Friday, January 16, 2015

“Dig it! The Secrets of the Soil!” Smithsonian Online Exhibition

               The Smithsonian website offers online materials, exhibitions, and research opportunities for adults and kids who aren’t able to visit the Washington D.C. onsite locations. Some of the exhibitions, even past exhibitions, are able to be accessed completely online; complete with video tours, interactive games, and mountains of information. One of their very interesting exhibits entitled “Dig it! The Secrets of the Soil!” was on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History from July 18, 2008 through Jan 10, 2010 and is now available for viewing completely online.[1] This exhibit focuses on educating people about what soil is, its purpose, what makes it interesting, and why it is important to us.
            The exhibit begins by explaining what soil is. It explains that, “Soil makes life, and life makes soils…soils breathe”[2] A quote by Wallace H. Fuller from Soils of the Desert Southwest says, “A cloak of loose, soft material, held to the earth’s hard surface by gravity, is all that lies between life and lifelessness.”[3] The Smithsonian really paints a portrait of soil as being a living and breathing thing, it mentions that soils are born, age, and are lost. Soil is made up of air, water, minerals, and organic matter (both living and non-living).[4] The exhibit features information on how all of these components mix to create different types of soil. It also features information on each type of soil from different parts of the United States. The exhibit goes on to explain how scientists make soil monoliths; “a monolith, or vertical slice from topsoil down to the subsoil, preserves a soils colors and layered horizons in position.”[5] These monoliths act as tools to view how soil is created, changed, and settls over time. One of the most important issues this exhibit covers is the importance of soil in our lives by allowing a place for plants to grow that feed us, filter pollution, and create oxygen for us to breath. Soils are literally the foundations on which we build our lives. The exhibit ends by offering suggestions on how farmers can reduce the risk of over farming their soil and how plowing and fertilizing crops affects our environment.
            To keep the exhibit fun and interesting it offers many different interactive videos and games. One of the most interesting sections of the exhibit features ‘soil recipes’. These ‘recipes’ are created using soil and other ‘ingredients’ like elements, plants, bacteria, temperature, and climate changes. For example, the “New England Sandy Surprise” (creating a forest of white ash, American breech, sugar maple, and red spruce) would be ‘created’ by adding sand with iron and other elements, evergreen trees such as spruce or fir, water, bacteria and fungi, and cold winters & warm summers.[6] It offers the ‘directions’ to, “simmer in a cool, humid climate of 3,000 years, keep covered with vegetation, add water to the soil surface and let seep down.”[7] This section also offers a video of two chefs who compete to create the most creative soil concoction. It also features games on soil monoliths, state soil facts, greenhouse gas calculator, and more-all conveniently available on the ‘media resources’ tab and printable educational resources under the ‘for educators’ tab. 
            The Smithsonian website features information on all of the scientists and researchers who had a part in making this exhibit come to life. Dennis Whigam, Patrick Megonigal, and Melissa McCormick of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Douglas Ming a planetary scientist from NASA, and Laurel Hartley an ecologist from Michigan State University just to name a few. The online exhibit doesn’t offer many primary and secondary resources for their work other than consistently citing their photos and quotes from novels. They do however offer related titles and websites for further research and discovery. Smithsonian credits the exhibit to NASA (who funded the project) and the site manager Siobhan Starrs and curator Patrick Megonigal.
            Overall the exhibit is extremely effective at telling the history it is relating to the public, especially children. Through its use of interactive games and videos, it engages the audience and maintains a high level of interest. It makes the science and history behind soil relatable to modern people as well imparting the importance of soil protection for future generations. Online exhibitions allow history and science to be presented to the masses on a scale never before seen in history. People with internet connections can visit the Smithsonian website and get information on a thousand different topics at their fingertips. It is an amazing resource for adults and children to better understand their past, present, and future.



Work Cited:

Smithsonian. “Dig It! the Secrets of the Soil!” Accessed December 14, 2014.http://forces.si.edu/soils/.
Smithsonian. “Making a Soil Monolith.” Accessed December 14, 2014.http://forces.si.edu/soils/02_03_02.html.
Smithsonian. “Soil Recipe Book.” Accessed December 14, 2014.http://forces.si.edu/soils/swf/recipebook.html.
Smithsonian. “What Is Soil?” Accessed December 14, 2014.http://forces.si.edu/soils/02_01_00.html.




[1] “Dig It! the Secrets of the Soil!,” Smithsonian, accessed December 14, 2014, http://forces.si.edu/soils/index.html.

[2] “What Is Soil?,” Smithsonian, accessed December 14, 2014, http://forces.si.edu/soils/02_01_00.html.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., slide three.

[5] “Making a Soil Monolith,” Smithsonian, accessed December 14, 2014, http://forces.si.edu/soils/02_03_02.html.

[6] “Soil Recipe Book,” Smithsonian, accessed December 14, 2014, http://forces.si.edu/soils/swf/recipebook.html.

[7] Ibid. 

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