User:Ruobeiyu/sandbox

Final Wiki Assignment

Page Chosen: Soil functions

What I Added

Soil functions are general capabilities of soils that are important for various agricultural, environmental, nature protection, landscape architecture and urban applications. Soil can perform many functions and these include functions related to the natural ecosystems, agricultural productivity, environmental quality, source of raw material, and as base for buildings.

Food and other Biomass Production[edit]

Soil acts as an anchor for plant roots. It provides a hospital place for a plant to live in while storing and supplying nutrients to plants. Soil also functions by maintaining the quantity and quality of air by allowing CO2 to escape and fresh O2 to enter the root zone. Pore spaces within soil can also absorb water and hold it until plant roots need it. The soil also moderates temperature fluctuation, providing a suitable temperature for the roots to function normally. A fertile soil will also provide dissolved mineral nutrients for optimal plant growth. The combination of these activities supports plant growth for providing food and other biomass production.

Environmental Interaction[edit]

Environmental interactions such as regulating water supplies, water loos, utilization, contamination, and purification are all affected by the soil. They can filter, buffer, and transform materials between the atmosphere, the plant cover, and the water table. Soil interacts with the environment to transform and decompose waste materials in to new materials. Through filtering, soil acts as a filter and captures contaminants through soil particles. Contaminants are captured by the soil particles and water comes out cleaner in the aquifers and rivers. Lastly, it can accumulate large amounts of carbon as soil organic matter, thus reducing the total concentration of carbon dioxide that can mitigate global climate change .

Biological Habitat and Gene Pool[edit]

Soils also acts as a biological habitat and a gene reserve for a large variety of organisms. Soils are the environment in which seeds grow, they provide heat, nutrients and water that are available to use to nurture plants and animals. The assistance of soil in the decomposition of dead plants, animals, and organism by transforming their remains into simpler mineral forms, can be utilized by other living things.  

Source of Raw Materials[edit]

Soils provides raw materials for human use and impacts human health directly. The composition of human food reflects the nature of the soil in which it was grown. An example of soil as a source of raw material can be found in ancient ceramic production. The Maya ceramics showed traits inherited from soils and sediments used as raw material. The understanding of soil formation process can help define certain type of soil and reflect the composition of soil minerals. However, the natural area of productive soils is limited and due to increasing pressure of cropping, forestry, and urbanization, extracting soil as a raw material needs to be controlled for.  

Physical and Cultural Heritage[edit]

Soil also has more general culture functions as they act as a part of the cultural landscape of our minds as well as the physical world around us. An attachment to home soils or a sense of place is a cultural attribute developed mores strongly in certain people. Soils has been around since the creation of earth, it can act as a factor in determining how humans have migrated in the past. Soil also act as an earth cover that protects and preserve the physical artifacts of the past that can allow us to better understand cultural heritage. Moreover, soil has been an important indication to where people settle as they are an essential resource for human productivity.

Platform for Man-made Structures[edit]

Soil can act as raw material deposits and is widely used in building materials. Approximately 50% of the people on the planet live in houses that are constructed from soil. The conditions of the soil must be firm and solid to provide a good base for roads and highways to be built on. Additionally, since these structures rest on the soil, factors such as its bearing strength, compressibility, stability, and shear strength al need to be considered. Testing the physical properties allow a better application to engineering uses of soil.

Soil maps can depict soil properties and functions in the context of specific soil functions such as agricultural food production, environmental protection, and civil engineering considerations. Maps can depict functional interpretations of specific properties such as critical nutrient levels, heavy-metal levels or can depict interpretation of multiple properties such as a map of erosion risk index.

References Added

#6-#10 References

Reflective Essay

This Wikipedia assignment has been beneficial for understanding how information is gathered on the Wikipedia Website. During the process of this assignment, I have gained knowledge on how to cite, add pictures, review pages and add links. The weekly tasks also allowed me to understand how to write a good article without any forms of bias and has created a useful tool as to which sources I can put on the page. It also allowed me as a reader to better be aware of what information I can trust on the website, and which ones are questionable. One main learning tool for me was learning about the talk page and how I can use that to analyze what other editors have made comments about, and using the ranking scale to let the readers know the project's quality and importance. I find that the most beneficial process of Wikipedia is its way to receive feedback from a wide range of readers. The page I have posted will allow me to get comments from many professionals in the field, letting me know what others think of the information I have posted and can allow me to have a decision if I want to take their feedback or not.

The topic I have chosen for my Wikipedia assignment is on Soil Functions. It outlines the six main functions of soil. This is a page where Wikipedia has ranked it Start Class due to the lack of information, and the only peer edit made was in 2007, suggesting that the page needs to be updated. The main goal for my article is to ensure I have provided a credible read, with a good structure and outline of my topic. This can allow the public to get a good grasp of the content but it is important that I do not edit any personal opinions into the topic. I found that the page did not provide a good explanation as to what the topic meant, therefore, the definition of soil functions was also provided. Because the topic of the page was to address the 6 main functions, I categorized the 6 functions and provided details based on each soil function. This creates a better flow to the page and allow viewers to easily identify the different categories. With an added introduction and more details made in every soil function, I hope that my edit on the page can provide the public a wider understanding of the topic.

