. Because we cannot see what is going on, we do not know what is going on, although believe it to be a 'living entity'. Join our expedition of discovery, the last biological world to be properly explored and to be discovered.
And if anybody is teaching evolution, they can be shown to have crucial role in creating what we call 'earth'