Workshop: Introduction to soil quality assessment

Early career scientists and students looking to gain foundational skills in soil science are invited to join this workshop by the Plants, Soils, Ecosystems SIG, delivered in partnership with the British Society of Soil Science. Registration is now open!

The Plants, Soils, Ecosystems Special Interest Group of the British Ecological Society is running a workshop all about the foundations of soil science this summer. The workshop is aimed at early career scientists and students with limited theoretical and practical soil science experience.

Participants of the workshop will come away with the foundational skills to measure key soil biogeochemical properties including soil extraction methods for soil chemistry and enzyme analysis, quantifying greenhouse gas fluxes and an introduction to the foundations of soil fauna taxonomy.

This event is delivered in partnership with the British Society of Soil Science.

Programme

The programme of the workshop will kick off with an afternoon and morning of presentations on the topic of Introduction and Foundation of Soil Science, where we will also link to plant-soil interactions.

The second half of the workshop named Introduction to soil quality monitoring and assessment will compose of practical and theoretical sessions in the field and lab. Students will be shown and asked to carry out basic soil quality field tests in the field and diagnostic soil quality measurements in the laboratory. Once the data are collated we will discuss our findings in groups and the results will be discussed in the context of plant-soil-interactions, general ecosystem services, and traditional soil science.

Click here to see the full agenda of the event. Please note that the agenda is subject to change.

Registration

Our maximum capacity for this event is 30 early career scientists. The ticket costs include accommodation at the Bangor University halls of residency with check in on 4 July and checkout on 7 July, breakfast and lunches are included in this price. Some evening meals are included.

The registration deadline has been extended to 17:00 (BST), 19 June 2023.

Register here

If you are interested in becoming a BES member to purchase the BES member rate ticket, you can find out more information and join here. Membership starts from £25, or you can get 12-months free membership if you are an undergraduate, masters, or first year PhD student.

Facilitators

Prof Dave Chadwick

Prof Davey Jones

Dr Felicity Crotty

Dr Jennifer Rhymes

Dr Sabine Reinsch

Dr Rob Mills

Code of Conduct

The BES code of conduct can be found online at the link below.

Code of Conduct