In this activity, students focus on ecosystem services specifically related to the hydrologic cycle. Using rainfall-runoff data for a small watershed in Ohio, students are introduced to the technical vocabulary associated with watersheds, watershed hydrology, and water balance. Working with hydrologic data will enable the students to test their understanding of watershed hydrology and the water balance equation, which is a measure of how much water is stored within different parts of the watershed.

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In this activity, students examine the impact of land use on runoff. Using rainfall-runoff data for two small watersheds in Ohio, one dominated by agricultural land uses and the other dominated by urban land uses, students evaluate natural and human factors that impact watershed hydrology and water balance, and generate potential provisioning and regulating services provided by natural ecosystems within watersheds.

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This lab-based course covers the foundational principles of modern life science as outlined in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). It also includes approximately a third of the Earth and Space Science standards, primarily those connected to environmental science and ecology. The course emphasizes all three dimensions of the NGSS, with special attention to the crosscutting concepts of Patterns and Energy and Matter. Additionally, scientific inquiry and engineering design practices are emphasized throughout the course. The course is designed to follow a chemistry course and so builds on student understandings of molecules as they explore the biomolecular underpinnings of life's functions, the evolution of life, and the interactions of life in ecosystems. Technological, historical, political, and environmental aspects of biology will also be addressed. Critical thinking, data analysis, and argumentation from evidence are also emphasized.

Students will conduct a virtual exploration of Harrier Meadow, a saltmarsh in the New Jersey Meadowlands. They will identify its vulnerability to pollution, its tidal connection to the Hackensack Estuary and the Atlantic Ocean along with its proximity to New York City. Vegetation patterns within this wetland will be explored, focusing on a salinity tolerant native plant (Pickleweed) that is returning to the marsh. The return of such native species is critically important to wetland restoration efforts that aim to reclaim native habitat following decades of environmental degradation since the industrial revolution. These vegetation patterns are the focus of resistivity and electromagnetic surveys that the students explore in the subsequent units of this module. The geophysical surveys aim to better understand the underlying factors controlling the distribution of Pickleweed. By understanding where the Pickleweed is thriving, restoration efforts could subsequently be improved by locating regions of such wetlands with similar underlying factors where Pickleweed (and other native plants) could be successfully reintroduced. In the first unit of this module, students will use Google Earth (on the web), high-resolution video acquired from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and an ArcGIS Storymap in their exploration. Primary outcome: students comprehend the association between salinity and Pickleweed and formulate plans to test a hypothesis for Pickleweed persistence/patterning in Harrier Meadow that will ultimately be implemented using near surface geophysical methods in the remaining units of the module.

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In this unit, students engage in a scaffolded class discussion designed to encourage students to move from a broad focus on science relevancy to locally important societal issues relevant to soils. They then relate what they learned during this discussion to the major assessment of this module, the Soils, Systems, and Society Kit (the Kit) assignment, and begin exploring potential focal issues for this assignment. Lastly, the unit introduces concept mapping, and pre-service teachers create a starting concept map for Earth systems, which is a required element of the Kit.

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This unit will introduce methods and data from Critical Zone observatories as well as methods that scientists use in their research. These activities will provide an introduction to methods used in later units and help students develop a research proposal for the summative assessment activity.
In this unit, students will be introduced to basic scientific methods such as:

How to create an effective annotated bibliography.
How to use software such as MS Excel to graph, analyze, and interpret data.

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In this activity, students model the impact of land-cover changes on stormwater runoff using the EPA's National Stormwater Calculator (Calculator). The students are introduced to the Calculator through a tutorial. Students are provided with a particular site -- a residential neighborhood -- and model two land-use scenarios associated with it: (1) a pre-expansion scenario that includes current forest and developed land cover, and (2) a post-expansion scenario, under which the forest cover will be developed as low-intensity residential.

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Students will learn about geoscience-specific methods used to analyze data in the Critical Zone from data-driven activities and short presentations by their peers. The topics include the use of carbon isotopes, rock and soil profile weathering rates, stream discharge, demographics, and soil carbon. Activities will build data analysis and communication skills while using real data to interpret Critical Zone processes and begin to think about human interactions in the Critical Zone. Students will use geoscience-specific methods when developing their research proposal for the summative assessment activity.

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Electrical measurement of unconsolidated soils in the laboratory.

