- Author: Jodi Azulai
![Lightbulb Lightbulb](http://ucanr.edu/blogs/ANRReport/blogfiles/95211.jpg)
Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay
ANR LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
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Extension Methods & Delivery
Building Support
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
Office, Team, & Personal Management
UCCE Program Development and Evaluation Capacity Building Trainings!
9-part series from Oct. 4-Dec. 6
Every Tuesday 10 a.m.-Noon
Click here for session descriptions.
Click here to register.
Join us for online interactive trainings to help you with planning and evaluating programs and projects! These trainings highlight UCCE examples. This is a 9-part series offered a la carte; select whichever interests you or take the complete series!
Introduction to Fall GIS and R Workshops from IGIS
September–December 2022
Click here for session descriptions.
The Informatics and GIS (IGIS) Statewide Program is pleased to share their Fall 2022 Workshop Schedule. All workshops will be on Zoom, and are free for the ANR community. Workshops include:
-Introduction to ArcGIS Online
-Intro to R (3-part series)
-Introduction to ArcGIS Pro
-Introduction to ArcGIS Field Maps
-Computing Agroclimate Metrics in R
-Introduction to ArcGIS Story Maps
Mapping the impact of our work
Oct. 20
Noon-12:30 p.m.
This session will focus on framing our work around UC ANR's public values and advancing our efforts on measuring changes in conditions that result from programmatic efforts. The condition changes serve as evidence of public impact. During the session, we will showcase a draft new tool that is being designed to help us internally to find and learn from examples where our programs are having economic, social/health, or environmental impact. Presented by Katherine Webb-Martinez, Christina Becker, and Leyla Marandi from UC ANR Program Planning and Evaluation.
Zoom webinar: https://ucanr.zoom.us/j/751701428?pwd=Q1ZrbUtoQVJwMXJVRkQydUlwNytJQT09
Password: 4Learning
Or join by phone: +1 669 900 6833
Where is …? The new UCD Library website and redesigned resources
![UCD library UCD library](http://ucanr.edu/blogs/ANRReport/blogfiles/95213.png)
Nov. 3
3-4 p.m.
The UC Davis Library website was redesigned and brought up on Aug. 16, 2022. Learn about UC Davis Library resources and delivery services, VPN, and key research tools and strategies for specific disciplines. We will review/use the following redesigned guide during this workshop: https://guides.library.ucdavis.edu/uc-cooperative-extension. With Ruth Gustafson, UC Davis STEM Librarian & Erik Fausak, Veterinary Medicine Librarian
Zoom webinar: https://ucanr.zoom.us/j/751701428?pwd=Q1ZrbUtoQVJwMXJVRkQydUlwNytJQT09
Password: 4Learning
Or join by phone: +1 669 900 6833
Extension Skills: Survey Says: Strategies, tips, and tools for getting REAL feedback and impact data (Extension Foundation)
Oct. 13
11 a.m.-Noon
Click here to read more and register.
Come prepared to learn and share best practices and tools to get information from participants before, during and after a program or activity either virtually or in-person. Learn More
Innovation Skill-Building Experience (Extension Foundation)
Starts Oct. 25
10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Click here to read more and register.
This 4-part series welcomes teams to incubate and tease out innovation in project and program development. With the help of trained Impact Facilitators, your team will learn 17 unique and exciting approaches to infusing new thinking into your offerings for maximum impacts. Learn More
Innovation Facilitator Training (Extension Foundation)
Starts Oct. 25
10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Click here to learn more and register.
In this perfect companion to the Innovation Skill-Building Experience, individuals attend this training alongside each session to transform the curriculum into facilitation and coaching skills. We can't wait to see what you bring to the nationwide Impact Facilitator network! Learn More
About the Extension Foundation
Click here to read more.
The Foundation provides professional development to Cooperative Extension professionals and offers exclusive services to its members. In 2020 and 2021, the Extension Foundation has awarded 85% of its direct funding back to the Cooperative Extension System, 100% of funds are used to support Cooperative Extension initiatives.
Open Forum/Questions for Office of Contracts and Grants
Oct. 26
9:30-10:30 a.m.
The world of contracts and grants can sometimes seem complicated. Let us help you alleviate your concerns. Please join our team for an open forum to answer your most compelling questions. If possible, please send us questions in advance (not required) for an informative discussion. Presenters are Kathleen Nolan, Kim Lamar and OCG Team. E-mail questions to kdlamar@ucanr.edu
Zoom webinar: https://ucanr.zoom.us/j/751701428?pwd=Q1ZrbUtoQVJwMXJVRkQydUlwNytJQT0
Password: 4Learning | +1 669 900 6833 | Webinar ID: 751 701 428
Understanding the Digital Equity Landscape and Extension's Role (Connect Extension, Extension Foundation)
![DEI hands DEI hands](http://ucanr.edu/blogs/ANRReport/blogfiles/95212.jpg)
Oct. 3
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Click here to read more.
Click here to register.
As a part of Bridging the Digital Divide in Socio-Economically Disadvantaged Communities in the South, a NIFA AFRI-funded project, individuals were surveyed to better understand the digital equity landscape, including access to the internet and devices as well as internet use and benefits. Findings from this survey can better prepare Extension to play a role in their respective state's Digital Equity plan and implementation. Join us on Oct. 3 to learn more about this important topic. Presenter: Dr. Roberto Gallardo, Director, Purdue Center for Regional Development.
Where Accessibility Champions Can Find the Time & Knowledge They Need to Succeed Webinar (Deque – Web accessibility experts)
Oct. 6
11 a.m.-Noon
Every successful accessibility program relies on five foundational elements of accessibility:
- The inclination to practice accessibility
- The time to practice accessibility
- The knowledge to practice accessibility
- The automation and tools to practice accessibility
- The availability of expert resources for future changes
In the first part of this webinar series, we covered the first foundational element to fostering accessibility across an organization: the inclination to practice accessibility.
