Course:APBI200/Archive/2017-2018WT2 Review and Reflect

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Suggestion for SoilWeb200

The SoilWeb200 e-textbook is a great source and also a helpful tool for me. Every time when I get confused about certain question after class, this web is the first choice for me. Doing section quiz is a great way to review before tests, which I really appreciated. Meanwhile, during use, I found it could be better with a searching engine inside the web. When I trying to find the certain scientific term, I need to spend quite a time to look for it. If there is a searching engine could guide me toward the specific section, the study efficiency would definitely be enhanced, and help me better learn the material covered in APBI 200.



There are a few things that could be improved in the soilweb200: I feel like that the material could be maybe more organized by topics as shown in lecture: Physical properties, chemical properties, biological component (this is already the case), etc. For example, the components of the soil are in one category, but we still need to go to the soil interactions to figure out some information about the thermal properties (and those are under the soil water and air interactions, so it is not easy to find it at first sight). If we are not used to the website, it might be difficult to find the information we are specifically looking for (especially for midterms). My second suggestion is about the quizzes: they are very useful but again are mixing materials from different timing lecture. As an example is also the thermal properties part which is with the "chemistry part (components interactions)", so when I tried to study for the first midterm it was hard to get through the quiz because there were things I didn't know yet. The thing that could be useful is having small quizzes for each subsection and a final quiz summarizing the whole section.



For the most part the soilweb200 has been able to fill in the gaps of what I didn't understand in the lecture portion, but I did not find the soil acidity section to be helpful. I think this was due to content containing only a few facts of soil acidity and it didn't elaborate. For me at least, I found that it did not have enough information, it wasn't obvious to me why certain soils exhibited certain pH ranges, or how this was related to ion adsorption, or how it related to the rest of the soil components for that matter. I think one of the hardest things in this class is finding out how the different components and interactions are related, so another thing that would make the soilweb200 better is a reflection zone, or a “Check your understanding” zone at the end of each subsection. It could contain questions that ask about how the content from that subsection relates to other components, interactions, and/or applying it to real examples.



I do like the SoilWeb200 and use it a lot, especially for the review. It has a good coverage on all the knowledge and makes it concise and understandable, but not all the points in the lectures are showed. For instance, the forest floors and forest humus forms can be added into the soil organic matter parts. The section quizzes are very helpful, however, I found some answers can be substituted by others and the quizzes always return to the first one after refreshing the page which is inconvenient if I want to review my wrong questions. Hope it can be changed into individual button linked to individual question. Also, each of the small subsections listed relatively confusing, if they can be categorized into a more broad head section, such as soil water, air, heat and structure into soil physics and soil acidity, organic matter, nutrient cycling,etc. into soil chemistry, it would be more efficient to do the section quizzes and review the specific subsections.



Pros of using Quizlet

A really great soil science learning resource I found on the web was actually que cards that past students of the class uploaded on a site called “quizlet”, which is basically an online tool that people can use to make que cards to study for. I typed “APBI 200” on the quizlet site and it shows all of the que cards that past students made for their own studying. I found it extremely helpful to study compared to other online sources because these que cards that the students made were relevant to the stuff we were learning in class, because it was coming from past students. Some of the online sources that I tried using were sometimes very dense with information. I think using a site with information gathered from previous students made the information very reliable and applicable, and I really noticed that further with respect to the mark differences I got from my two midterms. I started using the “quizlet” site after my first midterm (which I got the class average) but after using the quizlet site extensively, I was able to get a 10% increase from the class average.



Suggestion for SoilWeb200

For the most part, SoilWeb200 has been extremely helpful and has helped me tremendously throughout this course. Saying this I felt I was missing some extra explanations for the soil acidity and diffuse double layer movement of ions under the interactions among soil components section. I think an animation of the H+ and Al3+ ions and their movement during the different types of soil acidity would be beneficial for learning purposes. As well an animation of the diffuse double layer and double layer would also be very useful, just because I feel learning a concept from an animation is more helpful than looking at a picture with text to describe what is happening.



Suggestions/ improvements

I think the soil acidity section could be improved. It would be helpful for the students to have more explanation or examples of reversible reactions regarding soil buffering capacity. I felt it was covered very quickly during class and I tried to go through the e-textbook to find more information, but I couldn’t find any. This information would be very helpful to answer questions for the soil acidity lab.

I found the end of section quizzes very helpful to prepare for the midterms. I think it would be beneficial to have these quizzes for each sub-section and being able to review your answers on one page. In addition, I feel it would help the students if there were learning goals for each section. This would help students know which sections to focus on and make connections between the different units (chemistry, physics, etc).



Review and Reflect Question 1

The SoilWeb200 e-textbook is well made. It provides detailed information that is explained in an easy to understand manner. The most useful section of the SoilWeb200 e-textbook are the Section Quizzes. They provide an opportunity to recall and practice concepts and provides an opportunity to test oneself.

Unfortunately, it contains some bugs. The multiple answer questions sometimes do not display the answer when the “Next” button is pressed. Another issue is that you can only look at one question at time. For example, if I wanted to redo a Section Quiz from a specific question, such as Question 30 (which is halfway through the quiz), I would not be able to. I would be required to click the “Next” button 30 times. If I wanted to check the last question, I would have to press “Next” 60 times.

Another area that could be improved on is the search function. The search function on the top right of the webpages will work relatively well when main sections of the e-textbook are searched. An example is searching “soil horizons,” which will bring up links directly to the section of the e-textbook. However, if you start looking for something more specific, such as typing “bulk density” into the search bar, then you are given links to journal articles from the UBC library, or other UBC links that are not part of the SoilWeb200 e-textbook. Therefore, improvements in the search function of the book could be improved.



useful learning resource

It is a PDF of a powerpoint which I think it is helpful to understand the cation exchange capacity concept. It explains terms in the CEC chapter and talks about different sources of charge that organic compounds and phyllosilicates use for CEC.



