NSF RET in Southern Africa: community and research experiences in soil science

Collaborative research on belowground carbon storage in the Kalahari Desert has provided opportunities for international research experience for US middle and high school teachers, funded by the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Program. This presentation will highlight the field research experiences, international high school visit, relationships fostered with Botswana high school teachers, and new soil science curricula developed by three US environmental science teachers. New lesson plans and activities on carbon sequestration, fine and coarse root mapping, and soil organic carbon cycling and other learning tools have been incorporated into the existing Underground Safari webpage (instaar.colorado.edu/undergroundsafari) (Figure 1). An interactive blog, undergroundsafari.edublogs.org, has been developed to allow dynamic discourse between students, teachers and researchers on this project. Lessons learned from classroom trials of curriculum and use of other RET experience-motivated activities in the classroom will be discussed. Figure 1. Screen capture of the "Videos" page from the Underground Safari website for NSF DEB project, "Collaborative Research: Distribution and dynamics of belowground carbon in savannas."