This was a lab intensive week.  In addition to the physical characteristics of soil, which greatly affect how water interacts with the soil, the amount of nutrients in soil is important for all life on earth.

Plants are able to absorb nutrients directly from soil.  These well adapted organisms are also able to make their own sugar, for energy, from water, carbon dioxide, and the sun.  That’s another story, by the name of photosynthesis, but it just goes to show how extraordinary plants are.  After all, if you sat in the sun all day and snacked on soil and water as your only source of nutrition, you would not survive very long.

For this first lab, students prepared the organic matter test, to be read later, and then prepared a soil extract to use for further testing.