What Is Soil?

Lab Brief #4

🎯 Your mission

Predict it first. Then prove yourself right (or wrong).

⚡ The twist

Today's mountain was yesterday's ocean floor.

What you'll learn

Soil is made of tiny rocks, dead plants, water, and air. Plants grow in soil.

Key words

rock
A hard, solid piece of the Earth made of minerals.
soil
The top layer of ground where plants grow their roots.

Make a hypothesis first

Guess: where will the water go first?

Say your guess out loud — then find out if you were right.

Get ready

🧰 What you need

food coloring

⚠️ Safety first

Wash your hands thoroughly afterwards and keep the material away from your face.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Look at the new words. Can you say each one?

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Collect soil from two different places. Compare the color, texture, and what you find in each.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Look for something that changed. What is it?

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Circle the correct answer on your worksheet.

Question 1 of 3

What is soil made of?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 3

What is erosion?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 3 of 3

What are the three types of rocks?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Mind = blown

🌋 There are 1,500 active volcanoes on Earth right now.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 3 right.

Next: Why We Have Seasons All lessons

🎯

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✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: This is shaping the ground you walk on, slowly, every single day.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Find a rock outside and try to guess how old it is.

👨‍👩‍👧 For the dinner table: “What's the slowest change you can think of?”

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What Is Soil?

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