Suggestions for SoilWeb200: Question 1

I used SoilWeb200 as a study guide for the midterms and to find some information for labs and problem sets. It is beneficial to have a resource where the information matches with what is said in lecture, the lecture slides, and is also in the textbook. However, there are two suggestions I would make that could potentially improve the user-friendliness of SoilWeb200 and make it easier for future students taking this class. My first suggestion is to change how the quizzes are shown and what material is on them. I think it would be easiest to have each small tab (section under a larger topic) to be a topic for a quiz. Since the quizzes are so long and the information comes from other sections, it is hard to organize your studying and test yourself on certain topics when the quizzes cover a variety of ideas and concepts. It would be easier to have quizzes with ten questions, mainly focusing on one topic, for them to be a better study aid. Another suggestion I have is I think it would be beneficial to have a section in the Classification tab under the CSSC, where students can type in and submit directly for other students to see, some of their tips and tricks on how they remember the distinct soil orders. I think this would be useful because we could see how our classmates are remembering them, as well as be able to use some of their methods to learn them.



Question 1: to include elaborations

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The SoilWeb200 e-textbook is very helpful. It is really great that the slides are posted in the very beginning of the term, making it easier to organize studying schedules. One thing that I wish we could have, however, is access to the notes that the professor writes down during class. Sometimes the notes that we take in class are incomplete as we miss a few things due to the speed of the class. The professors notes would make it easier to rationalize the subject matter better in the future when we revise the topics. The elaborations are very helpful and it would be great to have access to them after classes. The quizzes that are offered on the website could also use some updating. Maybe per-chapter quizzes or per-topic quizzes. The quizzes available right now seem a little jumbled up and the system sometimes does not provide the correct answers when a mistake has been made (the multiple answer ones sometimes don't give the corrected answers).



Suggestions for SoilWeb200

The SoilWeb200 has been a very useful tool to supplement the lectures and clarify concepts. I find it especially useful while studying since it sometimes explains concepts in a different way, and provides diagrams. It is generally pretty easy to navigate once you get used to the format. I do think it would be helpful if it was organized in a similar way to the lectures, such as physical, biological and chemical properties of soil. The quizzes are a good idea, however, I did not find them very helpful for the midterms since many parts of the section hadn't been covered or were irrelevant. 'Check your understanding' questions at the end of each concept tab would be preferred and would help students stay organized with their studying. One section that I feel could be improved is the soil acidity section. I struggled with some of the details and effects of soil acidity, and I found it difficult to navigate through the SoilWeb to find the information I needed. Also, a section summarizing equations (or an equation sheet) would be extremely helpful, since trying to look through all the notes and web pages for all the equations can be time-consuming. Other than those little suggestions, the soilweb is great and I would like to thank you for putting in the extra effort to help students and support multiple learning styles, as well as listening to student feedback.



Improvements on SoilWeb200

The SoilWeb was a great tool to practice and summarize topics/concepts before a midterm, because it offered the topics in a slightly different way than lectures, which was helpful. The quizzes were great, but it would've been nice if each individual topic covered had it's own quiz and with more questions; the textbook for the course has practice questions but they are too in detail for our course. It would be great to have the SoilWeb have much more practice questions; especially those to due with calculations; like volumetric water content, volume of pores etc. As well, the quizzes seemed to be glitching pretty heavily before the midterm; perhaps that was due to traffic on the website but it was a little tricky to navigate. Finally, a section that provides a summary of how all different concepts on the course intertwine would be excellent, maybe in the form of mind maps or webs; it would be very beneficial to see the "big picture" for the course as it can be a little vague at times.



How to improve SoilWeb200 (Q1)

Although the section quizzes are quite helpful, there are bugs which prevents me from seeing the answer (multiple choice questions). It should also be narrowed down to topic specific content which helps us as students know what specific areas that needs more work. Another aspect that can be improved is the search bar. There is a lot of content on the site but sometimes it takes time to look for a specific topic or piece of information. Currently, the search bar is not helpful when it comes to that.



SoilWeb200 Reflection

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  • Date: March 28, 2018
  • Authors: Dionne Wong

There was some inconsistency between the lecture notes and soil web which was confusing and disrupted my learning. For example, ammonium fixation was listed as a source of nitrogen in soil web but in the lecture notes it is under nitrogen losses. Terminology such as "actinomycetes" is used in soil web but this organism is called "actinobacteria" in the lecture notes. Additionally, I would benefit from a section in soil web about salinity to supplement the lecture notes. Overall, soil web is an interesting and informative resource. It has an appropriate amount of detail that does not overwhelm me while studying.



On the lecture slides and materials provided onSoilWeb200, there are numerous infographics, graphs, and pictures that are inserted and it is really beneficial for beginners in the soil science field to get a clearer image of the newly introduced soil terms. However, I wish that the explanations can be more in-depth and thorough. Such as for the soil acidity sector, there are a lot of infos that I can find on the website which I have attached to this post. As I dont have the recommended textbook, my main resources for this course are found on the Internet. Sometimes, it is difficult to get a detailed explanation of certain terms or graphs that are shown in the slides. I try to note down most of the information that is conveyed to us in lectures, however, sometimes I might miss out some important details and I am not very confident with my own notes when there I cant find a solid reference on the Internet. Another soil science learning resource that I have found useful are the notes posted by other institutions or just some websites that I come across while searching up the Internet regarding a specific topic. I find those websites really useful because they often come with a lot more in-depth explanations which helps to deepen my understanding regarding the certain topic.



Soil Web easy, organized, and knowledgeable

One website I found very helpful was http://forestfloor.soilweb.ca/. It has many videos that do a great job of describing the horizons, humus forms, and forest floor characteristics. The website's layout is ideal because it is very easy to maneuver and find answers quickly without having to fuss about with drop-down bars/menus or subcategories. I really like that it gives very little information, it keeps it simple and doesn't overload you with facts, especially for an introductory soil science course. For example, the forest floor horizons section clearly organizes the well-drained L, F, H horizons, and gives information about those horizons, and then the poorly drained Of, Om, Oh horizons. Further, it has an accompanying video located in our lab, and sites near UBC which helps with familiarity, and understanding. Overall, I really like this website because of its user-friendliness, and clean organization, which helped me succeed in APBI-200.



