This activity is a classroom quick lab where students explore sand, soil, and water in relation to absorption and permeability.
This activity is a interdisciplinary field investigation where students will form observations and make calculations about stream characteristics and stream flow.
In this Physical Geology lab activity, students investigate the relationship between stream energy and gradient by changing the gradient of a small stream table and observing changes in stream erosion.
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This is a field investigation where students will gather data about the South Crow River using techniques of their own design and develop a group (multimedia) presentation for class presentation.
This assignment is designed as a final project for students in my undergraduate 3 credit non lab elective geohydrology course. Students work in pairs to analyze an actual, local contaminated site (Delphi) and use raw data from consulting reports (boring logs, water levels, chemical water analyses) to prepare a geologic cross-section, water table map and contaminant plume map. Students are assigned different lines of cross section, water level dates and contaminant types. Students examine the variety of different figures and maps to better characterize hydrogeologic and water quality conditions over the entire site and answer some assigned questions. This project is an opportunity for students to apply skills they learned in the course (contouring, groundwater flow) to investigate an existing groundwater contamination event. It also provides the kind of "practical" experience the students can highlight in a job interview.
Key words: Groundwater contamination, case study, TCE
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Students and faculty participate in an integrated effort to characterize hydrologic relationships using hydrologic, geologic & geophysical data
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This activity is an outdoor lab in which students investigate the process of evaporation, record their findings, and use the data to make connections to the environment around them.
In this science activity, students investigate the water cycle by testing the water evaporated from leaves (transpiration) in a field experience. Students use elements of this information to track the water cycle through it's various stages.
In this activity students collect snow in a cup, predict how much water will be in the cup when the snow melts. Students are exposed to evaporation as the water "disappears" over time and try to stop this from happening.
This activity is used in my groundwater flow modeling class (GEOS-724), a class for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students. In advance, the students receive an introduction to MATLAB and basic programming constructs, and background on the use of finite difference discretizations for solving partial differential equations.
The problem being solved here is a (relatively) simple steady-state, linear groundwater flow problem. The code presents different numerical methods for solving a seminal groundwater flow problem - the Toth problem (as solved by J. Toth http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/JZ068i016p04795/abstract). The solution to the Toth problem shows that if the water table is a muted expression of surficial topography, then groundwater organizes itself into groundwater flow "cells" of varying expanse.
This problem - which is familiar to most groundwater modelers - provides a baseline for discussing differences in solution methods for numerical models. In this script, different solution styles tested include: 1) A "direct" matrix inversion method which is exact but somewhat memory intensive; 2) An iterative but relatively inefficient "point Jacobi" method; and 3) A more efficient Gauss-Seidel iterative method.
After running this script, students are asked to explore aspects of the solutions and comment on their benefits and drawbacks. For example:
-Which solution method appears to be the most accurate, based on the problem statement (for instance the students should check that streamlines do not intersect no-flow boundaries)
-Which solution requires the least / most memory to compute?
-Which solution is the fastest to compute?
-Which solution obtains the most reasonable mass balance?
-How do the solutions perform if the discretization is increased or other parameters are varied (such as iteration "convergence" parameters)?
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Students will examine the complex issues that result from human use of ecologically sensitive areas. The students will investigate these issues from the point of view of their major/career path.
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The Los Angeles and the Future of Mono Lake WebQuest leads students in a guided exploration of Mono Lake's extreme environment and asks them to consider the preservation of this environment in relation to the needs of humans.
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Students will explore wetland hydrology and biology and decide whether or not to restore a wetland or retain dams and drainage systems.
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The course will discuss the objectives and functions of water management systems for irrigation and drainage purposes. Analysing system requirements in terms of technical engineering constraints, management possibilities and water users (wishes and options) is central. This includes the design and operation of regulation structures, dams, reservoirs, weirs and conveyance systems; balancing water supply and water requirements in time and space is a main focus of analysis too.
This assignment offers students several problems that help them understand the basic of mixing models and their use in understanding the controls on water quality in the environment. The purpose of the assignment is to help students integrate across the various topics in environmental chemistry in the context of flow and transport. Students will hopefully learn how reactive and non-reactive tracers can be used in conjunction to fully understand a chemical system.
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The students will use activities to understand atomic mass and isotopes and stable isotopic fractionation in the hydrologic system.
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Our students will be studying and exploring the human impact on groundwater. They will study the water deprivation impacts both locally and in the San Joaquin Valley. Students will explore and come to understand the benefits of collecting rainwater. We partnered with the City of Eugene and had the wonderful Jackie come in. Our students brought in many of the materials including cardboard boxes, empty plastic containers (sour cream, water bottles,etc), tin foil, wax paper, duct tape,etc. We as teachers provided the underground sprinkler tubing cutting material, more tape and supplies. We tested this project with our 5th graders so we could make improvements and continue this project next year. In order to complete this project, we needed a full three weeks of working for an hour plus every day. We incorporated this project into our reading and science timeline.
1) What are some of the biological effects of dam removal (good and bad)?
2) What are some of the more pressing/compelling reasons to remove a dam? Explain.
3) The Stanley and Doyle (2003) article states that, "dam removal cannot be avoided." Hypothetically, let's say you are placed on a committee to oversee the removal of the Aswan High Dam, since Doyle et al. (2003) states that, "the functional lifespan of most dams is approximately 60-120 years." What scientific studies would you conduct before/during/after dam removal? Why?
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Through multi-trial experiments, students are able to see and measure something that is otherwise invisible to them seeing plants breathe. Student groups are given two small plants of native species and materials to enclose them after watering with colored water. After being enclosed for 5, 10 and 15 minutes, teams collect and measure the condensed water from the plants' "breathing," and then calculate the rates at which the plants breathe. A plant's breath is known as transpiration, which is the flow of water from the ground where it is taken up by roots (plant uptake) and then lost through the leaves. Students plot volume/time data for three different native plant species, determine and compare their transpiration rates to see which had the highest reaction rate and consider how a plant's unique characteristics (leaf surface area, transpiration rate) might figure into engineers' designs for neighborhood stormwater management plans.
This laboratory exercise examines the linkages between ground and surface water hydrology and landscape evolution in the Interior Low Plateaus Region of Kentucky. The exercise focuses upon the origin of Mammoth Cave.