Explore Soil!

We all know you can't eat a mud pie, but did you know that without the soil that makes up a mud pie, we wouldn't have very much real food? We wouldn't have several important medicines, either! Soil is a very important resource. We walk on it, play in it, build with it, grow our food in it, and get antibiotics from it. But what exactly is soil? What makes it so important? Can we survive without soil?

In Explore Soil! With 25 Great Projects, young readers learn what this substance is made of and how vital it is to our own lives. They look at how soil filters both the water we drink and the air we breathe, then follow the food supply chain from field to plate, exploring the relationships between environment, culture, food production, and health.

Activities such as exploring soil runoff, composting, and analyzing soil composition offer kids the chance to get their hands dirty and come face to face with the soil. Explore Soil! offers practical solutions to protect this important resource, and with it our source of food, access to antibiotics, and clean water and air.