The Bureau of Reclamation will host its 2012 Earth School: Visual Identification of Soils and Introduction to Geotechnical Investigation March 6 – 8. Participants will learn about techniques used to visually classify and recognize soils in civil engineering projects, in addition to learning exploration methods and construction techniques with earth materials.

Offered once a year, this training is limited to 30 participants. Seats are filled on a first-come, first-served basis, and last year's class required a waitlist. It is open to anyone who would like to attend, specifically those who are directly responsible for the technical details of identifying and classifying soil samples, or conducting or assisting with geotechnical investigations.

More than 50 percent of the training will be spent working directly with the soils, and class attendees will be able to visually identify soils using the Unified Soils Classification System. Attendees will also leave the training with an understanding of laboratory and field soils testing methods and geological logging.

Reclamation's Materials Engineering and Research Laboratory Group and the Engineering Geology Group of the Technical Service Center are co-sponsoring this year's training. It is led by a team of experienced Reclamation specialists who will lead the largely hands-on training sessions. The training will be from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., March 8 -10 at the Technical Service Center in Denver, Colo. Tuition for the course is $2,100.

In order to register for the course, participants need to submit a payment-registration form. To learn more about the class or get the registration form, please visit: http://on.doi.gov/y2zx6I.

Questions about the course may be directed to Robert Rinehart at (303) 445-2395 or rrinehart@usbr.gov. Completed registration forms and questions regarding registration should be sent to Dee Sandoval at 303-445-3284 or dsandoval@usbr.gov.