Soil Microbiology is a user-friendly introduction to the incredible world of soil microbiology. The microscopic life in soil influences virtually everything in our lives from the water we drink, the food we eat, to the air we breathe. Understanding something about the life in soil, appreciating the things that these life forms do, and seeing how these activities influence our world is the goal of this textbook. This is a book you can actually read and comprehend with a minimum exposure to soil science or microbiology. It's appropriate for advanced high school students and college students just embarking on the study of environmental science. The textbook describes the life in soil in numerous short chapters that explain the basic concepts of soil microbiology in simple terms. Soil Microbiology is full of pictures that illustrate each chapter's content, and it takes the reader through graphs and figures that a soil microbiologist would be interpreting every day. For almost every topic, the textbook provides a brief description of the procedures by which that information was obtained. The questions at the end of each chapter not only test the reader's general knowledge, but also stimulate them to think in broader, more abstract terms. Each chapter also has questions that help the reader use the math skills a typical soil microbiologist might use. Three large appendixes provide the reader with a glossary of common soil microbiology terms, a complete list and pronunciation guide of all the microorganisms listed in the textbook, and a time line that puts some of the events in soil microbiology into historical perspective.