Soil Science & Conservation Continuing Education Workshop for Teachers.

With a growing world population, it is increasingly more important for us to understand, preserve, and enhance our natural resources--particularly our soils. The public needs to be aware of what they can do to prevent erosion and degradation of soils and how they can more sustainably utilize this non-renewable resource. In response to this imminent concern, workshops were offered throughout the state of Iowa on the topics of soil science and conservation. The workshops were designed for middle and high school science and agriculture teachers, to provide them the knowledge and skills they would need to increase the extent to which they teach soil science in their classes. The course covered soil description, erosion, and conservation practices, while utilizing education methods selected for their potential success among diverse learners in the middle- and high school classroom. Following attendance of a two-day workshop for continuing education credit, the teachers were surveyed for their own level of understanding of the subject as well as the changes they made to their curricula. Data was gathered from the teachers concerning student achievement to assess the impact of this “train the trainer” approach to soils education.