SoilWeb200

Overall the SoilWeb200 e-textbook was very useful in helping me to prepare for the exams for APBI200, but there is still room for improvement. Firstly, I think it would be more beneficial if it was set up in a way where there are section quizzes after a certain topic (for example the nitrogen cycle or soil air), not a huge collective one at the end. This would be better because, when us students are studying we can directly access the specific quiz on the topic we are struggling with, instead of having to go through a lengthy quiz just to test ourselves on one concept. Also some of the answers to the questions are not provided after answering the question incorrectly, this could be fixed. I think it would be beneficial to have more long answer type questions instead of having a lot of quiz type questions. This could help with the application of the knowledge. Another thing that can be improved is the inclusion of more videos! Since it is an e-textbook and not a regular paperback textbook it can include multiple videos and animations which will not only make learning the subject more fun, but also effective. These videos could be created by the TAs or the professors, therefore we will be learning exactly what is required for the course instead of watching numerous YouTube videos which at times provide either way too much or way too little of what we really need to know.



Review & Reflect - Q1

SoilWeb200 was a really great source to refer back to after lectures and labs to further understand the material. I found the quizzes to be really helpful before the midterms, as it showed me areas that I needed to review more, and areas in which I had a good understanding. A few suggestions I have for this online forum is to be more detailed when explaining topics on soil chemistry, pH, and the adsorptions of ions (soil components section). These topics were the most confusing for me to understand during lecture, but I didn’t find SoilWeb200 to be quite helpful in explaining these topics when I went to review the material, as it only provided broad, basic information. I think this site would be great if Maja and Sandra, or other professors, posted videos and/or demonstrations that provided in depth explanations that were clear to understand for students, or a layout that looks more appealing (drawings or diagrams) to help students remember important concepts. In addition, I found the Soil Organisms and Nutrient Cycling sections to be really clear and helpful, as most information was clearly stated under various headings. Aside from the suggestion of adding more visually attracting aspects, this e-textbook was really easy to navigate and is a really great idea in helping students to understand the material.



Suggestions for the SoilWeb200

Although Soilweb200 has been very helpful for studying, there is still room for improvement.It would be very helpful to organize it in the same way as lectures, such as Biology, Chemistry, etc. That way we can directly go to each subsection and look for what we want. Furthermore, it would be better to make sure that the quizzes will cover only all the sections that we have covered. For example we can have one quiz for the first midterm which only covers all the questions that we have covered in lecture or we are supposed to know for the midterm and the same for the second midterm. Since when I was studying for the midterms there were some questions that we had not covered in lecture yet but it was on the quizzes and it was confusing. For the quizzes also it doesn't show which answers are correct for the multiple answer part and it only shows if what I have is wrong ( but it does not show the correct one). Moreover, summarizing all the formulas in one section and providing a link for each formula to the section where explains it would be very helpful. Also a search function by key words can be very useful when looking for something but you cant remember where it was.



My review and reflect

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1. I didn't use the e-book because I had no information about this but now that I know I think it should be of a help because the more you document yourself is the better you get. It's my bad that I didn't know this though.

2. The book is really good and helpful; I think it being optional to get makes students not be encouraged to buy it yet helpful. It can be over encouraged to own the book for the course.

3. The other resource I liked in this course was soil web 200. Also reading the news on the internet and consulting the TAs.

Thanks



SoilWeb200 Improvements

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What aspect of the SoilWeb200 e-textbook could be improved to help you better learn the material covered in APBI 200? Focus on one or two specific units in the SoilWeb200 e-textbook.

I think it would be very helpful if the format of the website was changed a bit and if it were divided so that the student would know what to study for when studying for the midterms and final. I found this difficult because when I tried to study for both midterms I wasn't sure what aspects of the website I needed to look over and found myself studying for things I didn't need to know by accident. Or maybe matching certain parts of the soil web to the lecture notes so that students can follow along!It would also be really helpful if we were able to look up certain words and the website took us to the places where those words were mentioned, as sometimes I was looking for a certain term but wasn't sure which category that term was under and usually had trouble finding it. Overall, the information on the website was extremely helpful, as well as the quizzes!



A Short Reflection

Answer to Questions 1: The SoilWeb200 e-textbook includes a part about nutrient cycles and soil organisms. They are very detailed, but when I was reviewing, I can't remember them, especially those cycles... I think watching videos can help memorizing. I watched video clips of 10 soil orders posted at this website http://soilweb.landfood.ubc.ca/classification/, and I remembered them quickly. May the e-textbook website add some video links related to the topic? It can help us to memorize the concepts more effectively.



Some Pros and Cons of SoilWeb200

Question 1: SoilWeb200 was a tool I used to study for my midterms. I used the online quiz to help me prepare for my midterms. Plus, if I had questions regarding the lab assignments and the problem set, before I emailed the prof, I went to this website to look for clues or information. To be honest, I think the online quizzes could have been separated into smaller sections so that it there would have been more specific questions regarding the topic of interest. In addition, if there were tabs that separated each of the topics into smaller sections, it would have been much more organized and easier to view. There were times when the online quizzes had its own glitches and when the buttons were not corresponding to the answer I wanted it to be. When I clicked something, it wouldn’t work, and it would say that my answer was wrong when nothing was pressed. I also noticed that the search button was not as efficient and was pretty confusing to use. If I was searching something up, then articles would come up and not the specific thing I was looking for. If there was a definition I was trying to find within SoilWeb, it would not show it and other websites and articles came up instead. I think it would have been better if things were searched within the SoilWeb website. Overall, the etextbook was good at relaying its main points and was easy to read and understand.



