It’s so important that children have opportunities to learn first-hand about the astonishing complexity and vitality of healthy soil – and its multitude of inhabitants – who are, in fact, its co-creators and defenders.
Here’s a printable activity page about some of these beings. This activity challenges students (individually or in teams) to match the English names of a few prominent soil citizens with their visual appearance. It can be used to promote both visual and verbal / auditory learning, even as it provides an occasion for skillful, enjoyable handwork and aesthetic choices – applying color with media such as crayons, colored pencils, or watercolor. Older children can practice writing out the full names of the creatures that they’ve learned to identify in the garden or during field trips. Indeed, this printed guide is probably best used after youngsters have had the fun of actually encountering the creatures.
Click here for the printable PDF: Soil Citizens NOFA-NH
And at this point, I’d like to make the case that youngsters need opportunities to dig! Part of the joy of gardening is using our hands and trowels to discover new worlds full of strange and surprising little beings. Most of these critters are rather small and shy, and, most, except for centipedes and Mole (for example), are incapable of nipping. All of them are amazingly busy with their own lives, and they display fascinating adaptions that enable those lives to unfold. Out in the garden, young people can begin to learn about their fellow travelers on Earth’s thin but life-giving skin – the soil: how these beings are surviving, what they’re doing, and how they interact with one another. The garden is also a setting for students to learn how they can personally interact with these creatures in kindly, responsible, and minimally invasive ways. Older children benefit from considering the specific roles that these beings play in the great processes of material recycling, energy flows (food webs), seed dispersal, and assorted symbioses, etc. (O.K., now I’ll climb down from my soapbox.)
Tips for Classroom / Garden Use:
The directions for the written project are simple. Students are asked to identify the creatures shown by writing the letter that correspond to the creatures’ name next to the number adjacent to each image. For expanded learning, older students should be asked to write out the entire name next to each being’s picture. That accomplished, youngsters should be encouraged to transform their pages into something more beautiful. Colored pencils are especially recommended for this. Finished illustrations can be displayed in the hall or classroom where they’ll provide passing viewers with vivid reminders of what has been learned – as well as evidence of students’ artistry. The pages can also be taken home to prompt further conversations within families.
A very effective way to use this illustrated resource is to have some older (or more literate) student read the text of the page out loud. As a class, everyone proceeds through the identifications. Alternately, students can work in teams to solve the puzzle of linking names with pictures. Part Two of this project is also probably best read aloud. It details the functions of key soil creatures. During this reading, folks could continue coloring the images on the “Soil Citizens” page and / or discuss as a group (with the teacher’s assistance) the information that they’re acquiring.
Finally, while this first, illustrated “Soil Citizens” page can serve as a visual reference for very younger students (who simply check or circle creatures observed), it’s especially well suited for those in second grade and above. I’ve used these illustrations and vocabulary words to prepare classes for “digging expeditions” or to debrief following experiences sowing seeds, transplanting annuals, or planting autumn bulbs. It can serve as a ‘field guide’ to accompany the turning of a compost pile. It can also provide visual support for verbal discussions about soil ecosystems. I’ve often employed this page in January when we were studying the red earthworms in our indoor, composting wormery. Additionally, students found it relevant when they were busy observing the fascinating sowbugs / isopods who flourished in the big pots of blooming geraniums that over-wintered in our classroom.
The following is a fine example of a page that was completed by a 10-year-old.
Here’s yet another example of a student’s interpretation of this activity.
Additional Resources:
The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service has an outstanding USDA NRCS Soil Biology Primer that provides in depth background for teachers and advanced students. The address for purchasing the printed book can be found at the link provided. (It was formerly available as a free, downloadable pdf). A second resource from Oregon State University offered a concise and helpful description of certain key soil beings and their activities. This one too, sadly, has been archived and is not accessible currently on-line. (Making such information available at no cost was until recently a valuable service of our public institutions!) At this point, I will recommend a very short resource from the University of California Calaveras County Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Veda Scherer. Her text considers very concisely and yet broadly how the activities of various types of soil creatures intertwine. Humans and our agricultural efforts are justly included in this overview. This two-page resource clearly explains how peoples’ food growing techniques can either help or hurt the tiny beings who create vigorous soil communities – and consequently, the plants who are giving us essential nourishment.
Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis have written an outstanding, comprehensive, and well illustrated book about the soil food web and how it relates to healthy organic gardening methods for humans. That book is titled Teaming with Microbes, and it’s published by Timber Press: Portland and London.