Interpreting American soils
at the Saint Louis Science Center
Diverse soils from all U.S. states and territories line the back wall of the Science Center’s GROW Pavilion.
On permanent loan from the Smithsonian, these soil “monoliths” — extractions of eons’ worth of build-up, growth, and decay — are colorful and intriguing, but also a little abstract. I wrote interpretive text to connect the collection to GROW's overarching themes of plant biology and land management, and to illuminate the story of each unique soil’s formation.
What did Science Center visitors wonder as they walked along
this wall of soils?
To find out, Angela asked them to post sticky-note questions on the cases. It turned out that people were most curious about colors, textures, and changes between layers.
In response to visitor feedback, labels took the form of poems connecting each soil’s colors, textures, and layers to its formation process and to what grows in it today.