Soil Web Quizzes

Soil web 200 practice quizzes can be improved. The quizzes available for this class offer students the possibility to practice the material that have been covered in class. The quizzes offer a wide range of questions about the different sections in Soil Web 200. However, these quizzes could be improved in my opinion in three ways. First, by allowing students to flag and redo the questions that they did not answer correctly without starting the quiz from the beginning. Second, by being able to skip those questions they got right. This will help students save time and focus more on the material they are having trouble with. Third, by adding extra information to the answer such as the URL to the part of the web page that offers more information about the question. In that way, if students were wrong they can easily refer to the material and try to understand why they are getting it wrong. In conclusion, the quizzes are a good resource for students to practice the material. They can be improved by giving students the freedom to answer the questions in the order they find more convenient, and by offering them the URL that contains more information.



E-textbook Improvement

Question 1: More dynamic ways of learning

Soilweb 200 is a useful website for reviewing course content. Besides for having quizzes for each unit, using flashcards is also beneficial to studying for tests and exams. It would be wonderful if there are people creating flashcards and post the link on the website. For example, for the soil organism unit, flashcard would have the picture or the trait of the organism with its name. In addition, having a mind map for each unit, explaining how different concepts come together would also be helpful to students to understand the unit (for example, sometimes, we, the students, understands the beneficial activities the microorganisms do to the soil, but we may not be able to link the presence of microorganism to soil pH) .



Review and Reflect Question 1

The Soil Web 200 e-textbook is a very useful resource. I use it for help with labs and problem sets, as well as a study tool for midterms. While this site is fairly well organized, it can be difficult to find something specific. For example, when I was trying to find information on actinobacteria for my problem set, it took me too long to find, so I eventually turned to a different source. A search bar or a longer glossary could be beneficial. The “Soil Quality” page could also be slightly modified. This site contains valuable information, however it can be difficult to navigate with its wording. The sentences and paragraphs are long, and the language could be simplified a little more to accommodate those who do not understand the material well. Some of the other pages are written in point form, which is easier to learn from. If the formatting on the site was consistent with all of its topics, that might help other students comprehend the information better. Overall, I really like this website and will definitely use it to study for the final.

SoilWeb200 Review

The SoilWeb200 website was extremely useful in understanding the content of this course. It was also super amazing to not have to carry or buy a textbook for a course, but to have it easily accessible online. The section quizzes are great study tools before midterms and in general to test knowledge and understanding. If I had criticisms, it would be the Soil Acidity section and the Soil Horizons section. Soil acidity was a bit of a confusing portion of the course for me. I understand the basics of acidity (that below 7 is acidic and above 7 is basic) but the types of acidity and how to determine soil acidity based on the types are still a little confusing and I don't think the SoilWeb200 had adequate information to address these sections. The soil horizons section is less of a criticism and more of a suggestion to add photos of different horizons to make distinguishing between horizons easier. I think it would be super helpful for lab assignments and just general understanding of soil horizons.



Improvements to SoilWeb200

I feel that the SoilWeb200 website is lacking information in the soil chemistry section, particularly soil salinity. We did not spend much time on the subject in the lectures and it was not covered very clearly by the textbook so I found that I struggled a bit with understanding the concept when it appeared on the assignments. Based on how many questions on the assignments and midterm were relevant to soil salinity, I think that it would be very helpful to provide sufficient resources to help students understand the concept. An idea to provide more information would be to add an additional tab under the “Component Interactions” dropdown menu on the SoilWeb200. I also think that the soil acidity section could be improved. For example, there is very little, if any, information on buffering as well as how pH specifically affects processes such as nutrient availability, among others. Overall, the SoilWeb200 has been helpful for some subjects but was not for other subjects relevant to many labs and problem sets.



SoilWeb APBI200

I found SoilWeb to be extremely useful, especially for section quizes. Something that may be re-looked at though is when getting some of the answers wrong on the quizes, there was no feedback given as to why it was wrong nor did they state the right answer. I also appreciated how detailed the information in the differing sections was. I feel there could be more topics included such as soil salinity because when checking the actual recommended textbook, not much was covered as well. But overall, I found the e-textbook to be extremely helpful when studying and doing problem sets.



Soil Web 200

Question 1: Soil web 200 is a very useful resource as it comes with quizzes to check your understanding. It helped me to prepare for the midterm as some questions from the quizzes were on the midterm. Something to improve would be having more different categories as sometimes it is difficult to find certain topics that I would like more information on. Also, it would make it much easier if the quizzes were split up into smaller sections instead of one big collective quiz at the end. I find the quizzes too long to complete in one sitting. It would be helpful to have more example calculation questions and explanations about those as I feel sometimes the math part of this class is very rushed and vague.



The e-textbook is a great tool to use for studying. One area that could be improved is the search engine. If looking for specific terms, other journal articles from the UBC library are provided rather than leading us to the section of the e-textbook where the term belongs. Also, the lecture slides are also a great tool and go hand-in-hand with the textbook. However, there are some questions that are given to the class like "what soil properties are affected by...?" but have no answers beneath them. The quizzes are yet another great study tool. However, there may be some bugs. For example, after answering some of the multiple choice, the correct answers are not given. It just moves on to the next question. Also, they could be more organized. While preparing for the second midterm, I had to skip many questions because we had not covered them during the lectures yet. The quizzes were also quite long. Dividing them into chapters and/or make them correspond to one or two of the lecture slides would make it easier to know what kind of questions will be on each quiz. Having more multiple-choice quizzes and questions that ask us to use the equations that we are supposed to know would be helpful as well.



Online Resources Review on the Wiki page

Having the UBC soil science wiki was so helpful for being able to review the concepts and terms we have gone over in class. Being able to look over the lecture slides was also a really nice resource for reviewing. This wiki page, the lectures, and the textbook were my main forms of learning for this class. The online practice quizzes were also very insightful for what the tests would generally cover.

The only suggestion I would have for improving the page for the online textbook would be showing what exact chapters, or parts of chapters are covered in the textbook; because sometimes I would accidentally get lost on which information in the textbook is covered, or which specific information is pertinent to the course. It would be helpful to have a week by week description of which pages in the book we should be doing along with the lectures, to give us a greater understanding of the information without getting ahead or behind unintentionally.



