As an optional activity, the class creates a diorama of an underground area that students can crawl through. Students observe a plant to determine that soil provides plants with a place to anchor their roots. They feel the texture of different soils, plant bean seeds in a variety of soils, predict which soil their plants will grow best in, and record and graph their observations concerning their plants' growth. They identify ways plants depend on soil. Students observe and draw two ways a plant growing in one area looks different from the same type of plant growing in another area.
Students bury a variety of garbage in the soil to test for decomposition.
They conduct other demonstrations to observe decomposition and identify some scavengers and decomposers. As an optional activity, students construct decomposition observation tubes. Students observe plants on the school grounds in various stages of their life cycles. Class members listen to The Gift of the Tree by Alvin Tresselt and help draw the life cycle of a tree. Students role-play the water cycle and create an art project about the life cycle of a toad in order to identify cycles in which soil plays a part.