Soil Your Undies: Students meet good bacteria by burying Fruit of the Looms

On this page, Environmental Science Juniors Tyrese Stanford and Trenton Jones dig a hole to bury the brand new cotton briefs in the campus soil. Photo courtesy of Tom Byl. On the next page, Aria McElroy holds up a pair of briefs that were dug up six weeks later from the campus soil to demonstrate the amount of decomposition created by the bacteria in the soil. Photo by Joan Kite

By JOAN KITE

Environmental Science students learned a valuable lesson about soil health when they buried several pairs of Fruit of Loom men’s underwear in the campus lawn in an innovative class titled, “Soil Your Undies.”

“Everybody had a chuckle,” said Professor on Loan Dr. Tom Byl, who conducted the experiment with the help of Vanderbilt Director of Research Initiatives Dr. Chris Vanags and TSU Associate Professor Dr. Bill Sutton.

Six weeks later, the students dug up the underwear they had buried only to discover them in different stages of decomposition. The less cotton existed, the healthier the soils.

In healthy soil, where bacteria and fungi are diverse, the sugars in the cotton are quickly eaten and destroyed. It’s a simple experiment and can easily be duplicated at home to determine the health of one’s own soil.

The class is part of the Earth Horizons Grant, a partnership between Tennessee State University and Vanderbilt University designed to attract minority students to the geosciences.

“That’s my absolute favorite program,” Dr. Vanags said. “I love working with the students who come from different backgrounds, have different skills sets, and there is no formalized geology program at TSU.”