A soil mapping project has always been a part of our pedology course, AGRY 565, "Soil Classification, Genesis, and Survey." For most of the course's history, the mapping project has been an "exercise" that needed to be done to fulfill the course requirements, and for several years the same field was mapped year after year. In the fall of 2003, the mapping project was restructured as a service learning activity. This paper describes our first two years of experience with 3 laboratory sections. Each lab section (9 to 16 students) prepared a soil survey of a 30 to 40-acre field as a joint lab project. After an initial walkover to become familiar with the landscape, students worked in pairs to bore holes and describe and classify the soils along transects. The aggregated data collected over 4 to 5 weeks of field work were then used to prepare an order 1 soil map of the site. Each lab section prepared a single, jointly-prepared written and oral report for presentation to the client. At Historic Prophetstown, a local living history farm, the class used their soil map to provide a recommendation as to how best to divide a large field into 3 smaller fields more typical of the 1920s farm depicted by the museum. In a project for the Tippecanoe Soccer Association, the class mapped a parcel that will be developed into a new soccer complex. The soils students presented their report to a group of engineering students who were designing the soccer complex as an EPICS project (Engineering Projects in Community Service). Comments from the students indicate that survey project is a very effective method of learning the practical aspects of the course. Client comments have also been enthusiastically supportive.