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DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Soil Properties GEOG 3108A [0.5 credit] Course Outline: Winter 2012

Prerequisite: GEOG1010 or GEOG2013 or permission of the Department. Instructor: Dr. Yinsuo Zhang, B440 Loeb Building

Phone: 613-715-5026 Email: yinsuo_zhang@carleton.ca

Office hours: Tuesday 5:30-7:30 pm @ B440 Loeb or by email appointment Teaching Assistants: Marcus Phillips: mphilli3@connect.carleton.ca Courtney Steele: csteele@connect.carleton.ca

Lecture: Tuesday 3:35 pm – 5:25 pm, 240 Tory Building

Laboratories: Section A1: Monday 8:30 – 11:30 am, A120 Loeb

Section A2: Thursday 2:35 – 5:25 pm, A120 Loeb Section A3: Closed. Students registered for this session need to move to either A1 or A2.

Objectives:

This course will introduce you to the fundamentals of soil science, with emphasis on the physical and chemical properties of the solid (mineral and organic), liquid, and gas phases of soils. The importance of these properties to plants, soil management in agriculture and forestry, land use and conservation, climate change and other applications will be discussed.

Textbook, lecture notes, and laboratory manual:

1) Required text book: The Nature and Properties of Soils, 14th ed., N.C. Brady and R. R. Weil. New and used books will be available at Carleton book store (University Center). Older editions are ok. 2) Lecture notes will be made available on WebCT. 3) Laboratory assignments will be available on WebCT (usually at least 1 week before the lab is held).

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Course calendar: This schedule is tentative and subject to change. Any additional readings will be announced in class.

Date Lecture Readings in Brady & Weil/14e

Lab Assignments

Jan 10 Course overview and intro to soil physical properties

Chap 1 No lab

Jan 17 Physical properties & soil water (part 1)

Chap 4 & 5 (1) Intro to soil physical properties

Lab 1 assigned

Jan 24 Soil water (part 2) Chap 5 (2) Soil physics: particle density & particle size analysis prep.

Lab 1 due Lab 2 assigned

Jan 31 Soil-plant-atmosphere continuum

Chap 6 (3) Soil physics: particle size analysis

Lab 2 due Lab 3 assigned

Feb 7 Soil temperature, aeration & hydromorphic soils

Chap 7 (4) Soil physics: soil-water interactions

Lab 3 due Lab 4 assigned

Feb 14 Soil colloids Chap 8 & 4.9

(5) Soil physics: soil-water characteristic curve

Lab 4 due Lab 5 +

Feb 21 Reading Week No lab

Feb 28 Midterm (covers lecture materials from Jan 10 – Feb. 7, & labs 1 - 5)

No lab

Mar 6 Soil organic matter and global carbon cycle

Chap 11 & 12

(6) Atterberg limits Lab 6 assigned Lab 9 assigned

Mar 13 Soil fertility (part 1) Chap 8 & 9 No lab, work on lab 5 and 9

Mar 20 Soil fertility (part 2) Chap 8 & 9 (7) Soil chemistry: Soil pH and cation exchange

Lab 6 due Lab 7 assigned

Mar 27 Soil development and classification

Chap 2 (8) Soil classification

Lab 7 due Lab 8 +

Apr 3 Soil capability and soil quality & review

Chap 20 (9) comparison of soil properties in three field sites

Lab 9 due

+ Assigned at beginning of lab period and due at the end of the same lab period Grading: The university policy state that: "Standing in a course is determined by the course instructor subject to the approval of the Faculty Dean. This means that grades submitted by the instructor may be subject to revision. No grades are final until they have been approved by the Dean." Student’s final grade is mainly based on the following components:

Laboratory assignments 40% Mid-term exam 25% Final exam 35% (held during the exam period)

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Occasionally, online optional quizzes with specified due dates will be posted on WebCT. Students will be notified during the first lecture period following the posting. These quizzes are mainly designed to help you keep up with your studying. For those who COMPLETE the quizzes before the specified due dates will get one bonus percent on the final grade, with a total bonus capped at 5%. Laboratory assignments: Nine laboratory sessions will be held during which you will further develop the concepts introduced during the lectures through hands-on activities. Collaboration is encouraged while working through the assignments but each student must hand in his or her OWN, INDIVIDUALLY PREPARED assignment. See note about plagiarism below. Policy on lateness: All lab assignments are due on the dates indicated above either at the beginning of your laboratory period or as otherwise indicated. Late submission could be made through the Dept. of Geography & Environmental Studies mailroom door (B342 Loeb) within one week after the due dates. Extensions may be granted for legitimate compassionate reasons but you must email the instructor (Yinsuo Zhang) BEFORE the deadline and you must provide 3rd party confirmation for an extension (e.g. a doctor’s note). All late submissions without instructor’s permission will result in 3% deduction of grade points of the assignments. No assignments will be accepted for grading once any graded assignments have been returned unless permission has been granted by the instructor. Plagiarism: The University Senate defines plagiarism as “presenting, whether intentionally or not, the ideas, expression of ideas or work of others as one’s own.” As outlined in the undergraduate calendar (http://www2.carleton.ca/studentaffairs/ccms/wp‐content/ccms‐files/academic_integrity_policy.pdf), this can include:

reproducing or paraphrasing portions of someone else’s published or unpublished material, regardless of the source, and presenting these as one’s own without proper citation or reference to the original source;

submitting a take-home examination, essay, laboratory report or other assignment written, in whole or in part, by someone else;

using ideas or direct, verbatim quotations, or paraphrased material, concepts, or ideas without appropriate acknowledgment in any academic assignment;

using another’s data or research findings;

failing to acknowledge sources through the use of proper citations when using another’s works and/or failing to use quotation marks;

handing in "substantially the same piece of work for academic credit more than once without prior written permission of the course instructor in which the submission occurs."

Plagiarism is a serious offence which cannot be resolved directly with the course’s instructor. The Associate Deans of the Faculty conduct a rigorous investigation, including an interview with the student, when an instructor suspects a piece of work has been plagiarized. Penalties are not trivial. They can include a final grade of "F" for the course.

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Academic conduct: Instructional & Conduct Offences: Instructional offences include among other activities cheating, contravening examination regulations, plagiarism, submitting similar work in 2 or more courses without prior permission, and disrupting classes. Conduct offences apply in areas of discrimination and sexual harassment. Further information about University regulations which define and regulate these offences is presented in the 2011-12 UG Calendar: http://www.carleton.ca/calendars/ugrad/1112/regulations/acadregsuniv14.html Academic Accommodations: You may need special arrangements to meet your academic obligations during the term because of disability, pregnancy or religious obligations. Please review the course outline promptly and write to me with any requests for academic accommodation during the first two weeks of class, or as soon as possible after the need for accommodation is known to exist. Students with disabilities requiring academic accommodations in this course must register with the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities (PMC) for a formal evaluation of disability‐related needs. Documented disabilities could include but are not limited to mobility/physical impairments, specific Learning Disabilities (LD), psychiatric/psychological disabilities, sensory disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and chronic medical conditions. Registered PMC students are required to contact the PMC, 613‐520‐6608, every term to ensure that your Instructor receives your Letter of Accommodation, no later than two weeks before the first assignment is due or the first in‐class test/midterm requiring accommodations. If you only require accommodations for your formally scheduled exam(s), in this course, please submit your request for accommodations to PMC by the last official day to withdraw from classes in each term. You can visit the Equity Services website to view the policies and to obtain more detailed information on academic accommodation at http://carleton.ca/equity/accommodation/.