Field Trips for Primary Schools

Overview

An introduction to soil erosion and land degradation focused on the UAE. Students learn how to identify different threats to soil based on soil properties as well as their causes to help them formulate ideas on how to conserve soils and reverse some of these threats.

Case Study

Farmers this year have lost most of their crops and they need your help to find out what happened and help them save the rest of their land!

Activities

1. Tour of the Emirates Soil Museum.
2. Experiments to identify threat to soil:
   • Water holding capacity
   • pH test
   • Color categorization
   • Soil texture
   • Soil Salinity
   • Soil Moisture
3. Presentations on solutions to farmers.
4. Create your own mini soil monolith and take it home!

Topics Addressed

1. Human impact on the environment
2. Urbanization
3. Global warming and rising sea levels
4. Climate change
5. Soil erosion and salinzation
6. Effects on habitats and organisms
7. Reading maps
8. Conservation
9. Dichotomous key

Overview

Students learn about how soil is formed and how the parent rocks and their minerals affect the kind of soil we have. They learn to distinguish between soils based on color, texture and size.

Case Study

Crime at the museum! Somebody stole all the displays and their labels! They have been retrieved but we need your help in identifying the types of soils, so we could label them correctly.

Activities

1. Tour of the Emirates Soil Museum.
2. Experiments to identify types of soil:
   • Water holding capacity
   • pH test
   • Color categorization
   • Soil texture
3. Create your own sand tube key chains and take it home!

Topics Addressed

1. Soil formation
2. Group different soils together
3. Connect properties of parent rocks to soil types
4. 3 main soil types: sand, silt and clay
5. Dichotomous key

Overview

Students learn about what happens underground: from plant leaves falling to the organisms decomposing them to their return as nutrients to plants and later to humans as food. The focus of the trip is on biodiversity.

Case Study

You are biologists tasked with gathering data about the number and types of life one could find in 1 cubic foot in the UAE.

Activities

1. Tour of the Emirates Soil Museum.
2. Documentation of life within a bio-cube through writing, photography and close inspection using magnifying glasses!
3. Create your own terrarium and take it home!

Topics Addressed

1. Soil life cycle
2. Soil food web
3. Plants’ role in soil
4. Animals’ role in soil
5. Insects and micro-organisms that live in soil
6. Decomposition and food
7. Seasons of the year