Joan Cartan-Hansen, Host:
There's a lot more to the study
of dirt than just looking
at soil.
It's a job for soil scientists.
But you might be surprised just
who a soil scientist might be.
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Cartan-Hansen: You don't have to
wait until you're in college to
learn how to become a soil
scientist.
These Kuna High School students
are about to show off their soil
scientist skills.
They're competing in the Idaho
State Land and Soil Evaluation
Career Development Event
contest.
Hal Swenson, NRCS State Soil
Scientist: Kids here today are
involved in a contest of judging
soil and land to help to
determine its best use and to
help determine whether the land
is suitable for agriculture or
how suitable, what kind of crops
and tillage should be here.
We also have two sites that they
judge for a home site to
determine the suitability for
building a home with the
appropriate structures that go
with that.
Cartan-Hansen: In the
competition, the teams of five
people investigate each of six
pits dug into the ground.
They examine the soil by looking
at the soil horizon.
The layers of topsoil and
sub-soil.
Dina Hopson, Kuna High School
Student: I go through, and I'm
checking for the erosion loss.
So I take my soil-picking tool
and you pick through the dirt
until you get where there's a
change in how you feel it or
what's going on.
Cartan-Hansen: They also
classify the soil by doing
something called texturing.
Jeremiah Hellewell, Kuna High
School Student: We grab the
soil.
We're trying to find what the
different sizes are.
And so there's sand, which is
the largest and then silt, which
is the middle one and then clay.
Usually you want a silt because
it's not too big and not too
small.
And so what we do is we get it
wet because you can't really
tell because sometimes the clay
will like build up with each
other and they stick together a
lot, so you have to break it
down using the water.
And then for sands, it will be
gritty and for silt, it will be
smooth and clay will stick
together a lot, so it will be
hard to move around and it will
stick together really well and
that's how we can tell the
difference.
Cartan-Hansen: The students also
determine the slope of the land,
the angle at which the land
falls or climbs.
Knowing the slope helps
determine water runoff and
whether the soils are vulnerable
to erosion.
That's important to know,
especially if you are picking a
place to build a house.
Hellewell: And then the other
things that we do is, they give
us numbers on a placard, which
is a board with a bunch of
information on it, and they are
nutrients that are found in
fertilizers, and they tell you
how much is in the soil.
And so then knowing whether or
not the soil on a PH scale is
below 7 or above 7, you can
determine what types of
nutrients you need, and so they
tell us that how many nutrients
there are and we determine
whether we need to add more or
not.
Swenson: Most of these kids come
from an agricultural background,
so they're interested in
learning this to help them maybe
go back to run their own
operation at some time.
The kids that don't do that,
they're learning about how to
judge a site for suitability for
a home.
Cartan-Hansen: The students mark
all the required information
down for each pit on their own
sheets.
It takes real skill to be able
to answer all the questions and
students from all over the state
compete.
Each team member's sheets are
scored, combined and the top two
scoring teams will go on to
represent Idaho in the national
competition.
Hopson: Yeah, I think it's a
good learning experience.
You get to go out and meet new
people, and you get to
experience things you wouldn't
normally experience.
Hellewell: I'm doing this
because we have a class for it,
but also to gain more knowledge
about agriculture and other
things so that way I can
potentially do things on my own
instead of hiring someone to do
it and also possibly pursuing a
profession in agriculture.
Cartan-Hansen: The team from
Kuna didn't win today's
competition, but they did learn
something important.
Hopson: It's not just dirt.
There's more to it.
Cartan-Hansen: If you want to
learn more about soil, check out
the science trek website.
You'll find it at science trek
dot org.
[MUSIC]
ANNOUNCER: Presentation of
Science Trek on Idaho Public
Television is made possible
through the generous support of
the Laura Moore Cunningham
Foundation, committed to
fulfilling the Moore and Bettis
family legacy of building the
great state of Idaho.
By the Idaho National
Laboratory, mentoring talent and
finding solutions for energy and
security challenges, by The
Friends of Idaho Public
Television and by the
Corporation for Public
Broadcasting.