I found that soilweb200 is very useful in understanding the content of the course. However, despite it being clear and concise, I feel like the e textbook still lack many information about soil that is covered in this course. I feel like this e textbook was meant to be an elaboration of lecture notes to help with understanding and learning but the information on them are not much more than on lecture notes. Moreover, I feel like the quiz questions are very helpful, but not as much similar to the midterms and I feel like if the quiz include questions similar to the exam as practice questions for it, it may be even more helpful. I could maybe be organized based on the topic covered in each midterm?



Nutrient cycles

The Soilweb200 website is a great tool that provides added context to the material learnt in class. It is outstanding. There is an important section missing, or underdeveloped: the nutrient cycles, specially nitrogen. Being such an important nutrient, it would be great if a section was allocated to outline and describe the different functions of mineralization, immobilization, demobilizations, etc. Another consideration would be the addition of more quizzes. These are a great learning tool, excellent for studying for exams. I find that the quizzes in this site lay heavily on the area of soil physics, not so much covering soil chemistry. It is something I noticed when I was studying for the midterms. There aren’t many questions on soil biology either. One last one for the list. I really enjoyed the videos included in the site, I am a visual learner. It would help to nail down the key concepts and definitions covered in the videos by including a paragraph, or point form summary with key points, take home message from each video. There’s a lot of information covered on each video and students can get side-tracked from what they need to understand, and how it relates to the topic being learnt. Otherwise, a great learning tool. Thank you for taking the time, and for the consideration to read our input.



Corine's

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  • Date: April 4
  • Authors: Corine Singfield

Soil Web 200 is a fantastic resource! It is easy to use and the format is much better than Wikipedia. When studying, I’ll often reference to a Wikipedia definition or do a search that will take me to another university site for further information. I really like how it is laid out by categories and how easy it is to navigate. I also appreciate the “related links” and the graphics. I much, much prefer reading the Soil Web 200 resources than the book, which puts me to sleep. I think that if it wasn’t there then people would read the book more. The only thing that I would maybe change would be to have even more quiz sections per narrower topics. Sometimes you want to review Organic Matter but don’t want to go through the questions of Soil Structure that you already feel confident about. Even more “Related Links” and videos. The Forest Floor site was really great also and I learned stuff much better than if I had just been reading it! Good work~~sorry its hard being critical here!



Soil Management

Q1: I preview this page prior to the lecture and that helped me better grasp the concept before class. I would say that the e-textbook is pretty self-explanatory. However, should it need any improvement, I would reckon the use of an interactive visual aid, perhaps a mini-game would make understanding concepts easier. Also, unlike manual textbooks, this e-textbook does not have a glossary which makes it difficult to search for a specific topic (e.g. osmotic potential on plant growth. A search engine for this page would be tremendously helpful when doing assignments or studying for mid-terms.



Quiz Improvements?

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In general, the SoilWeb200 website was a good source for me to study with. I enjoyed the specific content and sections, it made studying easier. One thing I think could be improved is the quiz section, and the sections in general. While I was using it to study I found that the quiz content was jumbled and wasn't organized in conjunction with class material. I think that the sections could be organized in terms of units to make the user experience better for us students. Additionally, I think some review questions, and or learning improvement questions to solidify knowledge would be helpful at the end of each section sections in SoilWeb, just to allow us to apply these sorts of concepts in a place other than the exams. I think this is a major component the course as a whole is missing, and could help students improve and engage to a higher degree. I know I would feel much better going into an exam after doing some practical application, and practice calculations beforehand.



Reviewing and Reflecting SoilWeb200

The SoilWeb200 website offered a great secondary resource for studying exam-related materials, or simply reviewing information that was discussed in lectures. There was additional information on certain material that was not talked about extensively in the lecture notes which were really helpful. For example, the sections on montmorillonite/kaolinite and isomorphous substitution. One area that I think could be improved are how the section quizzes help prepare for the midterms. Currently, the quizzes are not divided into sections specific to the midterms; consequently, there could be questions that cover material which have not been taught yet. I think it would definitely be useful to have the quizzes separated into sections specific to each midterm. Another component which could be improved is organizing the sections in the order in which they are taught in lectures. Since the search function is not specific to SoilWeb200, it can be difficult trying to find a specific concept on the spot. Overall, I believe the website was still a valuable resource for studying while used in conjunction with the lecture notes.



Useful resource

This is an article I found on the Internet about clay mineral, which is very helpful in understanding the different types of clay mineral, with illustrations and tables to make people easier to understand.



SoilWeb 200 Improvements

For the most part, the Soil Web 200 e-textbook website was extremely helpful in studying for the midterms and helping me have more thorough answers in the lab assignments and problem sets versus getting information from the lecture slides or lab manual. The quizzes were extremely helpful, however, I believe it could’ve been a little more organized for the future. For example, Some of the quiz questions would have questions in reference to sections that were under a different tab (ie. soil organisms in the first quiz, were not under the first tab of topics but yet were incorporated in the quiz). Perhaps keeping quiz questions to only topics covered under that tab could be more useful Also it would be nice to be able to skip to specific questions to view the answer, or just to focus on that topic, as in reality, you have to click through dozens of questions to get to a topic/question. You can’t view all the questions on their own easily; making all the questions more accessible and easy to find one type of question would be a great improvement. In the soil horizons section, it would extremely helpful to have more photos showing visual differences between the different layers and types (like in lecture) so the class would not only get a verbal description but a visual one to help us recognize and identify the right horizons or monoliths in labs, and out in the field. Overall, I really enjoyed this resource and found it a very useful and informative study tool.



