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 Article:
Snowed In? A Closer Look at Soil Activity in the WintertimeThis article is from Issue Northern States Edition - Vol. 1 No. 1.
* Note: All editions of the Natural Inquirer starting with Volume 5 and including future editions require the newest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0 in order to be downloaded. We have upgraded in order to ensure greater accessibility to PDF files. Please click on the following link if you need to upgrade your Adobe Acrobat reader: Upgrade now to Adobe Reader 6.0. It is a free upgrade. Meet the scientists that contributed to this article:"Science Topics" covered in this article:
"Environmental Topics" covered in this article:
Regions covered in this article:
"Thinking About Science Themes" covered in this article: Scientists discover new information. This new information affects the work of other scientists. Can you guess why this is so? New information creates new scientific questions. In this study, evidence of a changing climate caused scientists to ask questions they had never asked before. Wintertime in the northeastern United States (figure 1) seems like a time when everything slows down. Scientists thought this was also true of some natural processes Figure 2. The soil may look dead, but it is full of living things! (na cha rôl prä ses es). Natural processes are things that happen naturally in nature, such as tree growth and rainfall. The reports of warming temperatures caused scientists to start thinking about wintertime. They wondered how rising temperatures would affect wintertime natural processes. Scientists thought about this question a lot. They also read work of other scientists to see what other scientists thought about the question. Specific "Thinking About Science" Themes:"Thinking About Environmental Themes" covered in this article: Do you ever wonder what happens under the ground? Is the soil just dirt? (figure 2). Is it a home for plants and animals? Although soil often looks like it is just dirt, it is a busy place! For example, earthworms live in the soil. You probably know about earthworms, but there are other organisms (ôr gä niz ums) in the soil. An organism is any living thing. Did you know that tiny organisms, called microbes (mi krobz), live in the soil? Most microbes are too small to see with your eye alone. Microbes include algae, plants, bacteria, and other animals. One gram of soil contains millions of these small individual organisms! One gram of soil is about the weight of a paper clip. Some of these organisms eat material that is naturally in the soil. Others eat the waste products of other organisms. Although you cannot see microbes at work, their activity creates the soil. All life depends upon this soil. What are two ways that people depend on soil? Specific "Thinking About the Environment" Themes:Forest Service Stations covered in this article:
NSE Standards covered in this article:
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