Each year on World Soil Day, December 5th, people from around the globe celebrate the importance of soil as the basis for food, feed, fuel, fiber production and for services to ecosystems. Awareness and momentum gained on World Soil Day will lead into 2015, designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Soils. The Danforth Center is establishing a new education and outreach program, Missourians Doing Impact Research Together (MO DIRT) to promote greater understanding of the significance of soil to humanity. By examining the climate-soil interface across the state of Missouri, citizen scientists will collect and analyze soil samples and record meteorological information in their communities. Participants will actively generate and validate real-time data that will be used by climate, soil, plant and environmental scientists across Missouri who are working to understand the relationships between soil temperature, soil respiration, and other soil parameters associated with global warming. MO DIRT is part of The Missouri Transect: Plants Climate and Community a five year, $20 million state-wide research project funded by the National Science Foundation. The project is made up of four interdisciplinary teams. The Danforth Center will focus on plant phenomics, big data analytics, and community/education/outreach programs such as MO DIRT.
This blog entry is reposted with permission from the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center's Roots & Shoots blog.