Explore World Soil Day (WSD)  2015 under its theme Soils- a solid ground for life – using the WSD poster and theme and enviroed4all’s Soil Selfies

The World Soil Day campaign aims to connect people with soils and raise awareness on their critical importance in our lives. Here are some activities to help you do that individually, in a family, school or community group.

1 – Where food begins
A Discussion Use the Where food begins poster to inspire lists of foods that we eat that come IN the soil and ABOVE the soil.
B Create your own ‘Where food begins” poster showing the foods that grow in your community in place of those on the promo poster right,
C Share– display your poster widely in your community for the WSD .
(If you want to send it to me, with permission to share digitally, I will add it to this website.)

2 Soils -a solid ground for life
Reasons given for this theme by the GSP WSD  are that soil is critical in producing: 1 Life– you may think of it above the soil, but 1/4 of global biodiversity lives in soils,  2 food for us and other creatures; 3  fuels ; 4  fibres; and 5 ecosystem services , including oxygen production through plants, water collection and storage, carbon storage and reducing climate change,  physical and mental well-being and waste recycling.

A Discussion List under each of the 5 areas above what soil provides in your environment.  Repeat adding as many other things as you can for a global view.
B Create a photo to celebrate those things that you most value as the solid ground of your life
C Share– your photos and what they mean as the solid ground of your life on your social media.
My example shows that I value my soil as the solid  ground of our vegie patch producing zucchini for yummy cakes.  (I’d love to see yours too).

3 – Soil Selfies – individual soils up-close, in use and with challenges and their managements
The Soil Selfies collection comes from individual photo contributions from the Wimmera , eastern states of Australia  and around the world.  Their soil photos form a resource to better know the diversity of soils, their uses and issues – and thus be more aware of someone else’s  soils as the solid ground of their life.

A Discussion Use the Soil Selfies menus to choose which soils you would like to visit.  If in a group of class, choose different ones so they can be compared by colour (photos) and / or description (notes) , uses, and the issues, challenges and managements faced .
B  Create  a statement about how the Soil Selfies you looked at shows soil as the solid ground of life
C Share– your statement and this Soil Selfies with someone who hasn’t seen the Soil Selfies.
(If you want to send your statement  to me, I will add it to this website.)

4 – Quick virtual visits to Soil Selfies places 
Use the  Soil Selfies collection drop down menus (for Wimmera -Mallee, Australian states, and global, mainly Europe)   to choose farms, homes, forests, parks, and other places to see what their soils are like, how  they are used and their issues.

5 A “Where food begins” survey and discussion 
Instructions for this activitiy are in  Where food begins

6  There are more ideas for soil education in the Soil in Stories section eg under Otherways articles and Wimmera Soil Education .

My work as a freelance environmental educator in creating this support activity page for the WSD is unfunded.  If you would like to, please support me with a donation and/or feedback for how the activities in this website went when you used them.  Thank you

page created 30 November 2015