News : \'Soilmates;\' Shellsburg students learn about soil\'s living \'critters\'

Worms are just one of the millions of 'critters' in the soil, says Scott Koepeke.

Shellsburg students get a close look at soil.

Shellsburg students heard about the similarities between two similar words that usually have a much different meaning.

Yet, said Scott Koepeke, soil and soul both refer to things that are forever alive.

“Nothing ever really dies, said Koepeke, a soil scientist with New Pioneer Co-Op of Iowa City/Coralville. “It just changes.”

While allowing students to see a few samples from his composting operation, Koepeke told them that soil is alive and contains “millions of critters,” although it takes a strong microscope to see them well.

What society needs, said Koepke is to make soil more balanced and biologically alive. He offered some basic lessons on the how and why of composting and shared his insights into the way that soil can teach if people are willing to pay attention.

“All three main sciences – chemistry, biology and physics – are found in the soil,” he said. “You can teach almost any subject using the soil.”

Composting, he explained, is simply the process of putting dying things from nature back into the soil, to feed its living parts.

In addition to his microscope and the red worms he puts in his composting to improve the composting process, Koepeke showed the students a hand plow his grandmother used to use for her gardening. He said he hoped that his lesson would inspire some of them to consider a career in soil science.