ESC/BIO 334-SOIL SCIENCE
 

1. Choose your favorite in state or out of state soil survey manual from Dow 290.  Turn first to the page the "Summary of Tables" section and then the "Classification of the Soils" table (Note: older manuals may not have these titles but every manual does have a classification page).

2. Based on the classification listing, tally and record the three most common soil orders that occur in your favorite soil survey manual. 

3. Open the Microsoft Explorer browser in one of two of Geography's computer labs in Dow. Download the best possible soil profile image of  three soil orders that occur most frequently for your soil survey manual.  Use the following web site: "The Twelve Soil Orders" http://soils.ag.uidaho.edu/soilorders/index.htm

4. To download an image from the web with Explorer follow this procedure:

   	Place your cursor ON the desired image.  Right click.  A shortcut menu appears.   Choose the "Save picture as..." option.
   	A new "Save as" window appears.  Name the image if the default name isn't to your liking. Save this image to your personal pub_html folder of the h:\ drive associated with your computer account.    This needs to be done in a geography computer lab.  You won't be able to save images from your h drive at home or at another computer lab. You can, however, save images at a home computer and copy the image to the h:\drive later do this procedure later.
   	Be sure to note the author or organization that created the page where you accessed the image, the title of the page, the site's URL, and the date you accessed the page.
   	Follow this procedure for each of the three images you decide to use.

   You are now ready to create a web page.

    

5. 5. Open a Microsoft Word document. Open the "web layout view" for Word by clicking on "web layout view" icon located at the extreme bottom left hand side of the window. Note that a slightly different window appears with larger page margins. On the top of the page, Create a Title in 24 pt.  Use colored text.  In 14 pt. write your name and class name.

6. You want your ENTIRE web page to be the same color as the table you are going to create in the next step.  To color your entire page place your cursor on the page and and then click on the "Format" menu above the page, choose "Background," and select the desired color. Use color combinations that are easy to see and not too gaudy.

7. Create a table to place images and tex. t Click on the "Table" icon on the upper toolbar (if the icon doesn't appear, access the Table option from the menu bar); holding down the left mouse key create a 4 x 2 table (4 rows by 2 columns) Place your cursor on one of the table borders.  Notice that the cursor changes shape   Drag the border of the table so that it is 8" wide. Make each column the same width. 

8. You will now made the borders transparent.  Place your cursor somewhere inside the table.  Right click. Choose the "Borders and Shading" option.  A "Borders and Shading" window appears.    Under "Settings" choose the "None" option.  This will remove borders from the table.

9. Choose  a background color for the table that you like but that wouldn't look too garish. To do this, highlight the entire table, right click. Choose the "Borders and Shading" option.  A "Borders and Shading" window appears.  Click on the "Shading" tab and choose the fill color that you like. Click "OK" to see changes.  As a basic web design rule, you can have dark text on a light background or light text or a dark background but don't have light text on a light background or dark text on a dark background.

10. Now determine how you would like text to align in each cell.  Highlight the entire table. Place your cursor in the table. Right click. Choose "Table Properties." A "Table Properties" window appears.  Choose the "Cell" tab.  Note that you have choices for text to align top, center, or bottom.  You choose the option that looks best.

11. In the upper left hand cell, write a bulleted or numbered 18 pt. description for each  the first of the three soil orders.   The first point will deal with physical and chemical properties of the soil order, the second point with agricultural productivity of the order, and the final point with the distribution of the soil in the U.S. You are limited to no more than 25 words per bullet. These descriptions are to be in your own words.  Do not plagiarize.  

12. Insert the image that goes with your description on the cell located immediately to the right of your first description. To do this, use the diagram above.  Insert the appropriate image from your h: drive folder.  Resize the image as needed.

13. Follow this same procedure for the other two soil orders.  For the second row, the image will appear on the left and the description on the right.  For the third row, the description will appear on the left and the image will appear on the right.   

14. Click outside the table and skip a line.  Insert a 4 pt. thick horizontal line using options from the "Draw" toolbar. If this toolbar doesn't appear, activate it from the the "View" menu, "Toolbars."

    .Skip a line.  Using the information you gathered in step 2, reference the images  using 12 pt font.  Do this in  the following format: Type "Images courtesy of" and then: author (this may be a person or an organization), year page was accessed, title of the web page, URL, date you accessed the page.

15. Skip a line after referencing the images and insert another 4 pt. thick line.

16. Beneath the line create two hyperlinks.

    	Using 12 pt font type "Resources for Earth Science and Geography  Instruction" (w/o quotes)
    	Insert two horizontal spaces (space bar twice) and type a "|" ( delimiter).   This can be found above the enter key on your keyboard (Hold down shift).
    	Insert two horizontal spaces and type "Soil Science Home Page" (w/o quotes).
    	Highlight "Resources for Earth Science and Geography Instruction" by holding  down the left mouse button and dragging across the length of the phrase.   Click on the link icon (it looks like a chain) or go to the "Insert Hyperlink" menu appears.
    	Type or copy the correct URL for "Resources for Earth Science and Geography  Exactly type in the URL (http://...)  for this page.  Click OK.
    	Follow the previous two steps for the "Soil Science Home Page"

17. Skip a line and type in 12 pt. "This web page is maintained by (your name).  Problems or comments?  Contact me at (your e-mail).  Finally type, "last updated (today's date).

18. Save your page as "default.htm"  in pub_html folder in the h:\.  SAVE YOUR PAGE AS A WEBPAGE NOT AS A STANDARD WORD DOCUMENT. Do this by going to the "save as type" pulldown when saving your webpage and selecting "web page." This will override the previous web page name. 

    Checklist to make sure your webpage publishes and meets expectations:

     

    the file MUST be saved INSIDE the pub_html folder NOT just on h drive.  Make sure that you are logged on to YOUR account not someone else's.  Sometimes people other people leave their computers on and you inadvertently log on to their workspace. You can't publish on someone else's account.  You need to save the page and images in a geography lab.  You can, however, work on this at home and then save the web page and images to your h: drive space.

    Remember the three images of soil profiles?  These images WON'T appear on the web unless you also save the images to the pub_html folder in the h:\ drive (your web page needs to "know" where these images are found on the server; If for some reason, you forgot to save the images to the pub_html folder in the h: drive you will need to COPY these images to the  pub_html folder in the h:\ drive.  Just as it is true that you must place your html documenton the server, it is is also true that you must have images on the server.  COPY do not move the images to the pub_html directory.  Moving files will result in a password dialog box appearing every time you want to view images from your web page.

    Type http://geography.cst.cmich.edu/username/default.htm  to see if your page has been published to the web for evaluation (where username appears use your assigned username, don't type "username").  Are images in their proper location?  Text aligned properly with bullets?  Horizontal bars?  You will lose points if I can't access your site.  It makes sense, therefore, to see if you can access your site from a different computer at another lab or from home.

     

    What to turn in Wednesday, February 16: