Project Hero Soil Quest - Solve: Ideas, Design, & Do

• This resource provides students with several project ideas to restore soil health and a planning guide for every step of the project. 
• Students will design a soil restoration project and make a plan to communicate with stakeholders, budget, raise funds, complete the project, monitor and care for the site, and measure the project's success.
• Students will determine whether their project is specific, measurable, agreeable, realistic, timely, ethical, and relevant (SMARTER).

Positives

• In the Project Ideas section, students will find a short description of each project along with links to more information.
• Students will learn about the importance of establishing criteria to determine the project's success before starting the project.
  

Additional Prerequisites

• This is part of the Solve section of the Project Hero Soil Quest.
• Students will need to use the project planner from the Site Survey step of the Solve section.
• Students can click on the project ideas to access more information on each project; however, the links to the Project Drawdown solutions are broken. Here is the Project Drawdown website.
  
• The Virtual Student Guides at the beginning of both the Project Ideas section and Design and Do section will give students an overview of the activities for each section.

Differentiation

• It might be helpful to have students explore the different project ideas individually and then vote on the project that they would like to complete. After narrowing down the project ideas, students can work in groups to answer the Questions to Consider to decide which project will work best for the site.
• After completing the Project Planner, students may want to make a timeline or calendar of events to decide which days will be devoted to specific tasks. 
• Students could make a plan to document the project over time by taking pictures from the same vantage point, collecting soil samples, and monitoring the organisms present.
• Other resources on this topic include this video on turning a lawn into a food garden, this video on urban gardening, and this Khan Academy video on integrated pest management.

Students will be able to create and combine various ideas to improve soil health. Using this resource, their capacity for project management would grow as a result of engaging in the activity. This resource is recommended for teaching.