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    Explore Soil!: With 25 Great Projects
    Explore Soil!: With 25 Great Projects
    Explore Soil!: With 25 Great Projects
    Ebook188 pages1 hour

    Explore Soil!: With 25 Great Projects

    By Kathleen M. Reilly

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    About this ebook

    Soil! We walk on it, play in it, build with it, grow our food in it, and get antibiotics from it. But what exactly is soil? What makes it so important? Can we survive without it? In Explore Soil! With 25 Great Projects, young readers learn how vital soil is to our lives. It filters the water we drink and the air we breathe, and most of the food we eat either grows in soil or subsists on plants that grow there. Soil is a very important part of our daily diet!

    Activities such as exploring soil runoff, composting, and analyzing soil composition offer kids the chance to get their hands dirty while coming face to face with the study of soil. Kids learn concepts within the fields of life science and chemistry while discovering the dangers soil faces. Explore Soil offers fun, practical information about something kids already love: soil!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNomad Press
    Release dateSep 21, 2015
    ISBN9781619302983
    Explore Soil!: With 25 Great Projects
    Author

    Kathleen M. Reilly

    It all started with a four-inch book written in green crayon on peach paper, called "The Rabbet and Dog and Cat." Yes, I realize that's not how rabbit is spelled. I know that now. But when I was five, I wasn't worried about the spelling. I was too busy creating my masterpiece ("illustrated by the author"). Today, my features appear in publications such as: Parents, Better Homes & Gardens, Family Circle, American Baby, FamilyFun, Woman's Day, Ladies' Home Journal, and others. I write more than just features, though. My fiction includes a middle grade adventure (SUMMER AT FORT TARMETTO: SEARCH FOR REGINALD PEPPERS' LEG), a chick lit series (HALFSIE), and a forthcoming young adult novel (SHE). I've also written a Disney activity book for kids (WALT DISNEY WORLD EXTREME VACATION GUIDE FOR KIDS), available here on Smashwords and other retailers. And I've written nine science books for kids in print with Nomad Press. They're available on Nomad's site (www.nomadpress.net) and at book sellers. Drop me a line -- I'd love to connect with you!

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      Book preview

      Explore Soil! - Kathleen M. Reilly

      Newest titles in the Explore Your World! Series

      Check out more titles at www.nomadpress.net

      Nomad Press

      A division of Nomad Communications

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      Copyright © 2015 by Nomad Press. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review or for limited educational use. The trademark Nomad Press and the Nomad Press logo are trademarks of Nomad Communications, Inc.

      Illustrations by Bryan Stone

      Educational Consultant, Marla Conn

      Questions regarding the ordering of this book should be addressed to

      Nomad Press

      2456 Christian St.

      White River Junction, VT 05001

      www.nomadpress.net

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      What Is Soil?

      Chapter 1

      Home Sweet Soil

      Chapter 2

      How Soil Works

      Chapter 3

      Soil and People

      Chapter 4

      Soil and Disease

      Chapter 5

      Soil and Farm Animals

      Chapter 6

      Soil and Plants

      Chapter 7

      Dangers to Soil

      Chapter 8

      What Can We Do?

      Index

      Interested in primary sources? Look for this icon.

      Use a smartphone or tablet app to scan the QR code and explore more! You can find a list of URLs on the Resources page.

      KEYWORD PROMPTS

      If the QR code doesn’t work, try searching the Internet with the Keyword Prompts to find other helpful sources.

      When you’re playing in your back yard or walking down the sidewalk, what do you see when you look down at the ground? Grass, cement, leaves, trash? Most of the time, you’ll also see something many people call dirt.

      You might think, What’s the big deal about dirt? It’s everywhere. That dirt is actually soil, which is very important to life on Earth. It’s one of the three most important natural resources on our planet, along with air and water. Without soil, there wouldn’t be life on Earth.

      In the same way that you have skin covering your whole body our planet has soil covering its entire surface. Soil covers the ground in natural places, such as meadows, gardens, forests, and your back yard. Some places have only a thin layer of soil. In other spots, it can be several feet thick.

      Soil does a lot of work for us. It is a habitat for tiny organisms. Most of our plants need it to grow. And soil recycles nutrients and filters our water, too. There’s a lot going on under your feet!

      WHAT’S IN SOIL?

      Soil is made up of lots of different materials. The organic matter in soil includes little bits of dead plants and animals. There are tiny bits of inorganic matter, too, such as broken-down rocks and pebbles. There are also even smaller particles in soil, such as sand, silt, and clay.

      Sand is the largest particle you’ll find in soil. Have you ever scooped up a handful of soil at the beach and looked at it closely? You’ll be able to see each little grain of sand.

      Silt particles are smaller than sand. If you drag your hand lightly along the bottom of a running stream, you can snag a little bit of soil that’s being carried along with the current. If you look at it very closely you might be able to see individual particles—but they’re really small!

      Clay is made of the smallest particles. You won’t be able to see the individual particles just by looking at a lump of clay. You need a microscope to see them because they’re so small. When clay particles get wet, they turn really sticky and clump together. Have you ever played with clay?

      Squeezed between all these soil particles are air and water. That’s how plants grow in soil—they push their roots between the particles to get the water and nutrients they need.

      THE FIRST STEP

      Rocks are very hard. If you drop one on your foot, it hurts! But they can be broken into smaller pieces under the right conditions. That’s how soil starts.

      Rock is called the parent material of soil because it’s where most soil comes from. Soil comes from the parent material of rock just as you come from your parent! Water, ice, and wind break down bedrock through time.

      Water can move forcefully enough to push rocks, tumble them around, and knock them into each other. As the water continues to roll them, little pieces break off, and then they start tumbling around, too. In time,

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