June 15, 2015-In celebration of the International Year of Soil 2015 (IYS), the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) is coordinating a series of activities throughout the year to educate the public about the importance of soil. June’s theme is “Soils Support Recreation”. In SSSA’s June 15 Soils Matter blog post, experts explain why it’s important to stay on the trails while hiking in the woods and parks.

According to Mary Beth Adams, “humans can have significant impacts on the soil.” Adams is a soil scientist with the US Forest Service.

“Soil is made of various size particles,” says Adams. “But, there are pores between those particles that are crucial to soil health. Soil microbes live within the pores and provide many services to plant life. The pores have air and water in them—food for the microbes and plant life. Compressing the soil limits the amount of air and water the pores can hold…and that’s not good for soil microbes or plants.”

To read the entire blog post, visit http://soilsmatter.wordpress.com.

As part of their celebration of IYS, SSSA is developing a series of twelve 2-minute educational videos. June’s Soils Support Recreation video can be viewed at www.soils.org/iys/monthly-videos. Educational materials can be viewed at www.soils.org/iys.

Follow SSSA on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SSSA.soils, Twitter at SSSA_Soils. SSSA has soils information on www.soils.org/discover-soils, for teachers at www.soils4teachers.org, and for students through 12^th grade, www.soils4kids.org.