Lincoln School, Kathmandu, Nepal

This soil profile is from Lincoln School, Kathmandu, which is in Kathmandu District. The location of the school is: 85.3167 degrees East and 27.72167 degrees North and the elevation 1306.0 meters. This soil profile has five horizon and their depths are:

Horizon

Top Depth

Bottom Depth

Color

Color

Structure

Consistence

Moisture

Field Texture

Rocks

Roots

Carbonates

pH

1

0 cm

13.0 cm

2

13.0 cm

60.0 cm

Single grained

Loose

Dry

Silty Clay

Few

Few

Slight

6.0

3

60.0 cm

79.0 cm

Firm

Moist

Sandy Clay

Few

None

Few

7.0

4

79.0 cm

122.0 cm

5

122.0 cm

134.0 cm

Granular

Extremely Firm

Wet

Silty Clay

None

None

None

7.3

This is a letter from Allison Lide, the teacher at Lincoln.

At school things are great! GLOBE update: we just did a soil pit profile in the land across the street from school - a fantastic activity - but half the pit was old bricks!!! I felt terrible about it, having asked the custodians to dig the hole - and they dug thru BRICKS! One guy had big blood blisters on his hand, and I felt like such a tyrant and apologized profusely, and he in his always-smiling, Nepali way said, "No problem! It was a job and it had to be done! Is it ok? Did we do it right?" He even came out and watched as we were analyzing, which was great that at least he got to see why he did it! So now my kids are deep into their characterization and analysis in the lab, and I could not be happier with the experience this work is giving them. We've had to throw out two samples b/c of their poor and careless labeling despite my warnings!- finally it's REAL! They are being unbelievably careful now, and having to think about every step they take in terms of contamination, etc. One girl squirted vinegar on the whole sample to test it for carbonates! So much for the pH test...This is amazingly good for them, and of course they're totally into it. AND, my newest hope/idea (it's unconfirmed though): we were supposed to go trekking/camping for the week of "Explore Nepal" in March, but it's getting cancelled b/c of the Maoist situation. So my bright idea is to do 5 day-hikes around the Kath Valley where we find a study site and do soil investigation, hydrology, land cover, etc. I know it won't fit our study site or be useful as longitudinal data, but I am hoping they can put together some kind of research report and perhaps post it on the GLOBE site. We have also totally reenergized our program, got huge new bulletin boards, and the kids are rockin' and rollin'!

These are Lincoln students conducting the soil characterization field analysis protocols.

Lincoln students, Simone and Ladislava identifying horizons.

Lincoln students, Nina and Lea looking at soil structure.