Developing a Soil Parent Material Map for West Virginia: Interpreting Conventional Soil Maps for Teaching and Learning Soil Science.

Conventional soil maps for the US, such as the Soil Survey Geographic (SSURGO) database, provide an inventory of local soil resources for the primary purpose of delineating uniform management areas to support land use decision-making. However, the soil-landscape knowledge that is inherently embedded within the maps can be extracted in support of teaching and learning soil science. West Virginia University (WVU) and the USDA-NRCS National Soil Survey Center-Geospatial Research Unit (GRU) are collaborating with Purdue University to expand the Integrating Spatial Educational Experiences (Isee) instructional approach to broaden the geographic extent of Isee. The goal of our efforts is to encourage teachers and students to experience how maps can provide a valuable spatial context to learning soil science. The objectives of this project are to develop the ability of students to use maps (i) to understand how and why soils and landscapes vary spatially at scales ranging from individual fields, to counties, states, and, ultimately, globally; and (ii) to understand how the spatial distribution of soils and landscapes impacts the distributions of crops, cropping systems, land use, and environmental and natural resource issues across various scales. Digital maps for West Virginia are be created using the SSURGO database. The spatial and tabular data in SSURGO are being translated into maps of soil properties that are relevant to how we teach soil science.