Stay
Soils-Informed
Discover the latest urban soils news, upcoming USI in-person and virtual events, research and more!
Our Divisions
Soil Testing & Technical Services
We provide monthly Free Soils Testing Workshops for all your soil testing needs from April-October, with even more dates to be announced. We welcome your questions about soil and your requests for testing soils with unknown histories and complex futures.
We also provide technical site assistance for organizational clients. Fill out the form at the link below to start a consultation.
Education & Engagement
USI is a platform for urban soils educational resources and exchanges. This involves soils education workshops and other resources. Check out our Soils Cafe for expert lectures, FAQs and downloadable resources within the extended urban soils universe.
We also offer soils education workshops via special request for organizations. Please reach out to tatiana@urbansoils.org for more information.
Research
Urban soils have been described as a “black box”— a poorly understood field of research that, until recently, was subordinated to agricultural soils research and geobiophysical sciences, more generally. Avoidance of urban soils research is attributed to their complexity. Urban soils exhibit a high level of variation due to anthropogenic activity which increases urban soils’ biochemical complexity by an order of magnitude.
Unstoppable Force of our Nature | Joanie Turbek
Art Extension Service
Recognizing the power of art to make abstract ideas visible and accessible, the Urban Soils Institute added an Art Extension Service in 2018. The AES brings together artists, scientists, and educators to create collaborative public art projects through residencies, symposia, and exhibitions in the United States and abroad.
“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”
— WENDELL BERRY, THE UNSETTLING OF AMERICA: CULTURE AND AGRICULTURE
