2. Teaching soil science around the globe
2.1. University of Waikato, New Zealand (Megan Balks)
I have had the privilege to teach introductory soil science over the
last 25 years, to a total of over 3500 first year university students, yet I
too am still a student of soil science. My first encounters with soil
science, as a student, left me with a deep impression from the enthusiasm
of my teachers (unmatched by other lecturers that I encountered)
and wonderful photographs that brought soils, and their associated
landscapes, into the classroom. The clincher formewas the first expeditions
into the field to see the differences between soils in closely related
parts of the landscape and, best of all, to discover that the tactile
pleasure of “playing with mud”, to assess soil textures and plasticity,
was a legitimate scientific activity!
The students who arrive in my classes today generally have not
enrolled to study soil science — it just happens to be part of an earth
or environmental science paper that they picked up to complete their
first year science course requirements. Thus my challenge is to get