To understand how fossils are formed, students model the process of fossilization by making fossils using small toy figures and melted chocolate. They extend their knowledge to the many ways that engineers aid in the study of fossils, including the development of tools and technologies for determining the physical and chemical properties of fossilized organisms, and how those properties tell a story of our changing world.

Students explore the effects of regional geology on bridge foundation, including the variety of soil conditions found beneath foundations. They learn about shallow and deep foundations, as well as the concepts of bearing pressure and settlement.

Student teams locate a contaminant spill in a hypothetical site by measuring the pH of soil samples. Then they predict the direction of groundwater flow using mathematical modeling. They also use the engineering design process to come up with alternative treatments for the contaminated water.

This activity is an indoor lab investigation where students compare and contrast different growing environments for a lima bean seed and discover the optimal conditions needed for growth.

Students learn about geotechnical engineers and their use of physical properties, such as soil density, to determine the ability of various soils to offer support to foundations. In an associated activity, students determine the bulk densities of soil samples, and assess their suitability to support foundations.

Students determine the mass and volume of soil samples and calculate the density of the soils. They use this information to determine the suitability of the soil to support a building foundation.

This activity is a investigation where students observe soil and rocks, record their similarities and differences, interpret their findings, and are guided to develop a new investigable question.

Students conduct experiments to determine what environmental factors favor decomposition by soil microbes. They use chunks of carrots for the materials to be decomposed, and their experiments are carried out in plastic bags filled with dirt. Every few days students remove the carrots from the dirt and weigh them. Depending on the experimental conditions, after a few weeks most of the carrots have decomposed completely.

This lesson is for kindergarteners as they study the needs for survival of plants and animals. The students gather information about an invasive species that changes the soil so that plants have a more difficult time getting nutrients. They learn what they can do to help in preventing the spread of these species.  Pursuits addressed: Identity: This lesson addressed the 'who you desire to be' part of Identity. The scientist that is spotllighted in this video is a non-traditional scientist who is African and studies worms. Students who are of African descent or African American and any student who may feel that the doors to science careers may be closed to them due to the color of their skin, may feel encouraged by this video to nurture the possibility of being a scientist. The fact that this scientist studies something that many students may be interested in may foster new ideas that scientists can be people who spend a lot of time outdoors looking at interesting things. Intelligence: This lesson gives students real-world knowledge and some tools to make a difference in their community with this knowledge. It has immediate implications in the students' lives. 

Waste disposal has been an ongoing problem since medieval times. Environmental engineers are employed to develop technologies to dispose of the enormous amount of trash produced in the United States. In this lesson, students will learn about the three methods of waste disposal in use by modern communities. They will also investigate how engineers design sanitary landfills to prevent leachate from polluting the underlining groundwater.

Students learn about landslides, discovering that there are different types of landslides that occur at different speeds from very slow to very quick. All landslides are the result of gravity, friction and the materials involved. Both natural and human-made factors contribute to landslides. Students learn what makes landslides dangerous and what engineers are doing to prevent and avoid landslides.

Students leach organic matter from soil to create a water sample with high dissolved organic matter content (DOM), and then make filters to see if the DOM can be removed. They experience the difficulties of removing DOM from water, and learn about other processes that might make DOM removal more effective.

Students explore how different materials (sand, gravel, lava rock) with different water contents on different slopes result in landslides of different severity. They measure the severity by how far the landslide debris extends into model houses placed in the flood plain. This activity is a small-scale model of a debris chute currently being used by engineers and scientists to study landslide characteristics. Much of this activity setup is the same as for the Survive That Tsunami activity in Lesson 5 of the Natural Disasters unit.

Students conduct an experiment to determine how varying the composition of a construction material affects its strength. They make several adobe bricks with differing percentages of sand, soil, fibrous material and water. They test the bricks for strength by dropping them onto a concrete surface from progressively greater heights. Students graph the experiment results and use what they learn to design their own special mix that maximizes the bricks' strength. During the course of the experiment, students learn about variables (independent, dependent, control) and the steps of the engineering design process.

Help Sam the gardener in the Sunflower Greenhouse. Learn about plants and their parts, photosynthesis and energy. This lesson includes practical exercises. Good for grade 3.

Students investigate the critical nature of foundations as they learn differences between shallow and deep foundations, including the concepts of bearing pressure and settlement. Using models representing a shallow foundation and a deep pile foundation, they test, see and feel the effects in a cardboard box test bed composed of layers of pebbles, soil and sand. They also make bearing pressure calculations and recommendations for which type of foundations to use in various engineering scenarios.

Detailed study of soil properties with emphasis on interpretation of field and laboratory test data and their use in soft-ground construction engineering. Includes: consolidation and secondary compression; basic strength principles; stress-strain strength behavior of clays, emphasizing effects of sample disturbance, anisotropy, and strain rate; strength and compression of granular soils; and engineering properties of compacted soils. Some knowledge of field and laboratory testing assumed.

The online Soil Biology Primer is an introduction to the living component of soil and how it contributes to agricultural productivity and air and water quality. The Primer includes chapters describing the soil food web and its relationship to soil health and chapters about soil bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, and earthworms.

The online Primer includes all of the text of the printed original, but not all of the images of the soil organisms. The full story of the soil food web is more easily understood with the help of the illustrations in the printed version.

Over the course of three sessions, students act as agricultural engineers and learn about the sustainable pest control technique known as soil biosolarization in which organic waste is used to help eliminate pests during soil solarization instead of using toxic compounds like pesticides and fumigants. Student teams prepare seed starter pots using a source of microorganisms (soil or compost) and “organic waste” (such as oatmeal, a source of carbon for the microorganisms). They plant seeds (representing weed seeds) in the pots, add water and cover them with plastic wrap. At experiment end, students count the weed seedlings and assess the efficacy of the soil biosolarization technique in inactivating the weed seeds. An experiment-guiding handout and pre/post quizzes are provided.

Students learn about contamination and pollution, specifically in reference to soil in and around rivers. To start, groups use light sensors to take light reflection measurements of different colors of sand (dyed with various amounts of a liquid food dye), generating a set of "soil" calibration data. Then, they use a stream table with a simulated a river that has a scattering of "contaminated wells" represented by locations of unknown amounts of dye. They make visual observations and use light sensors again to take reflection measurements and refer to their earlier calibration data to determine the level of "contamination" (color dye) in each well. Acting as engineers, they determine if their measured data is comparable to visual observations. The small-scale simulated flowing river shows how contamination can spread.