Over the past year Dr Christine Davidson and Dr Debbie Willison have been working with schools across Scotland to study heavy metals in soil. They have measured copper, lead and zinc in school playgrounds from the Borders to the Highlands, and from the Forth Estuary to the islands of the Clyde. Dr Christine Davidson shares her experience of the Soils in Scottish Schools Project.
Getting started
The Soils in Scottish School Soils project was funded by the Royal Society of Chemistry. The aim was to get second year secondary school pupils interested in science through studying their local environment, in particular the soil in their school grounds. All the secondary schools in Scotland were invited to take part. Just over a quarter said yes. We sent them newsletters, outlines for experiments pupils could do in class, and resources to help teachers run a lesson on soil chemistry. This included the infamous Zap game – designed by Kara, a summer student intern from the USA – where teams of pupils answer questions about soils and get to impose penalties on rival teams.
Preparing for Phase 2
The next job was to prepare for the second stage of the project, where pupils were going to take samples of soil from their playgrounds and send them to the University for analysis. A research team of undergraduate students was put together to work on the project: Craig, Bethany, Stuart and Cameron. They prepared all the instructions and equipment that the schools would need to take their own samples. Of course, the sampling methods had to be tested. As you might imagine, we got some really odd looks digging up the lawn outside the Principal’s office, in the pouring rain, in the middle of October!