Jordseminar // Soil Seminar
JORDSEMINAR // SOIL SEMINAR
Beyond Dirt: Teaching, Understanding and Connecting with Soil
At the invitation of UCL University College, CUHRE (Centre for Understanding Human Relationships with the Environment) and CURIOSOIL Project, about 100 people met March 13 at the Dome in Campushaven at UCL for a full day’s exploration of ways to connect and interact with soil under the headline “Arts and Research Seminar: Understanding Human Relationships with Soil”. Participants were introduced to different approaches to appreciate, convey and facilitate human relations to soil through workshops, activities and talks by a wide range of professionals, researchers from the humanities, natural and social sciences as well as artists and educators.
The main objective for the event was to expand and disrupt our understanding of what soil is and what soil does – and to inspire all to make our understanding actionable by developing new didactic tools and approaches to use soil in learning and educational contexts. This was made possible by digging deeper into how we relate to soil. Listening to soil, learning from soil, and nurturing a more attentive conversation about and with this living material which underpins our very existence – if you will and in a very literal way: fostering downwards thinking.
The event kicked off with a sensory exploration of soil. Following this, participants were welcomed by Julie Emontspool, Associate Professor at Consumption, Culture and Commerce, University of Southern Denmark and Morten Kromann Nielsen, Associate Professor at Inclusion and Everyday Life, UCL University College.
The event had three main segments: firstly, a segment on soil relations; secondly, a lunch session combining food, art and soil; and lastly a segment on soil didactics.
Soil Relations
In the first segment, Malou Juelskær, lecturer at DPU – Danish School of Education, University of Aarhus, gave a presentation on how to think, sense, relate and connect with soil; how to learn and teach in, about, and with soil; and, at a time when healthy soils are under threat and destroyed at a disturbing rate, how to inspire agency among learners rather than weighing them down with talk of doom and gloom. The emotive power of such conversations with soil informs and inspires the gestation of earth keepers and earth care.
The next talk was given by Betsy Maloney Leaf, Ph.D., Art Education and Katy Euliss Chapman, Lecturer at Center for Sustainability – both from University of Minnesota. They shared their research on how embedding artistic practice in nature-based and out-of-school learning experiences enhances how children and young people relate to and understand the importance of sustainability. By combining arts learning with nature-based learning, it can facilitate a move from a knowledge-based, technological understanding of sustainability towards caring and implementation. Youth’s artistic expression can connect personal experience with global sustainability issues and in doing so they become meaning-makers. The creative processes involved furthermore lead to youth agency and capability in imaging SDG-based solutions and in turn to young change-makers. Sustainability becomes a future of possibilities where artistic choices unpack complex concepts of sustainability as well as incite positive change.
Then Freddie Skov-Hundevad, Lecturer in Agriculture, UCL University College, took participants on a crash course in soil evolution which covered origin, formation, and composition of soil. He outlined the impact the arrival of life had in transforming largely infertile soil made up of rock ground up by the movement of ice into the complex system that healthy and fertile soil is. Action is needed to restore healthy, productive soil systems for sustainable cultivation. The principles underlying this action are to work with nature, to reduce soil interference and to feed the soil.
Concluding the first segment, Martin Beck, agronomist and consultant in soil fertility, spoke about the basic principles of soil and the processes involved in creating humus; the function of soil in sequestration of carbon; and about the role of plants in increasing soil fertility.
Food, soil and art
The lunch segment combined food, soil and art. Participants had celeriac cooked in an earth oven followed by a vegetarian soup and sourdough bread. The vegetables were sourced from Den Lille Mark (The Tiny Field) – an urban, regenerative farm which grows flowers, herbs, vegetables and green communities. While participants enjoyed their lunch, they also enjoyed art – exhibited as well as performed.The collaborating artists Bodil Krogh Andersen & Martin Christoffer Lund displayed some of their work in Soil Readings which featured photos set in glass. Margrethe Møller aka Magma is a sound artist and singer who has previously been involved the research project SUSTAIN-ART-SCI at Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen. She performed a meditative sonic walk which featured recordings from various layers in the soil.
Soil Didactics
In the third and final segment, Wietse Wiersma, Postdoctoral Researcher at Wageningen University & Research, firstly facilitated a presentation on the CURIOSOIL project. The objective of this EU-funded project is enhancing soil literacy through collaborative efforts in education and this seminar was one such collaborative effort. Because of the degradation of soil, more awareness and more action are needed. By involving students, teachers, practitioners and policymakers, soil education can be strengthened and made to inspire and connect individuals with soil. The means to achieve this, in large parts, rely on co-creation and collaboration between stakeholders in communities of practice. CURIOSOIL has developed and curated a wide range of resources and practices: for primary, secondary and tertiary education – lesson plans, adaptations and exercises for science and humanities; for graduate level – MOOCS (Massive Online Open Courses): modules with case studies and experiments; The Soil Curiosity Kit with guides on multisensory soil activities; and teacher training. All of which is done with the explicit purpose of strengthening soil education across the board.
The seminar reaffirmed that connecting with and appreciating soil – soil literacy – is eco-literacy rooted in soil. The event was very inspiring and aspirational thanks to the involvement and contributions from participants, presenters, artists, cooks, suppliers and co-organizers alike. There was a clearly felt dedication to growing this concept in committed cooperation with fellow participants and contributors.
Beyond soil
As we are weakening the soil’s capacity to renew itself – degrading its health and undermining its structure – soil and its properties, connections and functions are still not fully understood. In the work done to comprehend the complexity and interconnectedness of these more-than-human systems, research often becomes specialized and insular – and as knowledge accumulates, separation occurs as disciplinary, modular silos shoots up.
At CUHRE, together with our partners, we wish to reverse the trend of compartmentalization, segregation and modularity in research and practice by promoting interdisciplinary and crosscutting exchanges. Within the interfaces between natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, education and arts – not only in relation to soil but climate change, biodiversity and sustainability in general – diverse perspectives, relations, queries, aspects, and research serve to compliment the technological approaches which cannot stand alone as we transition towards a sustainable future. The crisis is human made – and solutions therefore must take into consideration all aspects of human behaviour. The point is that sharing different vantage points across different disciplines offer opportunities to feel, sense, relate to and reflect about a world that is changing and, ultimately, provide fertile ground for developing comprehensive and inclusive action. Taking this into account, formal and informal education therefore has to promote and develop ecoliteracy – where eco-literacy is understood as “the capacity and willingness of human beings to cultivate sustainability, regeneration, and life-friendliness in symbiotic interplay with the more-than-human world [and] an extended sense of reading that encompasses making sense of and with one’s local and physical environment.