UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 22, Page 10
March 5, 1992
New soil major mixes wide range of disciplines

     Solutions to complex environmental problems will be solved
through cooperative approaches involving researchers from a number
of disciplines, according to Donald L. Sparks, chairperson of the
Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, in the College of
Agricultural Sciences.
     In the future, working across rather than within one's field
will be more commonplace. To better prepare today's students for
those working conditions, the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences
is introducing a new undergraduate major in environmental soil
science.
     The major was recently approved by the Faculty Senate.
Students may enroll in the major, beginning this fall.
     The courses offered in the new major will equip University
graduates with the necessary background to help solve environmental
soil science problems that are facing agriculture and industry,
government and the general public.
     For example, Sparks explained, groundwater and stream
pollution are major concerns in the U.S. and throughout the world.
The mobility of nitrates, pesticides, heavy metals, industrial
contaminants and industrial byproducts in soils-and their impact on
water quality-are areas that are important to agriculture,
industry, governmental agencies and the public. Many of these
agencies and companies have staff members involved in cooperative
research with Delaware faculty, and their findings are incorporated
into undergraduate and graduate courses.
     Students in the new environmental soil science major, Sparks
said, will employ skills they have learned in physics, soil
science, mathematics, chemistry, biology, geology, geography and
public policy and other agricultural sciences, to help solve these
problems. Additionally, students will have opportunities to
participate in undergraduate research projects and internships.
     Since he came to the University in 1979, Sparks said he has
seen dramatic changes in the work of the department and similar
academic units around the country.
     "There has been a greater emphasis on environmental quality,
with increasing research on the fate of pesticides and other
organics, metals and nutrients in soils," he said.
     In 1990-91, Sparks said, the Department of Plant and Soil
Sciences received more than $1 million to support research in
environmental soil science, from such diverse sources as the
University of Delaware Research Foundation, W. L. Gore Co., the Du
Pont Co., Delmarva Power & Light Co., the U.S. departments of
Agriculture, Interior and Energy and the Environmental Protection
Agency.
     Interaction with scientists and sophisticated equipment in
industry and at national laboratories also has been beneficial to
faculty and students in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences,
Sparks said.
     For example, graduate students in soil chemistry have been
employing high resolution transmission electron microscopy,
electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy and extended X-ray
absorption fine structure spectroscopy at Lawrence Berkeley
Laboratory, and also at Pacific Northwest and Brookhaven National
Laboratories to study mechanisms of metal retention on oxides that
are important in soils.
                                        - Ed Okonowicz