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Field excursions and trainings are considered a key component of education programs in soil and environmental sciences. They allow mastering students’ practical skills in sampling and onsite assessments and improve understanding of ecosystem integrity and complexity. Urbanization has a substantial impact on soil properties and functions; however, field courses focused on urban soils are rare. We present a didactic prototype and the outcomes of the “Monitoring, Modeling, and Management of Urban Green Infrastructure and Soils (3MUGIS)” summer school—the first educational tour observing anthropogenic soils and landscapes along the bioclimatic gradient in European Russia, from tundra to dry steppes. Didactic learning was based on a studying‐by‐doing approach; students were involved in environmental assessment in multiple regions varying in climatic and socioeconomic features. Considering the high spatial heterogeneity of urban ecosystems, we used express techniques (portable X‐ray fluorescence, infrared gas analyzers) for onsite soil analysis at multiple replicas. The data collected were discussed with local and international experts from Russia, Germany, the United States, and France in the context of regional environmental problems (e.g., pollution, soil degradation, and urban expansion). Students discovered zonal changes in vegetation (e.g., increasing tree height and diversity from north taiga to forest steppes) and soil properties (e.g., a gradual increase in pH and changes in soil organic C), as well as urban‐specific processes and features (e.g., urban heat island effect or soil artifacts). The overall student feedback was very positive (50.8% excellent, 36% good); some specific organizational issues will be addressed for future 3MUGIS summer schools.

In modern soil ecology, there is a need to develop a unified approach to assessing the ecological functions of the soil cover. Analysis of publications on this topic shows that this question is open. There are many criteria for evaluation individual soil properties. However, there is no general approach to assessing the eco-functions of the soil. The purpose of the work is the development of universal criteria for evaluation the ecological functions of soils. In this paper, it is proposed to use 2 criteria for assessing the ecological functions of the soil cover. These criteria are based on the fixation of changes in properties and their favorableness to the ecosystem. The proposed criteria were used to evaluate 5 biogeocenotic soil functions. This assessment approach is acceptable for agricultural soils.

New nature management, biotechnologies and other elements of the sixth technological order, to which the most developed countries are already beginning to move, also create new problems, risks and challenges. In the forest sector of the economy of the Russian Federation, such a challenge and problem is the need to strike a balance between sustainable development of forestry, as the basic sector of the forest sector, on which the entire pyramid of forestry industries rely, and environmentally responsible and safe forest management. Unfortunately, the Voronezh region has long lost its former glory, backed up by the presence of mighty oak stands and huge ship timber reserves, prompting Peter I to create a powerful Russian fleet. And when in 1970 it was decided to host the Research Institute of Forest Genetics and Breeding in Voronezh, then considerations about the revival of the forest potential of Voronezh oak forests was one of the last argument in favor of this particular territory. And today, it's not too late to develop an ambitious project to restore selective, highly productive oak stands, increase the forest cover of the region to 12 percent or more, which will affect not only the quality of the ecological environment, growth of socioeconomic indicators, increase in the yield of agricultural producers, but also at the level of investment attractiveness of the region. As a rule, in this case, the system organizes itself, the degree of its ordering increases, and a positive synergistic effect of a multifaceted nature arises. Moreover, the total synergistic effect of the self-organizing system is not a simple sum of the individual components of this effect, but often their multiplication, which significantly increases the final result.

In modern conditions, an important component of environmental monitoring is record of the ecological state of soil cover, implying active use of geographic information systems. The existing spatial contrast of soil cover and varia-tion in the indicators of soil ecological state greatly complicates the interpretation and implementation of the results of soil-ecological monitoring into environmental practice. Traditional studies of spatial diversity considering soil properties and using geoinformation technology are of applied nature and primarily associated with the introduction of precision farming technologies into practice. GIS technologies are aimed at inventorying and assessing the state of natural resources of a particular territory, taking into account the peculiarities of their spatial dynamics. However, the use of geographic information systems to study the spatial variation of soil ecological indicators in forest ecosystems is also very relevant. These studies allow not only trace the actual changes in the ecological state of the forest soil cover, but also reveal their dependence on the level of anthropogenic load of ecosystems and carry out modeling and forecasting of the forest ecosystems' state. The article discusses the main regularities of the spatial variation of physicochemical and chemical properties of soils depending on the relief variegation . Different dispersion degrees of indicators of physical, chemical and chemical properties of soils, according to the calculated coefficient of variation have been revealed. The greatest range of variation is typical for litter and sod thickness, humus content and exchangeable potassium. (V > 33%).