Standards, Assessments and Benchmarks for K-12 Soil Science.

The efforts to develop appropriate teaching modules to accompany the Smithsonian Soil Science Exhibit entitled Dig It! The Secrets of Soil requires correlating soils content with national and state science education standards, since K-12 teachers are increasingly being required to teach to standards that specify specific science content and practices. At the national level, the AAAS Benchmarks (1993), the National Science Education Standards (National Academy of Science, 1996), the Atlas for Science Literacy (AAAS, 2001 & 2007), and the NAEP 2009 Frameworks all guide state standards, although all 50 states may create their own. These standards specify what students should know and be able to do by certain grade levels, and appropriate assessments provide the criteria to measure progress toward the learning content and practices.  We believe that soil can be the content and context for the exploration of many of these science concepts.  The S-591 committee has identified soil topics and some lessons that can be the context and content to explore some of the science content standard.  Some of these lessons are listed on the web site-https://www.soils.org/smithsonian/learn.html.  Additional lessons are being reviewed by the committee.  The use of authentic assessments created for soils content and practices can reveal student knowledge in these areas.  Authentic assessment requires that students can perform, can apply, can interpret and not just “know about” or “understand” a subject, and many of the lessons selected for this project can double as authentic assessment tools.  Examples of soils lessons correlated with K-12 science standards will be shared.  Audience participants will be asked to share their knowledge of other soil content or lessons that address K-12 science standards.