# One thing about soil - an educational series Soil is a precious, but so often overlooked, part of nature. If we want to conserve and protect soils, we need to learn more about them. Soils are complex, dynamic systems. They are integrative bodies that exist at the intersection of rock, water, air, and life. We can learn a lot from studying soils - not just because soils provide many important ecological functions, but also because soils are part of the natural world, just like us. There is so much we are still learning about the soils that make up the world around us. Because soils sit at an environmental interface between the geosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere, we need to know SO much about the way the world works to really come to understand soils. That's a lot to learn. And I know from teaching soil science courses that it can be intimidating and overwhelming at times. I also know this from learning about soils myself. But there is also so much wonder and beauty hidden in soils that so often goes unseen. Soils deserve our time, attention, and curiosity. That's why I am making this series. To help us all learn more about soils, one idea at a time. We build knowledge this way - one idea at a time. Learning happens just one idea at a time. More often than not, learning isn’t linear, but instead iterative and messy and random. Learning requires that we get comfortable being tangled in a web of ideas and carefully figuring out how each strand is to connected to the whole. Each episode will feature one thing about soil. The episodes will be short and focused on just that one thing. I am designing these episodes so that each one shares one idea as part of our greater, growing understanding of soils. That means, you don't need to engage with the episodes in order. You can start whereever you'd like. You don’t need to be a soil scientist to learn more about soil and advocate for it's conservation. All you need to do is make time to learn one thing about soil, and share what you learn with others. Thanks for making the time to care about soil. #### Links >These notes are from an episode of "one thing about soil" - a soil science educational series created by Dr. Yamina Pressler *created on November 6, 2022*