Team: 51
School: Melrose Middle
Area of Science: General Science
Interim: Interim Report
Soil Formation
Melrose Middle School # 51
Our team is working on a project that will help with the understanding
of the formation of soil. A computer model using sliders and buttons
that will change what types of weathering and how fast weathering will
affect the parent material that forms new top soil over time will be created.
The reason that we chose this project is because we have recently went
over the topic of soil formation in our seventh grade General Science
book and when choosing what we were going to do for our program,
we chose it because we knew a little about the topic and thought that
it would give us a start in designing are program.
So far on our program we have a background of earth’s upper crust
with the dense rocky layer that will start the process, and a thin middle
layer where the rocks have started to break down into topsoil. Lastly
the top layer which has few medium rocks and a complete top soil.
Next we have the start button that adds rocks and organic matter to
the earth layers, and we also have sliders such as the ones that change
the types of weathering and how long they will last. Another has a
time for the rain to last and another to turn on and off the rain. We
also have a slider to increase and decrease the rocks that will be in the
world, and one to increase and decrease the organic matter levels.
We are planning to add sliders that will increase the sizes of the rocks,
plants and how big the plants are. We are also going to add a
temperature slider because a hotter temperature help the process and
when it gets colder freezing water can break rocks.
Citations:
New Mexico Grade 7 i Science, Glencoe, McGraw-Hill, 2013
Dirt The Erosion of Civilizations, David R. Montgomery,2007
http://www.eschooltoday.com/soils/factors-that-affect-soil-formation.html, explains soil formation factors
http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfjps/1300/weathering.html, explains chemical and mechanical withering on soil
Jeff, area farmer, fall 2018
Team Members:
Jacob Christopher
Ernest Garcia
Sponsoring Teacher: Alan Daugherty