From soil profiles to landscapes

Forum task: Soil in music, media or landscape

To close this lesson, step beyond theory and encounter soil in the world around you – whether through music, media, or direct experience in the landscape.

Option 1: Soil in music and media

Soils rarely receive much attention in popular culture, but they are there if you look closely. Search for a music video (or short video clip) that shows open soil profiles, excavation scenes, landscapes with exposed earth, or that thematically relates to soil, land, or ground. Share your chosen video in the forum and briefly reflect:

• How is soil portrayed?
• Is it background, resource, symbol, or living system?
• Does the video change how you think about soil in the landscape?

This exercise invites you to explore how soil appears – or disappears – in cultural narratives. As an example, you could watch a music video in which soil plays a central role, highlighting its importance for soil services and the emotional connections people have to it.

Option 2: Find an open soil profile outside

Go outside and look for exposed soil profiles. These might appear along trails, construction sites, riverbanks, road cuts, gardens, or eroded slopes. If possible, take a photo. If not, describe what you observed. As you stand in front of the soil, think like a soil detective – but now at landscape scale:

• Where is this profile located?
• What can you say about slope, moisture, vegetation, or land use?
• Which processes might have shaped this soil?

Share your photo or reflection in the forum or your soil diary. The aim is simple: to begin noticing soils as part of the landscapes you move through every day.