Good examples of soil education for youth to increase soil literacy

The PREPSOIL (Preparing for the "Soil Deal for Europe" Mission) project facilitates the deployment of the Mission across European regions. This will be achieved through the co-creation and roll out of tools and spaces for interaction, knowledge-sharing and co-learning, as well as stocktaking and dialogue to understand how regional assessment of soil needs, supported by harmonised
monitoring mechanisms, can then lead to action in living labs and light houses for soil health.

One of eight aims of the EU Mission Soil, is to increase soil literacy in society. One way to do that would be to reach out to teachers and inspire them to involve soil topics in their teaching. Therefore PREPSOIL aimed to identify good examples of soil education and learning activities for youth and communicate them with teachers and pedagogic representatives across Europe. During 2023 and 2024 teachers were invited to share their good examples on soil education targeting primary, secondary and vocational training pupils. All in all, the two calls received more than 50 submissions, with a broad range of examples of natural, urban and agricultural soils in interdisciplinary learning (science, humanities, etc) using multiple senses. A committee which consisted of three teachers, one soil scientist and one pedagogy actor selected winners and runners up from selected finalists. The report present the results from the two calls.