Organic Material Specifics

Throughout the course, having practice questions to quiz myself was extremely helpful and was an awesome way to assess my general understanding of material in the course. While I found the questions in the quizzes helpful, they were largely conceptual and rarely dealt with math or equations we learned. In that regard having more interactive and multi-leveled problems would be helpful in order to better isolate areas we need to work on: for instance, having a problem like on the midterm 2 where we had to look at the CEC values, Sand, Silt, and Clay percentages, etc. on the quizzes would be great if it went step by step, and asked us about what directly contributed to nutrient retention, drainage properties, etc,.



Suggestions

{{APBI |URL=http://soilweb200.landfood.ubc.ca/ |Date=16 March 2018 |Authors=Faculty of Land and Food Systems

The SoilWeb200 e-tectbook is a really great source for me to review the test. I will do the section quiz before the tests, where I can get specific answer about the questions. And for each topic, it has a specific page to explain the conception that we had in the classes, which can help me review the most important ideas. As for the suggestion, I think the form of quiz can be changed that we can choose the specific number of the question that we want to do. Because when I am doing the quiz , I have to start from the first one. Based on the courses we taken, it is kind of saltatory.

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Suggestions for Web200

Personally, I didn't get too many opportunities to have a close look at this website and I didn't consider this website as a reliable resource. I think what needs to be improved is that the lecture needs to integrate more interesting topics or activities with the Web200. Something like writing a short reflection for a soil video that is posted on the Web200. I think getting people to frequently visit this website is something you can work on for next term. Thanks!



Improvements on Soilweb200 (Charles Esplana 56299670)

APBI200 is course that utilized a complimentary e-textbook in SoilWeb200. For some it was a great source for them to find information on certain topics and issues that we students have found throughout the duration of the course. However, personally, I’ve felt that albeit, complimentary, a more traditional approach to learning via physical textbook would be more useful. In my case I found myself less wanting to keep up with readings on the website and more focused on learning through the lecture slides and in-lecture notes. Furthermore, the times that I would visit the website I found myself to be navigating through different tabs and sections to try and find the appropriate section for what we were learning at that time. While the site possesses characteristics that lessen the issue of navigation and searching by incorporating labelled tabs such as “Soil Components” & “Component Interactions” I would suggest incorporating a tab or user friendly legend that aids users find exactly what they need at that exact time during the course. For example, if at the time we were learning about SOM in lecture, maybe have a separate section for SOM and specify the dates it would correspond to in our lecture notes. Another idea is to have maybe a more simple layout and have the components on soilweb follow a chronological order such as how our lecture notes are posted on the wiki, along with corresponding dates. Ultimately, soilweb is a resourceful tool that has potential for improvements.



APBI 200 UBC Flash cards

One of the resources I found really useful on the web is Quizlet. By searching APBI 200 in the search box, you can get tonnes of flashcard that help you learn by testing yourself with flashcards and games. There are a lot of problem, some are focused on certain topics, others are focused on midterm 1 and midterm 2 materials, and another one for the final which includes all the material covered in APBI 200. This is a great tool to test yourself after reading a certain topic in the book or the lecture notes. I also learnt some new concepts in APBI that were not covered in the book or the lectures.



SoilWeb 200 is very effective in reviewing and studying for exams, especially the quizzes at the end of each section. One thing that can be improved about the quizzes is the explanation of answers which only some questions have. Another area that needs improvement is the "chemistry" portion of the course that has to do with thermal diffusivity, conductivity and cation exchange capacity. Soilweb explains these concepts very briefly when we are required to know them in detail for some of the longer questions in midterms and problem sets. Also more practice questions and answers that require you to explain things in detail, or make connections between different concepts (like the ones seen on practice midterms )would be helpful to have online to get a better understanding of the concepts.



SoilWeb200 Review

Overall, I find this website extremely helpful. There are several reasons why I would recommend future students to use it. To begin with, it is a great additional source of information on top of the lecture and lecture slides. The slides do not always completely explain a concept and the soilweb provides a lot of in depth information. The soilweb is also separated into sections and chapters which makes it very easy to look for a specific topic you want to study. Further more, the soilweb includes a great variety of photos and tables that are not included anywhere else. To visualize the important concept introduced in this course is crucial. The soilweb also provides section quiz which, in my opinion, is the most helpful feature of this website. I feel well-prepared after completing the quiz before the midterms :)

Another source that will be helpful to the course is https://www.soilsofcanada.ca/index.php I discovered this site while searching for additional information on soil orders. This website has an amazing amount of detailed information that covers soil order, soil formation, classifications, etc. I highly recommend using this site :D



Suggestions for Soil Web 200 Q1

Soil Web 200 was particularly useful as a summary that links up the lecture notes and labs and helped to deepen my understanding of the lecture material. The interface of the soil web is also fun and simple to use. It would be even better if the page could be organized into the same sections as the lectures so the students can follow up on the soil web page after the lecture (i.e. adding sections or more "jigsaw puzzle pieces" for soil chemistry, soil physics.) In addition, the quizzes could be divided into smaller collections with respect to each sub topic or lecture topic so the students can test on what they learned from the lecture. It would also be really helpful if more pictures or visuals could be added to the section of Soil Horizons so the students can have a visual understanding of what different horizons would look like. In general, soil web 200 was a great source to refer to while studying for the course.



SoilWeb Review

There is a lot of information in this course, and really, its super cool and I actually really enjoy learning what is taught in this class. I found every resource I came by only enriched my experience in the class and made it easier, more interactive and more enjoyable to learn the class material. But that in lies the critique that I have for this course. Although, every new source presented to me became more useful than the last, there were initial steps that needed to be researched in order to find the sources. I understand that when doing research sources aren't just given to you and that initial searches for information are needed, but for this course I believe it would be quite beneficial to the students (myself included) to have all of the information from one spot. For instance, if on the homepage on the wiki, it was as easy to find the monoliths map on SoilWeb as it is to see weekly lectures, I believe this would encourage me to do more research on soil topic on my own accord because it is given to me and I don't have to feel obligated to look at monoliths. I find the course subject matter to be incredibly interesting, I only wish that everything was as readily accessible as the canvas page. There are very cool things to be found on soil.



