Teaching Soil Maps for Digital Soil Mapping at UW–Madison.

It is probably the same everywhere, but soil science students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison like fieldwork and they like new technologies. In this presentation, we will focus on our experiences in Wisconsin with the teaching of soil maps and soil mapping as part of the ISEE project. Wisconsin has a good coverage of detailed soil maps. Together with a range of other maps and a DEM these have been transferred to iPads. During excursions and outdoor lab sessions, students combine the information on the digital maps with detailed pedon observations and soil mapping exercises. The concept of soil classes (soil series, Soil Taxonomy) works well for teaching but soil properties (e.g. drainage, soil texture, SOC) are more easily observable in the field.  The main purpose of our teaching is to generate insight in soil–landscape relationships, appreciate soil variability, and learn to understand and speak some soil survey language. We find that solid field knowledge is needed for the next generation of soil scientists whom need to be able to generate digital soil maps of soil properties. Such knowledge comes from a deep understanding of soils - how they form and are distributed across the landscape, how they have been mapped.