No offense taken. I thought it was dumb at first, too. I did it to get out of school and travel to contests. Then I figured, "Well if I'm gonna do this then I'm gonna be better than everyone else at it." Then I found it to be pretty fun.
Soil forms "horizons" or horizontal layers over time. They can be different colors, have different make ups of sand/silt/clay, they have have different structures etc. Part of the judging is to identify where the horizons are, how many there are, and what the percentage makeup of sand silt and clay are. All with your hands, down to at least 1.5-2.5 meters. Sometimes 3 meters (7-9 feet down).
Then every soil type has it's own name based on the history of how it formed and its age. You have to determine that. You have to determine the origin of the soil. Was it deposited by water, erosion/gravity, did it form in place, did wind blow it there, did it used to be the bottom of the ocean, etc. Based on knowledge of the area and what clues you find.
Then there's other stuff- landscape position, slope %, site position (upland, stream terrace, etc).
So in a contest you've got 3 of these pits dug across an area and you rotate around them. You get an allotted time for you and 20-30 competitors to get into the pit and you fill out a contest card based on what you believe everything is. The whole contest will have 100+ contestants over 20 ish schools for the region, then the same for nationals if your team qualifies.
So that's that. Highest overall score wins. That year we beat VT twice. Once in regions and I finished Top 10 in the Southeast. Then the two schools went 1 and 2 at nationals as well, I finished Top 15. Pretty sure VT has won 4 straight regions and nationals since 2018, and won at least 2 straight before 2018. We basically LSU'ed them that year, and won by huge margins and have been only decent since we all graduated.
^^^^^
