Low enrollment in undergraduate soil science courses and majors may in part be due to the lack of engaging, authentic and explicit soil science education found in secondary science classes. A graduate student from Cornell University and a high school Earth Science teacher teamed up to develop a 2 week unit on infiltration and runoff, and test the unit on three earth science classes in Penn Yan, NY. The unit not only familiarizes students with the effects of soils on a range of human activity and vise versa, but also meets state and national Earth Science content standards, and standards requiring Scientific Inquiry Skills as well as some Design, Systems Thinking, and Modeling. Students built their own rainmakers. After an initial introduction to infiltration and runoff concepts using sponges as models of soil, students chose a research question related to runoff and infiltration, designed and conducted experiments in the classroom, and chose their preferred presentation format. Students then peer reviewed each others' final projects. This presentation will discuss the flow of the unit, the variety of assessment methods used and results from this case study, challenges, lessons learned and the benefits that students gained from this form of instruction.