Task 1a

Materials and tools for a working group:

soil sample, magnifier, flashlight

The first activity focuses on soil investigation – what can we find in it. The teacher discusses with pupils about their ideas about soil composition: What is soil? Where is it? What can we find in it? Answers are not evaluated. The task of the pupils will be to create the predictions about what they can find in the soil.

The teacher discusses their predictions. He asks pupils how they could verify it. Further they examine either the soil outside the school yard (the teacher uses a spade to sweep the soil that pupils can explore), or the teacher brings the soil samples to the class he had prepared in advance. Magnifiers and flashlights are available for better investigation.

Subsequently, pupils write down their findings and compare them with predictions. The teacher asks them if they can classify items found in the soil into several categories (eg living, inanimate, dead parts). In a case of younger pupils, categories are provided by the teacher. Individual categories can be circled in worksheets – e.g. live parts with green, inanimate blue and dead red. If they find any animals in the soil, they can identify them using the encyclopedia or the Internet.