Celebrating the international year of soils: catalyzing initiatives and provide a modern perspective of soil science

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amitava Rakshit ◽  
Rahul Mishra ◽  
Ram Narayan Singh ◽  
P.C. Abhilash
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Montserrat Díaz-Raviña ◽  
Maria Teresa Barral-Silva ◽  
Manuel Arias-Estévez ◽  
Jorge Mataix-Solera

<p>The Spanish Society of Soil Science (www.secs.com.es, SECS) was founded in 1947 by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) with the main objective of promoting the study and knowledge of Soil Science. To achieve the slogan of  2015 International Year of Soils, Healthy soils for a healthy life, taking into account our long experience working with the concept of soil as a living system, we planned several projects and activities to promote the knowledge of this living and non-renewable natural resource among the different sectors of the society. Educational programs and cooperation agreements with different Educational Centers and the Administration as well as collaboration with Universities, Ecology and Nature Associations, National and International Parks, Museums and others Institutions related with the conservation of terrestrial ecosystems, were established in order to get them involved in the Educational Projects (organization, participation, financing). One critical point in the success of the projects was the elaboration of diverse, innovative educational materials to stimulate, in an attractive way, the knowledge of this non-renewable natural resource among different sectors of society as well as the level of implication of persons involved on the projects.</p><p>In this contribution we will show some examples of these materials and initiatives concerning different aspects of Soil Science which result to be of interest to the general public: the comic Living in the Soil in different languages (Galician, Spanish, English, Italian and Catalan) and its corresponding Lesson Plans; Vivere nel Suolo: Giornata di Legalitá Ambientale;Vivire nel Suolo: Gionarta Mondiale del Suolo; Would life on the planet be possible without the soil?; Nature in the family; The game of soil; The elaboration of an Artificial Reproduction of a Soil Pedion and its inclusion in different centers related to soil; the creation of a Permanent Soil Room in the Museum of Natural History of Santiago de Compostela University (MHN); temporal exhibition Soil:Art Painting with soils; Pictures of José Caballo; group visits to the MHN and hence to the Permanent Soil Room; Soil Courses and Conferences; participation in Competitions. Our experience indicates that the inclusion of these innovative and attractive materials is very useful in the planning of activities related to soil to give visibility to this non-renewable resource hidden under the vegetation, the soil. We consider that these successful initiatives can be used as a prototype to transmit the message of importance on this natural resource, the soil, and the need of its protection all over the world.</p><p><strong>Acknowlegments. </strong>All persons and organizations that participate in all these SECS activities and projects.</p>


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe Macías

As part of the celebration of 2015 as the International Year of Soils, a review of the current status of soil science is presented, in particular on the future challenges of this discipline, such as the fight against hunger, the improvement of quality of life, and the need for increasing  scientific understanding of our environment. The most recent contributions of soil science offering interesting prospects are also presented.


Back in the late 1950s, C.P. Snow famously defined science negatively by separating it from what it was not, namely literature. Such polarization, however, creates more problems than it solves. By contrast, the two co-editors of the book have adopted a dialectical approach to the subject, and to the numerous readers who keep asking themselves “what is science?”, we provide an answer from an early modern perspective, whereby “science” actually includes such various intellectual pursuits as history, poetry, occultism, or philosophy. Each essay illustrates one particular aspect of Shakespeare’s works and links science with the promise of the spectacular. This volume aims at bridging the gap between Renaissance literature and early modern science, focusing as it does on a complex intellectual territory, situated at the point of juncture between humanism, natural magic and craftsmanship. We assume that science and literature constantly interacted with one another, making clear the fact that what we now call “literature” and what we choose to see as “science” were not clearly separated in Shakespeare’s days but rather part of a common intellectual territory.


The article deals with the distribution of agricultural periodicals on the territory of the Russian Em-pire in the early twentieth century. Before that there were practically no publications on the pages of sci-entific magazines. Great emphasis is placed on the analysis of agricultural magazines published before 1917 in the Upper Volga region, namely in Vladimir, Kostroma, Tver and Yaroslavl provinces. Thanks to existed in pre-revolutionary Russian periodicals on agricultural subjects advanced knowledge of agron-omy, agriculture, soil science, horticulture, fruit growing, vegetable growing, winemaking, viticulture, 135 tobacco growing, livestock, poultry, bee-keeping, veterinary medicine, forestry, and hunting, land man-agement, irrigation, horse breeding were promoted. On the basis of statistical data, office documentation and other published sources, the author draws conclusions about the degree of accessibility of agricul-tural periodicals for the population, including the peasantry. Availability of agricultural periodicals largely depended on its price, so the author studied the situation with the cost of the annual subscription fee of these publications. The article investigates the issues of periodicity of agricultural magazines and newspapers, the exact number of such publications, as well as their subject matter. Existence duration of different types of periodicals is analyzed, the main publishers of magazines and newspapers, places of their publication are revealed. A prominent place is given to the publishing activities of agricultural pub-lic organizations and zemstvo self-government bodies. It is concluded that natural process of agricultural knowledge distribution among the population of Russia through publications on the pages of periodicals was disrupted by revolutionary events of 1917.


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