Gödöllo, Hungary 2nd International Soil Judging Contest—Effect on Curriculum and Student Outlook in the Field Discipline of Soil Science.

Soil judging contests, involving the description, classification and interpretation of soil profiles, and the description of soil landscapes have long been part of the US collegiate soil science curriculum. Since 1960, annual national contests have pitted the top undergraduate teams from seven regions of the US against each other, with the contest venue moving between regions over a seven-year cycle. With this long history has developed a very strong culture of field-based soil science, such that many of the Universities with strong agricultural curriculums in the US routinely participate in the  regional (qualifying) and national contests. Only in the last few years have other countries started to adopt a similar concept of competitive soil judging to supplement class and theoretical curriculum with field-based experience. At the 20WCSS June 6-8, 2014 in Jeju, Korea, the inaugural International Soil Judging Competition was held with two US teams and a follow-up meeting from USDA Secretary Vilsack in September 2014. A field training and soils contest was held as the International Field Course and Soil Judging Contest in honor of the International Year of Soils 2015(September 1-5, 2015), in Gödöllő, Hungary(http://soiljudging-iys2015.com/), hosted by IUSS and Szent Istvan University. Twenty-nine teams and individuals registered from all over the world (Japan, Korea, UK, Kenya, Tunesia, Nigeria, Spain, Croatia, Hungary, Germany, Kosovo, Serbia, Albania, Morocco, Swaziland, South-Africa, Montenegro, Üzbegistan, Uganda and USA). Pre- and post-contest interviews of competitors and coaches evaluate the impact on attitude, confidence and prospective for the future.