Review and Reflect

Over-all I found the soil web site very helpful. The part I think helped prepare for midterms the most was the online quizzes, I found them beneficial for review, as well as a good tool to see similar questions as seen on exams. The only aspect I think could be improved is the sectioning of the quizzes. They seemed to jump around in terms of content, and I think it would be helpful if they followed the units we did in class during lectures.



Soil Web Quizzes

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One aspect of Soil Web that I found very helpful in my studying was the quizzes. They helped me realize which information I still needed to go over, and prepared me for the "quizzy" questions on the midterms. However, there are a few ways I think these quizzes could be made even better for this course. First, the quizzes were in very broad categories, and often did not follow the same organization as the material in our course. This made it hard to find the questions I actually wanted to study, when I had to jump between quizzes to cover material. I would also wonder whether certain material would be on the test or not, and if I didn't know the answer to a question it was sometimes unclear whether it was because we hadn't covered that material, or if I should know the answer and just hadn't studied it yet. In addition, many of the "questions" did not allow for attempts at answering, they would just be open-ended questions that would give you the answers if you clicked through. I think it would be helpful to have even more of the multiple choice and fill in the blank questions on these quizzes, because it's easy when you're studying to just breeze through the answers that are given without thinking as critically. One overall suggestion for soil web would also be making it easier to navigate. Overall I found soil web, and especially the quizzes very helpful, but these are just a few suggestions.



SoilWeb200 Improvements

In general, I found that SoilWeb200 was extremely helpful when studying, working on lab assignments and problem sets. It greatly helped me understand the material. However, some aspects of the site could be changed in order to make the information more clearly presented.

First, the site is divided into four sections: soil biology, classification, components and management. I think it would be more effective to organise them into the broader topics we learnt in class and have separate sections for soil physics and chemistry in addition to soil biology, classification and management. I found that when trying to find information on soil physics and chemistry, I was often lost so these could be separated into 2 categories. In addition, making this change would allow for more information to be covered on the two topics, for example, I could not find information on soil salinity.

Secondly, I think that the quizzes are a great resource when preparing for midterms and the final exam, however, the quizzes were a mix of many topics. This is helpful when studying for the final because we know the full class material. However, when studying for the midterms, I found that using the quizzes could be confusing because we had not covered some of the material that we needed in order to answer the questions. I would suggest having a quiz for each topic covered (physics, chemistry, biology, classification, management) to make studying using the quiz more effective and simple to use.



Suggestions for Soil web 200

I think SoilWeb200 e-book is a great studying tool. It is really helpful when I am preparing for exams or reviewing unclear course material. Here are some suggestions for this site. First, when I was doing the quizzes, there are some multiple choice questions what would not offer explanations of the question while some other multiple choices have explanations or give multiple attempts. Secondly, I wish there could be a search function within the website so it is more efficient. Lastly, I wish the distribution of the contents could be more clear and corresponding with the order of lecture notes.



Reflection on question 1

The main thing that I noticed that could be changed about the Soilweb200 is that sections can lack information. It could be a good idea to further divide up the sections in order to more thoroughly go over the information. For me it was a good resource to use if I was look for broader information and knowledge about certain aspects of soil science but if I was looking for the answer to a specific question, like from a problem set or a lab, I usually wouldn’t be able to find exactly what I was looking for. And all of the information is cluttered onto one page so for example it would be helpful for me if in the soil water section things like osmotic potential were given its own section and broken down further than what is in the textbook or on the slides. In addition, I found that a lot of the information on soil web was almost exactly the same as what was put down in the slides and in lecture notes so I already had it. What would have been more helpful for me is, even if it is the same information, if it could be explained in a different way or used different examples. Using osmotic potential again for instance, having more diagrams or even a video going in depth and explaining the effect that it has on soil would have been useful for me.



SoilWeb improvement

SoilWeb 200 is a good resource, when I write assignments and study for exams. It gives detailed definition and explanation of the terms in lecture notes and the website is in well organization. However, I think the website lacks of the saline part. When I did the problem set about the soil saline, I had to refer to textbook and lecture notes. The textbook gives detailed definitions and the difference among the three states of soil with high concentration of Na+ ions, while the lecture notes doesn’t mention. It will be great to add it under component interactions section in SoilWeb 200.



this website is really useful. most of time I study soil science by using this website. I could get any individual useful learning point on this website there are many lecture powerpoint on this website. I could search the information from the research parts. But when I use this page. I click the lecture that I need to use. this website could not immediately open this website but just jump to the content that this website on. and then I need to click the website again. that always spent me much time when I am doing the class preparation. when I opened the lecture powerpoint. the prof had already begun to teach the second page of this day's powerpoint.



Fixing soybean’s need for nitrogen

The main focus of this article is how soybean plants need a lot of nitrogen to make protein. However, to create the protein content it requires high costs. As we learned in our soil science class, we learned that bacteria is the most diverse and abundant group. That they decompose organic matter by participating in nitrification process. As the article states, soy bean gets nitrogen through the biological N fixation. Nitrogen is a integral component of all amino acids, which are building blocks of all proteins. The importance of the biological N Fixation in that is the process by which organisms convert the insert N2 gas of the atmosphere to N-containing organic compounds that become available to all forms through N cycle. The article mentions how biological nitrogen fixation may sometimes not provide all the nitrogen soybean crops need. Being said, if soybean plants are sprayed with additional bacteria during their stages of growth it will led to higher yields. After testing it, they found out that adding bacteria increased yields by 27% and 28%. However, more biological fixation, and less nitrogen through fertilizer has multiple benefits. For instance, it increases sustainability by replacing nitrogen fertilizer. Excess nitrogen fertilizer from the field can flow into bodies of water. This leads to eutrophication learned in the soil science class, in which a body of water becomes overly enriched with minerals and nutrients. Eutrophication leads to an excessive growth of plants and algae, causing in oxygen depletion of the water body. Likewise, nitrogen fertilizers are produced using fossil fuels, making it a huge threat for the environment. This is important because it shows how there is a lot of research to be done to fix the soybeans need for nitrogen and how it can lead to high benefits.