Can we talk about Implicit Bias? Virtual Workshop (UC ANR)
Oct. 31
9–11 a.m.
50 Seats
Click here to register by Oct. 24.
Join us to help learn how to make UC ANR a more inclusive organization!
UC ANR Human Resources and Learning & Development are offering a workshop to further explore, develop and supplement the UC Implicit Bias Series. We will divide into facilitated breakout groups to tackle strategies that counter negative scenarios and encourage positive interactions. This workshop will be a great opportunity to practice “standing in the community” and supporting ANR Principles of Community and ANR's strategic mission to expand Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Accomplishing More with Less (Virtual - UC Davis)
Oct. 4
1-4:30 p.m.
Click here for details and to register.
Virtual Instructor-Led Training
Career Management Academy (Virtual- UC Davis)
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Oct. 6
9 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Virtual Instructor-Led Training
Habits: A Science Based Approach (Virtual- UC Davis)
Click here for details and to register.
Oct. 13
8:30 a.m.-Noon
Virtual Instructor-Led Training
Customer Service Essentials (Virtual - UC Davis)
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Oct. 14
8:30 a.m.-Noon
Virtual Instructor-Led Training
How to Set Goals When Everything Feels Like a Priority (LinkedIn Learning)
Click to access course. Request your LinkedIn Learning account with ANR IT @ help@ucanr.edu.
Sometimes it can feel like you're working on everyone else's to-do list instead of your own. How can you make space for accomplishing the goals that are important to you? Join best-selling business author and consultant Dorie Clark as she shares practical advice on how to prioritize effectively so that you can get meaningful things done.
Designing a Presentation
Click to access course. Request your LinkedIn Learning account with ANR IT @ help@ucanr.edu.
In this course, designer Tony Harmer takes you through the essentials of presentation design to give you the tools you'll find most useful in thinking about, designing and building successful presentations. Tony covers a variety of key topics, including moodboards, outlines, layout, type and text, color considerations, graphics, video, charts, transitions and animations.
Everyone can learn something new.
ANR Learning & Development
Find webinar announcements and recordings here.
- Author: Ben Faber
Here is a really good introduction to the use of the on-line Soil Survey from USDA. Maybe it is easier to follow than blogs I have posted in the past.
WASHINGTON — “Soil don't get no respect,” Rodney Dangerfield might have said (but didn't). Perhaps you know your state bird or flower, but do you know your state soil?
Well, in recent years soil has begun to get more respect. Since the celebration of the Soil Survey Centennial back in 1999, each state has been given its own official state soil. It was in 1899 that the U. S. Department of Agriculture started its survey of all the soils in the country.
SOILS COME IN MANY ‘Flavours'
You might wonder what a “soil survey” really is. Isn't it all just dirt — some perhaps stickier, or redder or deeper — that lies beneath forest, meadow, farm, home and garden?
There you go again. Not enough respect.
In fact, soils are distinctive, as different from each other as robins are from blue jays. These differences are hard to appreciate, of course, because soil is mostly underground, hidden from view. But if you were to dig some holes a few feet deep and then look carefully at their inside surfaces, you would find that soils are made up of layers of varying thickness, called horizons. One soil might differ from the next not only in the thickness of its horizons, but also in their appearance and feel.
Horizons might be as white as chalk, as red as rust, or as dark brown as chocolate. A horizon might be cement-hard, gritty with sand, or stuff for sculpture. And if you were to tease the dirt along one edge of the hole so it falls away naturally — wow! — each horizon would reveal its particles clumped together in arrangements like plates, blocks or prisms. Such information, and more, has allowed soils to be classified, much as birds, flowers and other living things are.
CLASSIFYING SOILS
Modern soil classification goes back only a few decades, when all the world's soils were grouped taxonomically into a dozen “orders.” Differences among orders reflect the formative influence of a particular combination of climate, plants and animals, topography, time and original rock material.
Just as all vertebrate animals are huddled together by biologists into smaller groupings (mammals, say) and those groupings into still smaller ones, so each soil order is divided and subdivided to include more distinctly different soils. At the end of the dividing and subdividing, you end up with a “soil series” identified with a proper name — like the Haven series in my vegetable garden, for example.
YOUR STATE'S AND BACKYARD'S SOIL
A particular soil becomes an official state soil by being widespread within the state; being distinctive chemically or physically; having some degree of name recognition; and, of course, getting a legislative stamp of approval. Examples include soils like West Virginia's Monongahela soil, Texas' Houston Black soil, California's San Joaquin soil and New York's Honeoye soil.
The job, now, of these “ambassadors” of the benevolent underworld is to rekindle awareness of soil's value as a natural resource that can only be renewed very slowly. Soil provides food, shelter, clothing and more, yet it is being lost at alarming rates to everything from blacktop to erosion.
Out in the garden this spring, dig a hole deep and wide enough that you can see and appreciate at least some of the various and distinctive horizons.
Then, if you want the name and a detailed description of that soil — or any soil — look at the maps and descriptions in the Soil Survey Reports issued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). Search online for “soil survey nrcs” and you'll find links to soil maps for counties throughout the U.S. Or go to the link to “web soil survey.” At this site, you can type in a street address around which you “draw” your area of interest (AOI). The site will delineate the names and descriptions of soils within that AOI.
And of course this is available as an app at:
https://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/soilweb-apps/
Online:
www.leereich.com/blog
leereich.com
http://www.leereich.com/2016/06/edens-gardens.html
![soil weathered from rock soil weathered from rock](/blogs/blogcore/blogfiles/49578.png)