Digging Into Soil (and Snacks!)

This week, a freshman ag student took the lead and created an educational lesson on soil profiles. She taught her classmates about the different layers that make up healthy soil, explaining the role each one plays in supporting plant life and agricultural success.

The lesson covered five main layers:

• Bedrock – represented by chocolate chips, showing the solid rock base beneath the soil.

• Parent Material – crushed graham crackers to illustrate the broken-down rock that begins forming soil.

• Subsoil – rich, dense chocolate pudding to show where minerals collect.

• Topsoil – crushed Oreos to mimic the dark, nutrient-rich layer where most plant roots grow.

• Organic Layer – topped off with gummy worms and green sprinkles to represent decomposed plants and animals that add nutrients to the soil.

Instead of just hearing about these layers in a lecture, students got to create edible "dirt cups" that turned the concept into a hands-on (and delicious!) experience. As they assembled their soil snacks, they were able to review what each ingredient stood for and why that layer matters in real-world agriculture.