WEEK 8: Peer Review 2 Articles

I have chosen

• Plastic soup
• Heat wave
• both under Peer Edit by Ruo Bei Yu

WEEK 5: Final Article Chosen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_functions

References Made Nortcliff, Stephen (December 2006). "Soil, Definition, Function, and Utilization of Soil". doi:10.1002/14356007.b07_613.pub2.

The quote I added: Soil can perform many functions and these include functions related to the natural ecosystems, agricultural productivity, environmental quality, source of raw material, and as base for buildings.  

Practicing Citation Exercise

Filtration is defined as mechanical retention of material >100 nm in size [6]. Filtration occurs during the flow of aqueous suspension, through the pore systems.

WEEK 4: Article Selection

• TOPIC 1: Factors Affecting Permeability of Soil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factors_affecting_permeability_of_soils

• Quality and importance is not yet rated. Very brief information, sources are unreliable. Missing some other factors that contribute to permeability.

1. Possible References
3. ASTM D2434, Standard Test Method for Permeability of Granular Soils (Constant Head), 2006. Google Scholar
5. László Nagy Permeability of well graded soils Period. Polytech. Civ. Eng., 55 (2) (2011), pp. 199-204
7. Gabitova G., Zaborova D., Barinov S. Experimental Determination of Permeability Coefficient Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Volume 692, 2018

• TOPIC 2: Soil Health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_health Rated mid importance and start class.
• Needs more information about the factors that influence soil health. Current references are reliable but can more supporting information. The "interpretation" category is too broad, needs to be further expanded and cited.

1. Possible References Doran, J. W., and M. Safley. "Defining and assessing soil health and sustainable productivity." Biological indicators of soil health. New York: CAB International (1997).

1. Harris, R. F., D. L. Karlen, and D. J. Mulla. "A conceptual framework for assessment and management of soil quality and health." Methods for assessing soil quality’.(Eds JS Doran, AJ Jones)(SSSA, Inc.: Madison, WI, USA) (1996).

1. Cardoso, Elke Jurandy Bran Nogueira, et al. "Soil health: looking for suitable indicators. What should be considered to assess the effects of use and management on soil health?." Scientia Agricola 70.4 (2013): 274-289.

• TOPIC 3: Soil Structure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_structure
• Rated high importance and start class. Categories in this page does not highlight the important factors of soil structure. Current sources are reliable but does not cover all aspects. There is insufficient information for readers with no general flow to the writing.

1. Possible References Croney, D., & Coleman, J. D. (1954). Soil structure in relation to soil suction (pF). Journal of Soil Science, 5(1), 75-84.

1. Wong, Hung Leung. "Dynamic soil-structure interaction." (1975).

1. Yandong, Liu Jingbo Lu. "A DIRECT METHOD FOR ANALYSIS OF DYNAMIC SOIL-STRUCTURE INTERACTION [J]." China Civil Engineering Journal 3 (1998): 008.

WEEK 2 Article Evaluation on 2011 Little Buffalo oil spill 2011 Little Buffalo oil spill

The 2011 Little Buffalo Oil Spill is a Wikipedia Page highlighting the main facts, issues, response, and charges due to this event. All sections of the article is relevant to the article topic, however all sections only provides a brief background on the topic with little details. The article starts off stating that the spill is the largest spill in 26 years, however this was taken from a source in 2013 therefore author should include updated sources to inform readers that as of 2019, the 2011 spill is still the largest oil spill yet. If there are any larger oil spill occurrences after 2011, it will prove this statement to be incorrect. One of the other issues that the author fails to do is the lack of in-text citations. For example, he/she simply states "the company had cleaned up 33% of the oil" or "it would take 6 months to recover the oil", these statements needs to be supported with from a reliable source. In addition, the author has a frequency of relying on simply one source. Many sentences start with "according to the company, according to an engineering professor..." the author should not be trusting arguments and data statistics based on one company, or one professional.

Although author has used a neutral tone throughout the article, he/she has focused on putting the blame through private companies. Author has placed many quotations that states reasons why pipeline companies should be responsible. Near the end of the article, the author has also added Greenpeace Climate's statement as they state pipeline company is responsible for the failure of Alberta's environment and people.

The biggest issue on this page is the lack of references for the author's argument. The four issues category are based off of one reading, and was an article report from the Globe and Mail. We see many bias throughout the reading, and all the bias proposed in the page reflects the Globe and Mail article, which is an issue when the author has only reference off of one article. To improve on this wikipedia page, author can use more information, more sources to back up their points. The author also need better references, many sources were used from publishers from Journals and news articles such as The Globe and Mail, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post. These cites all pose bias from the article publishers. When examining these cites, the article publishers all pose a bias and two our of the eight cites were removed and unavailable.

Talk Page

From the Talk page, WikiProject Canada and WikiProject Environment are involved. Both has rated the quality as Stub, meaning the author has provided a very basic description of the topic, and articles are at very bad quality with little meaningful content. The article has also been rated as Low-Importance, indicating that it is not a required knowledge for understanding Canada.

This Wikipedia page has discussed and stated many facts and information on the Oil Spill. It will differ from how we learn case studies in Class as we will focus less on the statistics, but more on why the topic is significant, and how it has impacted our environment.

The impact of the oil spill at an individual level has included headaches, dizziness, and nausea of children at local school. But how has the Little Buffalo Oil Spill impacted the environment? ~~~~

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