Throughout the day, Fellows brought their soil samples to the workshop site and Dan sieved them to remove particles and debris larger than 2 mm in preparation for the day’s testing. In the second workshop session, Fellows used the arsenic test from the Community Soil Study Toolkit to measure the amount of inorganic arsenic in their soil samples. During the gaps of time in between steps in the procedure, Mónica and Saed joined us via a video call to brief everyone on what soil is, why building healthy soils is important for community health, how we can work with our existing soils to improve soil quality and community health, and answered Fellows’ questions.

Abby, Sebastián, Dan, Daniel, and Caleb traveled to Arica in the northernmost part of Chile to work with Soil Justice Fellows in the city yesterday and held the first soil workshop today. Fellows shared with one another their motivations for being at the workshops and what they expected and hoped to find with the soil toolkit. Dan and Sebastián explained how to collect soil samples at the end of the session, and everyone left with sampling kits. Arica has a semi-arid climate, and the soils are very dry as a result. In this case, there won’t be a real need to set samples up to dry before sieving and analyzing.

Professor Leonardo Figueroa at La Universidad de Tarapacá in Arica opened his chemistry laboratory to the Our Soil team to assemble the lead and arsenic soil tests that we will use in the soil workshops this weekend. Here are some images of the Dan and Sebastián working in Leonardo’s laboratory taken by Caleb Yunis.

Abby and Dan arrived in Santiago de Chile early this morning where they will meet up with Sebastián and his students Daniel Valenzuela and Caleb Yunis. On Thursday, the workshops in Arica begin!

Rensselaer News published a press release about the soil workshops conducted with the Soil Justice Fellows in August. You can read the release here.

Photo by Tara Bryan.

One way to prevent exposure to lead in soil is to maintain a physical barrier on top of the soil. Mulch is one material that can be used to build a barrier on top of soil, and can be good on walking paths in gardens, around the dripline of a building, or in a play area. The city of Troy offers free wood chips to its residents through Public Works. Call to verify when you can pick up mulch from the lot at Main Street and East Industrial Parkway.