Digging in to urban soil health through a soil testing project with community gardeners

Source abstract

Abstract Although urban gardening has become more popular, uncertainty about the health and safety of urban soils can limit the effectiveness and sustainability of urban food sovereignty efforts. Community-based learning projects to examine urban garden soils can simultaneously help students learn about soils in a local context while providing a valuable service to local gardeners. This paper describes a class-based soil testing project (developed for an undergraduate ecological agriculture course) that engages students in partnership with local community gardeners to investigate soil properties such as pH, organic matter, nutrients, and toxic elements, and ensure crop safety, while giving students meaningful context to apply soil science knowledge. Students develop project plans, sample soils, conduct basic analyses or send out for analysis, interpret data, and make recommendations about soil management for current and potential garden sites, while learning about gardening practices in the context of the local community. The project supports conversations about urban soil health and food justice, and celebrates locally grown food. In this paper, the context, instructor preparation, project steps, and further connections, are described with reflections provided on the project to inspire implementation of similar urban soil learning opportunities for students while providing a service of soil testing for urban gardeners.