Spring Semester

Soil Sci. 585 Using R for Soil and Environmental Sciences: 3 credits, online.

Soil Sci. 322 Physical Principles of Soil and Water Management: 3 credits (now replaced by Soil Sci. 327)

Fall Semester

Soil Sci. 327 Environmental Monitoring and Soil Characterization for Earth’s Critical Zone: 4 credits (with two-day field trips)

Soil Sci. 622 Advanced Soil Physics: 3 credits

Soil Sci. 322: Physical Principles of Soil and Water Management

This is a course designed for senior undergraduate and Master’s degree students. Management of soil and water resources relies on a fundamental understanding of soil physical properties and processes, and how they interact with other environmental and biogeochemical processes across various spatial and temporal scales. Physical principles of soil properties and movement of water, heat, gas, and solutes can be applied to address the practical problems of agriculture, environment, ecology, hydrology, geology, meteorology, and engineering. In this course, we will explore the various physical properties and models developed to characterize the transport of water, heat, gas, and solutes in soils and the applications of physical properties and models in different disciplines.

You can download the course syllabus here. Soil Science 322

Soil Sci. 327: Environmental Monitoring and Soil Characterization for Earth’s Critical Zone

This is a course designed for senior undergraduate and Master’s degree students. The recent development of Earth’s Critical Zone sciences improves our fundamental understanding of the human-environmental interactions under a changing climate and enables us better manage our environment under human disturbance. Students interested in Critical Zone Sciences not only need to obtain the theoretical knowledge of environmental monitoring (e.g., soil contamination) and soil physical processes (e.g., water, heat, gas, and solute transport), but also hands-on skills in describing soil variations across the landscape and installing soil sensors and processing environmental data from the sensors. This course combines lectures, discussions, and field trips and offers hands-on experiences on the characterization of critical zones in the field, including monitoring water flow, heat exchange, solute transport, and greenhouse gas emission using soil physical models and state-of-the-art soil sensing technologies.

You can download the course syllabus here. Soil Science 327

Soil Sci. 622: Soil Physics

This is a course designed for Master’s and PhD students. Soil physics develops instruments and analytical methods to improve our fundamental understanding of soil physical properties and processes, and how they interact with other environmental and biogeochemical processes across various spatial and temporal scales. It also applies physical principles to address the practical problems of agriculture, environment, ecology, hydrology, geology, meteorology, and engineering. In this course, we will explore the various physical models developed to characterize the transport of water, heat, gas, and solutes in soils and the spatial and temporal variations in soil properties at various scales. We will also discuss the applications of modern proximal sensing technologies in soil studies.

You can download the course syllabus here. Soil Science 622

Soil Sci. 585 (Online): Using R for Soil and Environmental Sciences

This is a course designed for PhD, Master’s, and undergraduate students. Soil and environmental data are used in a wide array of decision-making. Advances in sensing technologies in soil and environmental sciences have produced a large number of datasets over the past decades. To improve the efficiency and repeatability of data processing and enhance fundamental understanding of soil and environmental issues, data science techniques are becoming increasingly important. The use of open-source programming platforms such as R software in soil and environmental studies has become popular in academia, industry, and government organizations. This course focuses on how to use various R packages for analyzing and processing soil and environmental data collected using a variety of in situ, ground-based, and remote sensing sensor platforms. It provides detailed examples of using R software for soil and environmental data processing, manipulation, and modeling.

You can download the course syllabus here. Soil Science 585