Overview Learn about heavy metal soil contamination, interpret soil test results, and the best practices for growing food near contaminated soils. Soils can build up heavy metals and other pollutants over time from a range of sources — including industry, transportation, construction materials, and unsustainable land use practices. The first step to any urban agriculture project is getting to know the ground beneath your feet by assessing soil health, identifying potential contaminants, and taking steps to improve soil quality.The Compost Education Centre's Healing City Soils program offers free soil testing for urban food growers to analyze heavy metal concentrations and their bioavailability in the region's soils, and create a virtual soil map of the Capital Regional District to highlight areas where heavy metal contamination may need to be addressed before growing food. Topics covered in this workshop: An introduction to soil contamination Potential sources of heavy metal contamination in urban soils How to get your soil tested through the Healing City Soils program and understanding your test results Best practices for growing food in or near soil that may have low-to-moderate levels of heavy metal contamination. Presenter bio: Martyna Tomczynski is the Manager of the Compost Education Centre’s Healing City Soils Program and has been involved with the program in various capacities since 2019. She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Practice from Royal Roads University and is registered with the BC Institute of Professional Agrologists. She brings multidisciplinary experience spanning academia, government, and the non-profit sector, where she has supported applied research in agricultural best management practices, ecological restoration, and ecosystem information technology. Passionate about soil health, Martyna is dedicated to helping people take action in their own backyards and inspiring communities to build self-sufficiency and sustainability through urban agriculture. The information contained in this workshop was developed by Dr. Danielle Stevenson, a multidisciplinary applied environmental scientist with 15 years of experience in research, design, implementation and management of food, agriculture, waste and remediation projects. Danielle is the founder and director of D.I.Y. Fungi (since 2012) offering mycological education, consultation, mushroom cultures, and mycoremediation and waste management research in North America and beyond. Danielle has a PhD in Environmental Toxicology from the University of California, Riverside, where she studied fungi in soil remediation and sustainable agriculture. She is also founder and advisor to the Healing City Soils project, and a board member with CoRenewal and the Association for Women in Science (Riverside). Danielle is passionate about science communication and community science and her collaborative projects bridge fields and disciplines from art, ecology, soil science, policy, toxicology and remediation, not unlike the mycorrhizal fungi she studies which bridge plant communities.