{"id":3147,"date":"2018-07-25T14:19:15","date_gmt":"2018-07-25T13:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reading.ac.uk\/the-forum\/?p=3147"},"modified":"2018-09-27T11:17:28","modified_gmt":"2018-09-27T10:17:28","slug":"much-more-than-mud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/2018\/07\/25\/much-more-than-mud\/","title":{"rendered":"Much more than mud"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month a group of Reading soil scientists took their research to the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition to tell the public all about the importance of soil. Jeremy Lelean from the Soil Security Programme tells us how it went.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A joint venture between the Soil Security Programme<\/a> (SSP) and the University resulted in a successful bid to attend this year\u2019s Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition<\/a> \u2013 the UK\u2019s largest and most high-profile science communication event.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0SSP is funded by UK Research and Innovation and comprises 15 research projects across a range of UK institutions, including the University of Reading. It exists to better understand how soil resists, recovers and adapts to land use and climate change. But at the heart of the programme is making sure that this research gets heard about in a useful and accessible way. This can mean interacting with policy makers, land owners or commercial partners or, in this case, reaching out to members of the public.<\/p>\n

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Harry Barratt (Rothamsted Research), Alice Dibley (UoR), Soon Gweon (UoR), Simon De-Ville (Loughborough University) and Harriet Robson (UoR)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We\u2019d been preparing for the exhibition since last November, and all the hard work from SSP scientists and university staff from events, the research communications and impact teams and the press office culminated in us presenting our exhibit at the Royal Society in London from 2 to 8 July.<\/p>\n

\u2018Soil: Our Buried Treasure\u2019 showed both soil\u2019s importance \u2013 but also how it is overlooked. We explained the function of soil in context by comparing the contribution of soil structure, life and nutrients combine to make soil the living breathing system we need it to be.<\/p>\n

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Visitors were able to get hands on in making a rain storm and seeing its effect with our concrete capping display, get up close and personal with soil wildlife in our Soil Safari and learn about pH and how it affects plant growth with our famous Soil Security Hydrangeas.<\/p>\n

As well as this we commissioned this video by poet Anthony Anaxagorou to help spread the word about soil:<\/p>\n