A contribution to the 14th Biennial Conference on University of Education in Natural Resources, hosted in March 2022 by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's School of Natural Resources and College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. Rebecca Young and Judith Turk, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Content is the property of the authors under the Creative Commons agreement.
Collegiate soil judging contests have been incorporated into curriculum at many universities, providing an opportunity for immersive, experiential learning in soil science. For 30 years (1961-1990), soil judging focused exclusively on individual performance. Since the 1990s, group judging components have been included in most regional and national contests to encourage collaborative learning. In Fall 2021, the North-Central Region incorporated a “jumble judging” component into their contest, in which students competed on teams that included students from 2-3 different universities. Students completed pre- and post-contest surveys, and daily reflection activities to assess the success of this new field learning technique. Overall, students reacted favorably to the opportunity to learn and share ideas, though some expressed reservations about sharing competitive strategies among teams. The jumble judging activity provided an opportunity for the students to network, practice problem solving within a diverse group, and promoted community and development of a soil science identity.