Virtual Soil Safari Name___________________________ Date______________ Block_____
Get ready to check out some soil. Get your shovel and bucket—ready? Here we go!
From home, go to the following website:
http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/soil/down_dirty.html then answer questions below
From school:
þ Double click My Computer
þ Double click Global
þ Double click Bell
þ Double click Webquests folder
þ Double click Virtual Soil Safari in a word document
þ Follow the directions and answer questions below
Read the introduction ‘What’s the difference between Soil and Dirt?’
1. How deep is even the most fertile soil?
a. 15 feet b. 1 foot c. 8 inches d. too deep to measure
2. What it the purpose of a Decomposer?
_____________________________________________________________________
3. How can bedrock ever get exposed or pushed to the surface? _______________________
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At the top left of the page, double click on ‘A Recipe for Soil’
4. Why don’t Mars and Venus have soil?
a. Mars has too many windstorms
b. Venus is too acidic for soil to form
c. Mars and Venus are made of gas.
d. Mars and Venus don’t have living things which are needed to form soil.
Scroll down and look at all the pictures below the lava flow.
5. What type of weathering is occurring in the (Glacier Photo)?
a. Chemical b. Physical (mechanical) c. Neither A or B
Click the Down & Dirty bubble at the top of the page home page. Then—
Click the ‘Name that Soil’
6. A soil’s texture depends on ______.
a. size of it’s particles b. how much clay is in it
c. the shape d. Both B & C
7. True or False: ______ Silt is larger than sand and smaller than gravel.
8. True or False: ______ Clay is the smallest size soil particle (sediment).
9. __ is considered to be the perfect soil because it is a combination of soil types.
a. sand b. loam c. silt d. clay
Return to the top of the page and click on the Field Guide bubble.
Read “So what….” Then, click on the Beetle Mite:
10. True or False: ______ Beetle Mites are actually in the family of spiders
and ticks, not insects.
11. Beetle Mites eat nothing but ______.
a. leaves b. insects c. roots d. fungus
Go back and then click on the Nemotode:
12. ______ True or False: Nemotodes are found all over the world and are the most common multi-cellular animals in soil.
13. ______ True or False: Nemotodes do not eat bacteria.
Go back and then click on the Night Crawler:
14. ______ True or False: Night crawlers came from Asia to America.
15. ______ True or False: Earthworms use their teeth to burrow through the ground.
Go back twice and click on the Soil Safari bubble:
READ THE DIRECTIONS to your upcoming Safari and then click on the GET IN icon.
þ Follow the directions that come up on the copilot screen to discover your mission. When you are ready to go, make your SCALE 300mm to begin the journey.
16. What 3 organisms do you see at 300 mm? ___________________________
17. At what SCALE do you see Nemotodes? a. 300 mm b. 3.0 mm c. 0.3 mm d. 0.003 mm
18. Find the “trapped” Nemotode in the fungus. What will eventually happen to the Nemotode?
a. it will break free b. it will die c. it will eat the fungus
19. At 0.3 mm, you are the size of a: a. pinhead b. human hair c. caterpillar d. earthworm
20. What was your MATCH? _____________________________