The following is a list of downloadable resources for presenting 'Day in the Life of Soil'.
I first encountered this resource at a biodiversity day at Killarney in 2012 (I think). David Hardwick was presenting. It was exciting, interactive, dynamic role play and David demonstrated that it could be easily adapted to speak to a number of significant issues in soil management.
David now works for Soil Land Food, he is still using the resource to speak to farmers. There is a great YouTube link of him giving the presentation.
I was working at the Hermitage Research Facility at the time and we asked if we could use the Day in the Life of Soil as a student resource. This saw the development of the cards, we then sought to align this with elements in the Australia Curriculum. Since then it has been common that the competition will take 'Day in the Life of Soil' cards to display days.
The resource was clearly defined as Creative Commons and therefore I am making available the resources here as they have not had an easily accessible portal.
It has been one of the go-to resources in my teacher kit for the last few years. I am making the food-web and research task PPT available as part of my adaptation and utilisation of the resource. The most current version of the resource from my perspective will be linked here. Currently it will be the CONASTA 69 (2022) version, but if I feel the need to update I will replace it.
Slide show as presented at CONASTA 69 (2022)
Printable versions of the cards
9 up (full size) - two pages A4 - if you wish to print your own cards
18 up (half size) - one page A4 - useful for smaller food web presentations.
Food web
Example of a foodweb produced with the cards and template, movement of nutrients via predation represented in red, movement of nutrient via death, decomposition, and defecation is represented in blue.
A similar result can be obtained by printing the food web blank (below) on A3 and the 18 up file on stickers.
Research Task Template
Powerpoint template for research task
This Research task PPT has a Title Slide for each organism in the role play and then the three prompt slides for the research task. This PPT acts as a useful sequential listing of the card images if your wanting to use them in your own PPTs.
Other useful resources.
The Script, developed to accompany the slide show. Much of this material has now been incorporated as notes into the slide show for people using presenter mode. But there may be times when the script is a useful reference. The end of the script has a list of useful references.
