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"Globalization and global environmental issues, as well as unification of scientific investigation and teaching on EU level necessitate the harmonization and correlation of technical languages, such as the terminology used by soil scientists. Despite the passage of years and the unification of many European laws, the system of soil description it is still not unified on a satisfactory level among teaching staff of European universities. The consortium brought together the experts from 9 Institutions from 8 countries (Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) all having experience in soil classification of different regions of Central Europe. Each partner has advanced knowledge on soils of particular region. Individual members of the consortium also participated in numerous activities related to the adaptation of the WRB on a regional (national) scale, translations of this system into national languages, international correlation and testing of WRB, and its use in the context of learning and teaching at higher education level. Such experience was essential to reach the project objectives. Cooperation during project lifetime proved, that it was the optimal choice of partners. All involved have worked in a timely and effective manner, which enabled all of the objectives to be achieved and even expanded. Among the project activities were the meetings (7) dedicated to management of project and collection of soil data necessary to prepare the teaching materials. Soil samples were collected to carry necessary laboratory analysis. On this basis Freely Accessible Central European Soil (FACES) project consortium created numerous products: student fieldwork manual, course curriculum, 3 volumes of Soil Sequences Atlases and soil database for Central Europe, covering Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. International system of soil description by UN-FAO was used for the presentation of the data. Interpretation of the origin and systematic position of soils is based on the international soil classification WRB (World Reference Base for Soil Resources), those recent edition was published in 2014/2015. Development of extensive database applying the new version is thus essential from educational point of view. State of the art teaching resources were elaborated during FACES lifetime (2015-2018). Produced materials are and will be up-to-date educational tools for many years.Project partners encourage for wide use of unified methods for soil diagnosis and description (FAO Guidelines, 2006). Therefore introduction of this system in students’ training is very important. Publication of Students’ version Guidelines, where both activities are integrated, e.g. soil diagnosis and WRB classification, offers a better opportunity for the non-professional users to better understand these systems, and to see its contiguity.Two 5 days long Intensive Courses in Kaunas, Lithuania (2017) and Toruń, Poland, (2018) were attended by 79 students taught by 10 professors. The main objectives of these activities was testing and evaluation of the pilot educational module and accompanying educational tools. An equally important goal was to educate groups of students from partner countries in the field of soil description and classification. Students rated the workshops very highly in terms of education (95% of students were very satisfied/satisfied) and organization.The obtained product, due to its modern form, is a powerful tool in teaching at universities. It also improves cooperation between European institutions dealing with soil science, environmental issues, geoinformation systems etc. The use of developed product results in raising of theoretical and practical qualifications and skills of students and soil science professionals, which will last also many years after end of founding period of FACES. The ""Soil Education and Classification"" dissemination conference took place on 18th-20th May in Toruń and was great success. The event gathered nearly 90 soil experts and students from more than 20 countries from 4 continents. FACES products are easily accessible from various websites (NCU depository, Academia.edu, ResearchGate) and its popularity extended our expectations. In 4,5 months Guidelines was downloaded 315 times from Academia.edu and 239 times from NCU repository, got 3120 views on ResearchGate. Soil Sequences Atlas II was downloaded more than one thousand times from NCU repository and ResearchGate.Good reception of FACES products encourages consortium members to further cooperation to change soil education and introduce gamization approach in next project."
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