Nutrient Management Planning: Team Project Enabling Students to Integrate Soil Fertility Concepts.

A semester long term project in an upper level undergraduate soil fertility course is designed to teach students the process of developing a comprehensive nutrient management plan.  Students are organized around common soil-crop systems of interest such as viticulture, dryland cereal production, turf, waste management.  Teams are often composed of distance degree students and campus students.  The students develop a nutrient management plan over four stages: system characterization, develop a soil fertility evaluation plan, data collection and analysis, and fertility recommendations. The project develops critical thinking skills in information gathering and synthesis, data collection and interpretation, oral and written communication skills, as well as team building and cooperation.  The project enables students to apply and integrate content based material to a real world management system.