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This course, “Soil and Growth Media Management”, is intended to
provide you with an overview of the role that soil plays in the
environment. The
course is primarily structured with the role of soils as a plant
growth medium as the central theme.
However, a fairly broad view is taken, and the interactions
of soil with other aspects of the environment are considered.
Key themes developed in the course are the role of soil in
supplying water and nutrients to plants and the role of soil as an
environmental buffer.
This course is an introduction to soil
science, and thus aims to introduce you to a number of underlying
concepts and to the vocabulary of soil science.
If it seems simple, then that’s great.
We think soil science is simple – it’s largely a matter
of common sense. Most
of you will not have thought about soils before, and so the
concepts will be new. Our
primary goal is to change the way you look at and think about soil.
The coverage of the course is broad, and as a
result the detail provided on any one subject area is limited.
For example, only a few plant nutrients will be discussed in
detail. These
nutrients, particularly nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur are used
as models to demonstrate different types of behaviour.
With an understanding of the underlying processes, a broad
range of situations can be interpreted.
This generality of understanding is especially important
when working in the mining industry because the range of situations
confronted is great, and very frequently the conditions encountered
are extreme relative to those found in agricultural situations.
Nevertheless, the underlying process remain the same as
those acting in undisturbed forests and in agricultural fields.
The course is divided into four modules:
Within each module there are a number of
topics which are intended as learning units – one to two hours of
work. We have tried to
develop each unit as a coherent and relatively independent body of
material, so that you can work through and finish a unit in one
sitting. Of course
there are links between individual units, and there is a linear
nature to the course – it is best to learn the material on what
the soil is composed of (Module 1), before looking at how these
components are arranged and behave (Modules 2 and 3).
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