Soil Literacy in Action: Digital Tools and Community Engagement for Soil Health’ Webinar | Insights and Takeaways

February 26, 2026

Soil literacy is key to turning soil health from a technical topic into everyday action. This webinar explored how digital tools, citizen science, participatory learning, and sensing tech can build understanding and drive change across schools, communities, and farms. Organised by InBestSoil on the Soil Community Platform, it connected projects showing scalable ways to make soil functions visible and relevant.

Webinar Highlights

1. CurioSoil (Abdul Otman, ECOLISE / CURIOSOIL) – Soil literacy for schools, citizens, and policy
   • Soil Literacy Assessment Framework (SLAF): Tailored questionnaires for primary/secondary students and the public to baseline knowledge on biodiversity, services, threats; re-assess post-workshops/resources to measure impact.
   • Community of practice for educators to share experiences, events, and policy analysis with national workshops (2026), conferences (2026-2027), and EU advocacy.
   • 2026 women-in-soil campaign; World Soil Museum App (beta: quizzes, stories, videos).

Take-home messages

• Soil education scales through curricula, school gardens, and simple experiments that link to climate/water/biodiversity.
• Equity focus: Highlight women in STEM, reach diverse audiences.

2. PREPSOIL (Rita Meneses, Trust-IT) – Citizen science and accessible tools for the EU Soil Mission
   • Tools for the Public: The PREPSOIL mobile app now maps over 100 Living Labs and Lighthouses. Through “SoilQuest,” citizens can upload photos and data directly from their own backyards.
   • Local Matters: A major takeaway was that engagement thrives on local languages and trusted community ambassadors. Interestingly, Android-focused campaigns have seen much higher uptake than iOS in these regions.

3. Living Soils Workshop (Iuliana Davies, SoilTribes) – Gamified, hands-on soil learning
   • 2-3 hour collaborative workshop: Soil ecosystems, microbes, organic matter/water cycles, farming/land-use/policy impacts.
   • Since 2021 in SoilTribes (Horizon): Festivals/creative spaces; trained 100s facilitators, multi-language materials for schools/municipalities.

Take-home messages

• Train-the-trainer enables independent replication.
• Cultural formats engage non-technical audiences.

4. Wheat Watcher (Prof. Abdul Mouazen, Ghent University) – Sensing + AI for soil stressors
   •  By using AI, drones, and satellites, this project identifies “hidden” stressors like heavy metals and salinity in wheat crops across Belgium, Germany, Poland, and Greece.
   • Pilots: Belgium (nutrients), Germany (nutrients), Poland (metals), Greece (salinity).

Take-home messages

• Service providers deliver per-ha maps/recommendations for economic uptake.
• Precision data builds farmer literacy on hidden threats.

Q&A Highlights

• Scalability: Service models (Wheat Watcher), trainer networks (Living Soils), curricula (CurioSoil), localised quests (PREPSOIL).
• Engagement: Local languages/ambassadors.
• Collaborations: Greece for Living Soils; BIOservicES for PREPSOIL app.

To sum up, soil literacy thrives when digital tools meet community action, from apps and assessments to workshops and sensors. These approaches link education to real-world soil regeneration across Europe.

We hope this webinar inspired you to integrate soil literacy in your work. Stay tuned for updates, events, and discussions on the Soil Community Platform.

What’s Next? Join us for our next session on April 23, 2026, where we’ll dive deep into Soil Biodiversity & Microorganisms.