It's a Dirty Job
All of us start out with a love of dirt; that goes without saying really. But it's hard for most people to get seriously interested in it in a scientific way, even though all of civilization depends on the soil, a layer less than a meter thick on average. I won't even try to get into soil science this week, because the subject is fiendishly difficult—soil is probably the most complex substance on Earth.
There are some earnest attempts out there to get children beyond their love of mud pies. Goddard Space Flight Center's site, of all places, has a Soil Science Education Page with some cool stuff, like a soil profile from the Biosphere II site in the Arizona desert. It has a charming story from Twylah, a Seneca Indian elder, about how she learned to hear the earth talking from a hole she dug as a little girl. Go there, and come back to it with a child of the right age, because hardly anyone knows about this precious spot that your taxes have created.
But I think the real hook for kids, with real bait on it, is forensic geology: the study of soils and sediments to solve crimes. The crud on a suspect's shoes is more than just a plot element in murder mysteries from Sherlock Holmes to the present day, it's the basis of a thriving profession. Just scratching the surface of forensic-related Web sites made me feel like I'd stumbled into another universe (visit Reddy's Forensic Page to see what I mean).
Imagine coming into eighth-grade class on Monday to find a corner of the room cordoned off with CRIME SCENE tape. An old computer lies on the floor, and suspicious little piles of sand and white powder are scattered around it. Later, more "crime scenes" appear all around the school building, and your teachers and school staff are suspects! This is how Keith Olive, of Wilson Middle School in Yakima, Washington, got his classes to put their minds into the dirt.
This sort of thing could start a kid's love affair with learning. Such a student would do well to see what's being taught at some of the many forensics departments at colleges around the world. Of course, your kid might get sidetracked while absorbing all that geology and end up researching geophagy instead, even writing papers about it; are you prepared to take that risk?