Soil web 200 reflection

The Forest Floor website is a great example of things that can be implemented in the soilweb200. They give clear and thorough explanations of properties of forest floors. Most importantly, they provide videos on how every concept explained can be applied to real life. In the videos, they show forest floors that are near us in campus which give students motivation to learn about their surrounding areas. The video that I found extremely helpful was the one in which Dr. Margaret Schmidt introduces the organic horizon L,F,H, along with the mineral Ah. In this video, they provide details about horizons that are included in a hummus forms. What I found so helpful about the video is that Dr. Margaret is explaining the soil horizons to a student. By doing so, the student comes up with similar questions that I had while watching the video. She takes her time to explain the concepts, and does it in a way that is easy to understand.



Suggestion for SoilWeb200

Question 2 : At the beginning of the term, I did not like the idea of a wikipedia page for the class resource. As the term went on, I found the wikipedia page to be the easiest resource out of any of my classes. It was easy to navigate and I found it extremely helpful. I think the wikipedia is best used for updates and where to find links and assignments. I used the e-textbook for actually understanding content more than I used the wikipedia page. The e-textbook made all the information simple and easy to understand. With that said, I think the area on soil chemistry could be improved. I struggled the most with the soil chemistry unit, partly because my high school chemistry did not fully prepare me. I think having more extra resources on the wikipedia page would be very helpful. Having different types of content, like interactive websites and videos would help me a lot!



Suggestions and improvements

The Soilweb 200 is a creative learning tool; it contains contents of the textbook but displays them in a more flexible form. It saves time and has a more clear view than a hardcopy or PDF of the textbook. I could view subheadings and click it to see the content directly which makes me find things I want more efficiently. Especially in the sections like thermal properties and soil acidities. Many tables and diagrams present a comparison and the process of a reaction/ion activities vividly which enhance my understanding rather than simply reading the material. The section quiz is another useful part which summarizes and explains important concepts and terms. I would suggest if the manipulation of the web could be improved with the quiz that it could automatically save the progress. And more questions involved comparative analysis and applications could be put in rather than explaining a single concept. For some diagrams, I think more explanation could be put or key points could be listed to make it more clear.



Soil science learning source

The soils of Canada website has been the most helpful supplementary resource covering the soil pedology/ soil classification unit of APBI 200. The website is well-organized, informative, and easy to use. It’s got information on every soil horizon encounterable in Canada with visuals. Not to mention an extensive section of soil formation processes and formation factors. It’s essentially everything one would need to know about soil classification for this class on one website. There are maps, graphics, videos, free pdfs of actual classification handbooks. It also has a huge archive of monoliths for viewing and self-quizzing. This is an incredibly effective website for learning and studying soil classification.



Soil science learning source

The soils of Canada website has been the most helpful supplementary resource covering the soil pedology/ soil classification unit of APBI 200. The website is well-organized, informative, and easy to use. It’s got information on every soil horizon encounterable in Canada with visuals. Not to mention an extensive section of soil formation processes and formation factors. It’s essentially everything one would need to know about soil classification for this class on one website. There are maps, graphics, videos, free pdfs of actual classification handbooks. It also has a huge archive of monoliths for viewing and self-quizzing. This is an incredibly effective website for learning and studying soil classification.



SoilWeb 200 Question 1

Personally, I struggled with understanding the soil chemistry and soil physics components of APBI 200. In order to understand these units better I would suggest that the e-textbook include more in-depth explanations of the concepts. For example, I found the topics such as CEC or ion adsorption to be confusing at times, especially when asked to perform calculations with these numbers. Also, I think it is important that the textbook have a glossary with terms and their definitions. Lastly, I think some simple worked examples within the textbook would be helpful. Alternatively, the textbook could provide links to worked example or videos that would be beneficial for students requiring additional support. Overall, I think the e-textbook was helpful and I really appreciated the section quizzes.



Improved Course Materials

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One thing that would be extremely helpful is to list the page in the physical textbook that figures are found on. When the powerpoint slides are uploaded to the wiki, the resolution goes way down and we often can't see the figures well because they are blurry, but when we try to look them up in the textbook to reference them, there is no indication of where in the textbook it is from and we have to flip through every single page. However, this could also be remedied by uploading the powerpoints in powerpoint form instead of document form. One other useful addition to this course would be to label soilweb200 a bit better, so the section titles matched up with the lecture units more closely. This way, we could study without having to click through random questions that we haven't covered in class yet.



suggestions for SoilWeb200

The SoilWeb200 usually contains many of the topics we touch upon in class, providing more information to allow us to go more in depth. However, navigation through the website sometimes proves to be difficult. An improved search function would greatly help when looking for a specific idea, as well as the implementation of a glossary. A site map of all the sections would allow for an easier navigation experience.



Another soil science learning resource

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I personally didn't understand the soil science triangle concept when it was introduced in the beginning of the year (the three axis confused me). But here are the resources that I turned to to help me understand this concept. Nothing beat visually seeing people using the triangle

YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hW59WZ0EQI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQhEihSVX2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4xndouxWPY



Soilweb 200 Review and Reflection

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The SoilWeb200 e-textbook could be improved in the future by segmenting it into sections that correspond with the order of what we learn in class. I found the e-textbook to be divided up oddly, with information fairly scattered about. This made it difficult to study from for exams and refer to because you would have to sort through material that was not particularly relevant to that time. For instance, I would have to sort through 60 questions to find relevant questions for the midterms. I think the sections should be divided up by units, so the Introduction, Soil Physics, Soil Chemistry, Soil Biology, and Classification. This would make more sense, make the information easier to locate, and make the practice questions better sorted for studying.
The Soil Biology section of the e-textbook was the most complete and useful because it was laid out logically compared to our class and lecture notes. It followed our lectures chronologically and the section quiz used for exam practice was completely relevant to that section we were studying.



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