Soil Vasu Sir's talk

We were privileged to have "Soil Vasu" Sir come visit Al Qamar. His talk was organised my the Consumer Action Group (CAG) as a part of the month long events on Climate Change.

Here is a blog by a 5th grader who attended his talk :

On Friday we had a talk about soil, there was Vasu Uncle who came and we did a few activities and we learned a lot.

He started by telling how important soil is because healthy soil which means earthworms, snails, micro organisms etc need to be in the soil so that it mixes the soil and nurtures it. So healthy soil equals to healthy plants and healthy plants lead to a healthy life.  

Then we did a activity on collecting different soils like soil from direct sun, soil from under a big tree, soil from under a small plant.  We discussed about the different soils and what makes them different.

Then we did another experiment. First we put one type of sand in an empty bottle. Then we took another empty bottle and filled it with two different type of sand. Then in both bottles that had the sand  we put water and let it sit. 

While all of that was happening Vasu Uncle occasionally told us many facts about soil and how it are good for us.

Then we again did another experiment.  Uncle called three volunteers and told each of them to take three different soils and then put drops of water until it was a good texture good enough to mould. Then Uncle told them to make different shapes and see if they cracked or broke. 

We also spoke about how weeds are good for plants. Then we checked the water bottles and Uncle showed how there are different layers from bottom to top. 

At last the last experiment Uncle had two recycled pots.  One of the had no plants and  the other one had a plant and many weeds. The recycled pots were made from halves of a water can but they kept it tilted so the mouth of the water can was something like a drain.  So then Uncle poured water on the one with no plants. We saw that the water did not get soaked but since the can was tilted the water came out through the mouth but when uncle poured water on the one with the plant and the weeds the water got soaked within seconds.

WHAT I LEART 
I learnt many new things about how soil is very important and what is good for soil and plants.   

Zoya B. Taher, Grade 5