Project Hero Soil Quest - Explore: Healing the Soil

Positives

• Students will watch several excellent videos about regenerative farming methods that show how certain practices make the soil healthier while increasing crop yields and productivity.
• Students may be surprised to learn that some traditional Indigenous farming methods eliminate the need for dangerous pesticides and fertilizers.
  

Additional Prerequisites

• This is part of the Explore section of the Project Hero Soil Quest. Make sure to check out the first section of step four, which deals with harming the soil.
• The Virtual Student Guide explains the activities.
• The book button displays additional resources that can be explored.

Differentiation

• Teachers can modify this resource by selecting which videos to use and choosing how much time to devote to each section.
• Cross-curricular connections can be made with social studies and history classes when discussing how sustainable Indigenous farming practices were replaced by soil-damaging industrial farming practices.
• Earth science classes could delve deeper into the no-till section of the resource to discuss why soil that has not been tilled can hold more water than tilled soil. 
• Science classes can integrate some of these videos into lessons about biodiversity, pollution, deforestation, and erosion.
  
• Other resources on this topic include this video on traditional Mayan forest farming methods, this video on Hopi dryland farming, and this Ecosia video on regenerative agriculture.