What's Soil Worth and Losing Soil!

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Description: In this activity, students will see a demonstration of just how little of the earth can actually be used for food production and will discuss how important it is to care for our soil resources. You will use an apple (or some other sliceable sphere) to represent the earth, and cut portions off to show the proportion of the earth that is arable land. Discussion questions focus on ways we lose soil and what soil is worth.
Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8
Keywords: cultivatable land, arable land, food production, soil resources
Lesson Area: Soil Basics, Soil Conservation
Resource Type: Activity

Next Generation Science Standards

Grade Discipline Core Idea
3-5 ESS2.A: Earth materials and systems Four major Earth systems interact. Rainfall helps to shape the land and affects the types of living things found in a region. Water, ice, wind, organisms, and gravity break rocks, soils, and sediments into smaller pieces and move them around.
6-8 ESS2.A: Earth materials and systems Energy flows and matter cycles within and among Earth's systems, including the sun and Earth's interior as primary energy sources. Plate tectonics is one result of these processes.
3-5 ESS3.A: Natural resources Energy and fuels humans use are derived from natural sources and their use affects the environment. Some resources are renewable over time, others are not.
6-8 ESS3.A: Natural resources Humans depend on Earth's land, ocean, atmosphere, and biosphere for different resources, many of which are limited or not renewable. Resources are distributed unevenly around the planet as a result of past geologic processes.