51ºÚÁÏ

Learning about where soil comes from is vital for middle and high school students because it connects them to fundamental Earth processes, highlights the importance of natural resources, and demonstrates how weathering, decomposition, and organic matter contribute to fertile ground that sustains ecosystems. By integrating a reading comprehension passage on soil formation, you can provide students at different readiness levels with texts of varying complexity, ensuring that both more and less advanced learners engage meaningfully with the material.

This tiered approach - offering two sets of guiding reading and questions tailored to each text - builds foundational skills in reading, critical thinking, and scientific inquiry, so you can use the right one for you. It also underscores soil’s real-world relevance, from agriculture and food production to environmental stewardship. Through such structured resources, students develop a deeper appreciation for the processes that create and preserve fertile soil, and gain the scientific literacy necessary to make informed decisions about land use, conservation, and sustainability.

This 2 article set of soil formation articles provides the perfect grab and go, print and provide resource that can help your students learn all about soil formation. For digital, you can provide a Google doc copy for ease of submission or a Microsoft word version as well. In this soil formation article with questions to check comprehension and inspire scientific thinking.

For many educational standards, a base level of content knowledge is needed around the relevant topics, this soil formation article covers that foundational knowledge for the standards: MS-ESS2-1 | MS-ESS3-1.

THIS WHERE DOES SOIL COME FROM? ARTICLE CAN BE USED SO MANY WAYS:

• Useful for substitute (sub) teaching
• To extend students
• To increase scientific literacy in your class
• A weekly reading task
• Great as a lesson filler when class goes too fast
• To inspire students on a particular topic
• Give a selection of these articles for students to choose from

WHAT’S INCLUDED IN THIS WHERE DOES SOIL COME FROM? ARTICLE:

• 2 - 3 page Word doc image - textboxes teacher version with answers
• 2 - 2 page Word doc image - textboxes student version with room to fill in answers (text boxes)
• 2 - 3 page PDF teacher version with answers
• 2 - 2 page PDF student version without answers (but space left to do so)
• 2 - 3 page Google doc image - textboxes teacher version with answers
• 2 - 2 page Google doc image - textboxes student version with room to fill answers (text boxes)

Please note: That the Doc versions are images with editable text boxes overlayed on top and this is the most effective way to keep the article sleek and well-designed and also that students cannot change things significantly.