Soil Science in Primary Schools –Role of University Faculty in Facilitating Soil Science Teaching in Elementary School Education.

Capturing the interest of elementary school students with interesting scientific activities to raise awareness in issues around soil science is an important investment in the future generation of scientists. Upper elementary school students (year 4 and above) in particular often express strong interests in ‘science’ by exploring, observing and touching to understand underlying mechanisms. Soil science, a complex mixture of all disciplines, can take advantage of the interest expressed by students in this age group prior to study of more specialised scientific disciplines such as biology, chemistry, or physics in high school.  Fortunately in Australia, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority has implemented Soil Science as a part of the national Science curriculum since 2010. Based on this curriculum, the Queensland government set Soil Science in the year 4 curriculum as a 10-week program. A major limitation of school classroom science activities is the disconnection with real world applications of classroom science, creating an important opportunity for university and professional soil scientists to become involved in delivering high quality soil science education to elementary school students by introducing project- or research-based activities and scenarios to support classroom activities. Introducing soil science to students in urban and peri-urban areas can be a significant challenge because academics have to break the general perception of ‘soil = dirty’ first.  Once students become more open to perceiving soil as a resource, then school teachers can readily implement numerous hands-on activities to illustrate new concepts by repeating scientific inquiries with some guidance. The presence of university faculty and /or professional soil scientists is important to engage students’ learning and to effectively retain the knowledge and inquiring skills to connect classroom teaching to the real world.