Elements of Soil Physics ebook is available to be downloaded here now.
- Title: Elements of Soil Physics
- Author: P. Koorevaar, G. Menelik, Christiaan Dirksen
- Publisher: Elsevier
- Pages: 243
This book is not meant to be ‘just another textbook’ on Soil Physics. Instead, it presents a different approach to teaching students the basic principles of Soil Physics. The main idea is that students should be forced to think through and apply immediately what they read. To achieve this goal, the text is written mostly in rather short paragraphs and is alternated with questions. Many questions are an integral part of the transfer of knowledge; these, in particular, should be answered by the student before he continues. The student can check his answers with those given at the end of each chapter.
The origin of the present book goes back to lectures notes by G. H. Bolt, which eventually resulted in two lecture syllabi written in the early sixties by G. H. Bolt, A. R. P. Janse and F. F. R. Koenigs for internal use at the Department of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition of the Agricultural University, Wageningen, The Netherlands. One syllabus was on Soil Chemistry, the other on Soil Physics; both had to be studied by the students as one unit. In the course of time, several reasons developed for revising these syllabi. First, the c.g.s. system of units needed to be replaced by the new S.1. system.
Secondly, in 1970 a new study program was introduced at the Agricultural University, for which some students needed to study only Soil Physics. Unfortunately, some subjects that were needed for Soil Physics were discussed only in the Soil Chemistry syllabus, e.g., the behaviour of clay particles and the diffuse electric double layer. Obviously, it is desirable to incorporate all subjects of Soil Physics in one syllabus. A third reason for revision was the need to introduce a consistent set of definitions, symbols, etc., based on a rigorous, lucid development from first principles, in agreement with the latest internationally accepted conventions.
The final and most elaborate, if not most important reason for revision was the need to seek ways to improve the examination results of the students. To this end, we first handed out questions at the lectures, some of which were prepared by L. Stroosnijder. Once a week the ‘homework’ was discussed in small groups of about 15 students and evaluated by the teacher. This system was used with about 150 students, and thus was very time-consuming for the teaching staff. For the students, the gain in examination results was marginal, in spite of their larger time investment. This led eventually to the idea to integrate the questions and answers with the subject matter in the syllabus and develop some kind of ‘half-programmed’ text for selfstudy.