Founder & Team Leader, Pedosphere.com & Professor Emeritus (Soil Science), University of Alberta

In a recent article published in the Journal of Natural Resources & Life Science Education (Vol. 37:117-124, 2008), Dr. Mary E. Collins addressed the question "Where have the soils students gone?". One of the key recommendations of the committee for attracting undergraduate students to Soil Science was:
 
"Courses in the soil science curricula must be changed and modernized so that the content is more appealing to today’s students. New courses should also be added to curricula to meet the rapidly changing technology. Changing the name of a course or department is not likely enough. Course content should be regularly evaluated to determine if the material is relevant and "appealing" to attract students."

Our Vision

The pedosphere.com team has created a number of educational resources to engage students to learn Soil Science in a more interactive manner. In this process we are also aiming to:

1. raise the profile of the discipline of Soil Science;
    
   
2. show how Soil Science is or can be integrated with other disciplines in Earth System Science;
    
   
3. help instructors deliver Soil Science courses using a systems approach to address current issues in agriculture, forestry, ecology and environmental sciences; and
    
   
4. generate a global awareness of the importance of Soil Science to humanity.

I welcome your questions, comments and suggestions. Please e-mail me at njuma@pedosphere.com

Noorallah Juma, PhD, PAg
Founder/Team Leader, Pedosphere.Com
 
Pedosphere.com Leadership...