We attended the area conference of the National Science Teachers Association in Kansas City (December 3-5, 2015). We had the great opportunity to give a presentation about soil respiration. Soil science has been mostly focused on physical and chemical properties of the soil. In recent years, the biology of the soil has becoming a main subject of study. Soil organisms are critical in many aspects of soil function and are excellent indicators of soil health through their respiration. Soil respiration is a very important component of the carbon cycle, since, depending on soil management practices, soils could release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through respiration. This additional carbon dioxide contributes to the green-house effect and, consequently, to climate change. Measuring soil respiration has been challenging until recently. Woods End Laboratory has developed the Solvita method that is easy to implement and is affordable. We wanted to share this methodology with teachers in order to promote the teaching of soil science, soil health, the carbon cycle and climate change. We also wanted to use the Solvita method to introduce MO DIRT and our citizen science project on soil health surveys. More than 50 teachers attended our presentation, with half being from Missouri. We held a raffle and gave away 15 soil kits to conduct the soil respiration test.
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