Technology impact on our todays life along with the concept of the “shrinking” world is creating a constant need to develop and improve new tools including these used in the fields of research and education. Together with technological development there is a growing influence of the social media as a tool used for diversified goals. From the conventional point of view they are often seen as the key driver of communications and marketing. Furthermore, growing number of schools and teachers are utilizing social media in the classroom to further engage students in the learning process. Social media is a tool that teachers on all educational levels can use to make their classroom more engaging and relevant. Results of the survey carried among the students showed the non-negligible demand for the up-to-date, hi-tech educational tools based on social media. Over 90% of the respondents indicated the lack modern approach to pedology classification teaching and scarcity of digital tools usable in the teaching process. Moreover Higher Education is facing presently enormous challenge connected with generation “Z” - 'digital natives' entering the universities needing different educational approach. On the other hand, technical languages used in environmental disciplines, such as soil science, necessitate to be unified and correlated on European and global scale to be useful for academic purposes. The WRB (World Reference Base for Soil Resources) is the soil classification system designed as easy means of communication among scientists to identify, characterize and name major types of soils and has also been accepted by the European Commission as the official system within the European Union. The idea of the SYStem project is to create edutainment social media dedicated to soil description and classification using the WRB. It will be based on mobile application for uploading soil profile photos with description of soil horizons, materials and properties along with its coordinates and students (users) proposal for the soil classification. The application would be working both on and offline. Application users will have the possibility to interact with each other and share their knowledge helping less experienced colleagues through comments on other students and researchers uploads within the international SYStem application community. The project will be based not only on the creating the advanced international social media tool for soil science classification and education issues which is the main goal. It also includes the preparation of exercises manual on how to use SYStem application and social media in edutainment-focused teaching. In addition the soil Omnibus dedicated to support the teaching of newest edition of WRB system (2015) on a university level suitable in various environmental science courses (e.g. environmental protection, geography) will be prepared. Afterwards the evaluation of prepared edutainment module will be carried out during students workshops focused on using the application. Studying the usefulness of the WRB classification for the soil cover of partner countries and its evaluation of the WRB with regards to varied European environmental conditions will help develop the classification system itself. WRB based soil data from application users across the world are the most important added values of this project. The consortium brings together specialists from 10 Institutions from 8 countries (Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Slovenia and Spain) having research and educational experience in soil science issues of different regions of Europe. Individual members of the consortium also participated in a number of works related to the adaptation of the WRB in regional research (national scale), as well as international (testing WRB for improvement of next editions) and its use in the context of learning and teaching at the higher education level. Such experience is essential to reach the project objectives. Moreover, in the context of spatial dimension, the heterogeneity of the countries that research members originate from is fully covering the European landscapes and soilscapes variability. All of the project outcomes which are the edutainment social media tool, user’s manual, soil classification Omnibus and excersises leaflet will be freely accessible throughout EU and world. All students and teachers will have open access to register , use it and ask for experts feedback. The soil data uploaded will be also available for other users as an active collection of various soils with multimedia and geolocation features. The obtained products will comprise an innovative and powerful for the university level teaching tool. It is expected also to be the supporting tool not only the HEI teachers, but also High School teachers and active environmental researchers and practitioners. All of the above mentioned results will last many years after the founding period of SYStem project.
To answer educational demands indicated above, SYStem project created educational social media, a tool that is allowing ‘digital natives’ students to upload soil data, classify profiles with the support of other students and under the supervision of SYStem experts. Students have the possibility to interact with others and share their knowledge helping less experienced colleagues through comments and collecting “experience” badges, what is introducing the gamification aspect of learning and teaching process – this is a natural digital environment for Gen ‘Z’ people, who constantly are sharing various aspects of their life thru social media, including educational. Thanks to users' input also valuable soil pictures collection is being created and is spontaneously growing, covering not only partner countries but also all other parts of Europe, where WRB is used. Interpretation of the origin and systematic position of soils is done according to the international classification of soils WRB (World Reference Base for Soil Resources, 4th version introduced in 2022 during project lifetime). Also "Soil Handbook' is solution for another approach to learning of Gen "Z" - image culture, including mems, and limiting the use of written texts.
Global environmental issues in the “shrinking” World, as well as a harmonization of researches and education on EU & global levels necessitate unification of technical languages. Unfortunately, despite the development of the soil science in recent decades, description of soils are diverse in different countries. Such variability is hindering teaching on soils in the international context, so planning project our consortium idea was to try to find solution for described issues. The level of unification is still unsatisfactory among teaching staff at EU HEI and hinder exchange of information and teaching process, being serious obstacle in various aspects, e.g. Erasmus+ exchange of students. This conclusion comes from many years of experience of academic staff involved in project. Another important need identified before applying was changing style of learning in digital era. International survey carried out among students of project partners determined the huge scale of the problem of outdated methods used to teach soil classification. Respondents indicated the lack of modern approach and scarcity of digital tools and edutainment approaches in the field of soil classification & interpretation in context of environmental factors.