Decades old soil monolith collection gifted to Lethbridge College by the federal government

Lethbridge College President and CEO Paula Burns believes this resource will allow instructors to showcase their expertise and allow students to learn using a tool not available at most other post-secondary institutions.

“This is a really interesting donation, but really special in terms of the length of time it took to get it here and what the soil monoliths are. What they mean for the students to be able to study on them, for the faculty to be able to use them, and for the public to have access to them now. It’s a real honour to house this collection.”

Lethbridge College instructors had frequently taken students on field trips to the research centre to study the collection, and both college and Agriculture and Agri-Food scientists agreed that the monoliths were best served by being on campus.

The collection has been appraised by Lethbridge College at $240,908, but those closest to it say it’s worth much more than that as a teaching tool.

Former college soils instructor Ken Perl, who taught from 1980 to 2015, was the first person to recognize the value of the collection as a teaching tool.

Perl would frequently take his class to the research centre and is recognized as the former resident expert on the collection.

He was involved in the initial talks to bring the monolith collection to the college back in the late 1980s and was excited to see it finally make its way to the institution.

“It was integral to my course to show the students that soil isn’t just something you dig up and arbitrability manipulate, it has many different classifications,” Perl continued. “That is my own legacy project, and after 35 years it’s great to leave something of value at the college that students can use.”

During a speech to those assembled on Tuesday morning, Perl mentioned when he first brought up the idea to move the soils to the college. The federal department of Agriculture needed to give approval, but the government was involved in the first Gulf War at the time, so it had to take a backseat for a while.

Instructors have already used it as a resource during classes and it stands as an example of an innovative and interesting way to teach students, and Burns believes the value of the collection is priceless.

“We know it’s worth a lot, but it really is priceless in that you can’t re-create those soil monoliths now and the time that was taken to do them back then, to have them housed here at the college is really quite special,” Burns said.

The history behind the collection is something of a mystery, as it’s believed that federal and provincial soil surveyors likely created the collection over a number of years in the 1950s and 1960s, but there’s little historical documentation about the collection.

The soil samples are largely from southern Alberta, but also include soils from elsewhere in Alberta, Saskatchewan, B.C. and the Yukon Territory.

Shannan Little, an Associate Director for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, says while the soil monolith collection was located at the Lethbridge Research and Development Centre for several years, they’re grateful it has now found a home in the halls of Lethbridge College.

“Here it can be accessed by the public, students and instructors for further education and for revealing the mysteries of soil genesis and soil classification. While the details of the origin story are a bit murky, the real tales that it tells are in the actual soil monoliths. We estimate it took at least 150 days of labour to carefully excavate, transport and preserve the soil monoliths,” Little stated.

The collection contains eight out of the 10 orders of soil identified in the current Canadian System of Soil Classification, making it a valuable teaching resource.

Because the monoliths are used for educational and not research purposes, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada scientists saw the value in transferring the collection to the college.

As a Crown asset, the collection required the approval of the federal Minister of Agriculture, Lawrence McAulay. The transfer was approved in January 2018, and the collection made its way to the college during the summer of 2018.

For instructors at the college, they intend to continue researching the history of the monoliths and build out the history in both online and digital formats to preserve them in the future.

by Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

Decades old soil monolith collection gifted to Lethbridge College by the federal government

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