Draft Status

This is an unpublished, publicly-available draft of Soil and Water Conservation Laboratory Manual, an open-access textbook. Final publication is expected by the end of 2023. It will be licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This unpublished edition and was made publicly available for use by instructors that have already adopted the manual for use in their courses. If you notice anything that needs attention prior to publication, please contact Colby Moorberg.

Overview

This laboratory manual was developed for graduate and upper-level undergraduate students in soil and water conservation classes who have previously taken a course on introductory soil science. It is designed with a “scaffolding” approach in which each laboratory builds on the previous ones on the way to developing a conservation plan for a single study site. The manual begins with a section on site characterization with laboratory activities covering evaluation of onsite conditions such as ground cover, slope, soils as mapped in SSURGO, ecological sites, and soil health assessment. This is followed by sections on specific soil and water conservation practices and virtual field trips. Following that is a section on predicting water and wind erosion using soil erosion models. The final section is focused on developing a conservation plan in which students will summarize their site characterization, erosion modeling, and evaluation of potential conservation practices relevant to their study site.

Each laboratory exercise begins with a recommended reading in a purple textbox that describes and links to freely-available resources related to the laboratory exercise topic. This is followed by learning objectives in a green textbox that outlines expected learning outcomes. Next is a list of materials required for the laboratory in an orange textbox. These material lists generally include several options based on materials  available to students and instructors. These textboxes are followed by an introduction that provides relevant context for the laboratory activities. The laboratory activities are described in step-by-step detail and, when possible, include embedded videos that demonstrate how to perform the activity. Each laboratory is concluded with a blue textbox containing questions relevant to the laboratory followed by references. The questions should be answered in the laboratory report. A default format for laboratory reports is provided in the beginning of this laboratory manual.

Accessibility

This laboratory manual was designed with accessibility in mind. Alternative text is included with each image. Aria-labels have been added to HTML code for URLs in all reference sections as needed to prevent each character from being spelled out by screen readers. If you find an image that is missing alternative text, or a URL that is missing a functional aria-label, please inform Colby Moorberg.

Acknowledgements

Financial support for the development of this laboratory manual was provided by a new course development grant from K-State Global Campus and funds from the K-State Open Textbook Fee. In addition, the  Ecological Site Descriptions laboratory was funded by the USDA-NRCS, agreement number NR183A750025C016. Each of these funding sources are greatly appreciated.

This laboratory manual, in particular the Site Evaluation section, highlights the use of two excellent resources. The first is the Cropland In-Field Soil Health Assessment developed by the USDA-NRCS. The second is the LandPKS app, which facilitates the use of technology for collecting site data including observations from the Cropland In-Field Soil Health Assessment. In addition, the USDA-NRCS and the creators of LandPKS have developed a wealth of YouTube videos that concisely describe how to conduct these and other site assessments. These resources were instrumental in the development of this manual. Links to those resources are provided as needed.

Logan Simon, a former student of the AGRON 635 – Soil and Water Conservation Course at Kansas State University led the development of the Soil and Water Management Chapter.

The face-to-face and online students of the Kansas State University AGRON 635 – Soil and Water Conservation course during the Fall 2022 semester were gracious in their use of early editions of this laboratory manual and helped provide constructive criticism for its improvement.

Associated Resources

This open-access laboratory manual was developed as a companion to the open-access book, Soil and Water Conservation: An Annotated Bibliography (Moorberg, 2019), which is available through New Prairie Press and as a Pressbooks web book. The YouTube channel, ColbyDigsSoil contains content in support of this laboratory manual that was produced by the same author.