Contemporary planetary issues: energy, soil
Cognitive objectives:
Studying the biodiversity of an environment: The soil Observe and identify the various aspects of this biodiversity.
Reveal the influence of Man on the biodiversity of an environment.

Proposed activity:
We have, in our laboratory, implemented the Berlese experiments on two types of soil:

• Soil taken from the forest
  
• Soil taken from a field on the edge of a forest where pesticides are used to increase crop yields.
  
  Students will observe the microfauna that we have isolated in both environments with a stereo microscope and compare biodiversity to understand the influence of humans.
  Students will observe worms and a wide variety of arthropods (mites, spiders, crustaceans, myriapods, insects ...). This biodiversity will obviously be less rich in the environment exposed to pesticides.
  The kit comes in two forms, that can be complementary:
  
• Ready-to-use prepared slides
  
• Microfauna preserved in alcohol in microtubes
  Additional handling:
  As the school program proposes the collection of information, if possible, in the field, it is possible to carry out soil sampling around the school and to carry out Berlese experiments in order to compare the biodiversity of the soil sampled to that which we have provided.
  
  Technical and educational instructions available on our website.
  Conservation: room temperature