The landscape of US soil judging in 2025, Part I: Participation in soil judging

Soil judging in the United States is an experiential learning activity where college students describe and interpret soil profiles in the field and compare their assessments to expert evaluations. This skill‐development activity prepares students for careers as certified professional soil scientists, researchers, environmental consultants, and more. Although formal contests began over 60 years ago, no known research has investigated the demographics of participants, institutional characteristics, or how soil judging is structured and offered. We surveyed 50 current US soil judging coaches about their teams, activities, funding, and program sustainability, providing baseline data from the late 2010s through early 2020s. The majority of teams are at public universities (land‐grant and non‐land‐grant), with very few at private institutions. About three‐quarters of head coaches are tenure‐track professors, and most have graduate student assistant coaches, though the majority of both head and assistant coaches are uncompensated. Teams typically consist of around eight members, predominantly third‐ and fourth‐year students. Just over half of schools offer soil judging as a for‐credit class, typically an upper‐level course worth one to three credits. Inconsistencies in credit offerings, course level, and whether soil judging is structured as a class create inequities for students applying for professional certification and federal positions. We recommend that soil judging experience be formally recognized for certification and federal job qualifications. Similar future investigations should be conducted periodically to track trends and help sustain this valuable learning activity.