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Module 1
Why are soils essential for ecosystems, food production, climate regulation, and human well-being?
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Overview — What to expect in Module 1
Module 1 is all about soil services. What do you think – why do soils matter?
Discover why soils are essential for ecosystems, food production, climate regulation, and human well-being, and explore how soils support life on Earth in many visible and invisible ways!
Watch the introductory video to find out more!
In this topic, you will explore how soils are deeply connected to human life and societies, making their role in everyday experiences more visible.
After completing this topic, you will be able to:
Identify key ways in which soil is present in everyday life, including its role in food, materials, and built environments.
Describe the main categories of soil services (provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural) and their relevance to human well-being.
Explain how soil connects different Earth systems (lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere) and influences daily human activities.
This topic is about soil services grouped under the term ‘provision’. Explore how soils provide food, feed, furniture, and more. Do you have any idea how soils are connected to architecture or medicine?
After completing this topic, you will be able to:
Explain how soils underpin provision functions across food, fibre, material supply chains, and medicine.
Identify soil-dependent origins of common items in daily life and describe their basic supply chains.
Give examples how soils and soil organisms contribute to human societies through construction materials, antibiotics, and other health-related applications.
Describe why soil-based materials and living soils remain important resources for sustainable futures.
[Topic under development — content to be added]
In this topic, you will explore who lives in soil, how these organisms interact, how they move, cooperate, and compete within a hidden underground network. Finally, you will discover how these interactions give rise to the functioning of entire ecosystems that support many of the soil services on which we depend every day.
After this topic, you will be able to:
Describe soil as a living habitat that provides space, resources, and conditions for a wide range of organisms.
Explain key biological interactions in soil, including symbiosis and movement-based relationships such as fungal pathways.
Reflect on how interactions between soil organisms shape essential soil services such as nutrient cycling, water regulation, and plant growth.
The relationship between soils and culture includes the ways humans express, interpret, and value soils beyond their material functions. This includes art, language, history, knowledge systems, identity, and spiritual meaning. In this topic, you will explore selected examples to illustrate this diversity. Through examples, reflections, and creative activities, you will examine how soils are deeply embedded in human culture
After completing this topic, you will be able to:
Describe how soils host and preserve geological and cultural traces of past environments and societies.
Identify and explain ways soils influence art, recreation, and cultural practices.
Reflect on how human values and experiences shape relationships with soils and landscapes.
In this final topic of Module 1, you will explore peatlands as an entry point for understanding how a single soil ecosystem integrates all previously discussed soil services. We then ask how human health is connected to the One Health concept, linking human, animal, and ecosystem health. Finally, we examine how these interconnections are reflected in different professions and study programmes.
After completing this topic, you will be able to…
