Soil Science Education in a Changing World: How Do We Ensure Students Receive the Education Needed to Address the Issues Facing Society?.

Soil science has strong traditions in pedology and agronomy and has played a major role in developing cropping systems that feed and clothe humanity. Forest soils as a subdiscipline arose from these same roots.  However, in today’s world soils play a critical role in a much wider array of issues facing society including questions related to environmental quality, human health, global change, ecosystem sustainability, biomass energy, waste management  and wise land use decisions in rural, suburban and urban environments. Historically, forest soils education was based at land grant institutions, often side by side with other soil science programs. However, over the last several decades, the prominence of forest soils as a discipline has declined. Many forestry programs in North America that at one time had several faculty members working in forest soils now have no forest soil scientist on the faculty.  Thus fewer students have the opportunity to obtain adequate training in forest soils.  This comes at a time when  many of the environmental and management questions in forestry require more information on soils and how they vary across the landscape and respond to disturbances. This presentation will discuss the changes in forest soils programs that have occurred over the last decade.  It will also discuss ways to maintain and improve the forest soils education at both land grant and liberal arts institutions so that students receive the training needed.