Provenance: Lee Slater, Rutgers University-Newark
Reuse: This item is in the public domain and maybe reused freely without restriction.
Archie (1950) defined the term petrophysics to describe the study of the physics of rocks, particularly with respect to the fluids they contain. Although originally focused on geophysical exploration, petrophysics concepts are now used to interpret near surface geophysics measurements made to address environmental and engineering problems. This unit investigates relationships between these geophysical measurements and the physical and chemical properties of soils and sediments in the Earth's near subsurface. The specific focus is on the electrical properties of soils and how they are related to the ionic concentration of the pore fluids, the water content, porosity and grain size. Field results from a geophysical survey performed in Kearny Marsh, close to Harrier Meadow, are included to illustrate how electrical conductivity of a soil measured with an electromagnetic sensor is a good proxy for pore fluid ionic concentration, in this case related to contamination from a bordering landfill.

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The example of a proposed land-use change that was used in Unit 2.3 is built upon here. The activities in this unit are meant to broaden the discussion beyond calculating quantitative run-off changes. Now we will also bring in consideration of a broader range of ecosystem services, as well as other ways in which a landscape can be valued, some of which may not be easily measured or even conceptualized as "services." Classroom time is devoted to the instructor and students exploring both (a) the stakeholders who have an interest in a particular place and (b) the various interests/uses those stakeholders may have for that place. By the end of the activity, the class should have identified several major stakeholder groups and several distinct ecosystem services. Students, organized into groups representing particular stakeholders, will then be tasked to prepare, for Unit 3.2, a group presentation, to be discussed on class on the last day of the module, that utilizes those ecosystem services as much as possible.

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In this activity, the student groups organized at the end of Unit 3.1 will prepare presentations representing different stakeholder positions. This artifact -- Part I of the Module Summative Assessment (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 25kB Sep4 16) -- can be part of a presentation to the instructor, to a panel of faculty/students, or to a "board" representing some decision-making unit (Community Council, University Board of Trustees, City/County Planning Commission). At the conclusion of this unit, students will be prompted to reflect, individually, on an ecosystem services approach to natural resources management -- Part II of the Module Summative Assessment (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 23kB Sep4 16) .

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In this high school unit on ecosystems, students investigate the case of the rapid increase and decline of the buffalo population in the Serengeti. It motivates students to ask questions and develop initial hypotheses for what could have changed in the ecosystem to create such drastic population changes. Students analyze data from many populations of organisms in the Serengeti to figure out how disease eradication in the 1960s led to the major changes we see in the Serengeti today. In Bend 2, students evaluate the claim that trees store carbon and can reduce the impact of climate change. Students figure out how photosynthesis and cellular respiration are key mechanisms to explaining the role of trees in climate mitigation. Finally, students explore and compare climate change mitigation solutions.

Near surface geophysical measurements are performed by moving sensors across the Earth's surface. Active geophysical sensors transmit a signal into the Earth and record a returned signal that contains information on the physical and chemical properties of the Earth (see Unit 2). This unit introduces the student to the basics of geophysical data acquisition using two techniques that record variations in the electrical conductivity (see Unit 2) of the Earth: [1] electrical imaging (EI), and [2] electromagnetic (EM) conductivity mapping.











Basic concept of electrical imaging measurements

Provenance: Lee Slater, Rutgers University-Newark
Reuse: This item is in the public domain and maybe reused freely without restriction.
Electrical imaging is a galvanic geophysical approach whereby electrical contact with the Earth is made directly via electrodes (typically metal stakes) that are inserted into the ground. Electromagnetic conductivity mapping is a non-contact approach whereby the physics of EM induction is used to sense changes in electrical conductivity. The advantages and disadvantages of using galvanic (EI) and non-contact (EM) techniques for measuring electrical conductivity are described. Ohm's Law is introduced and students investigate how electrical resistance measurements are related to the electrical conductivity of soils. Field implementation of both EI and EM techniques is demonstrated using surveys performed in Harrier Meadow as an example. Students investigate how variations in survey configuration parameters (e.g. electrode configuration and electrode spacing in EI, frequency and coil spacing in EM) control investigation depth (how far into the ground the signals sense) and spatial resolution (what size objects can be detected). The concept of pre-modeling a geophysical survey (i.e. running some simulations of likely effectiveness of the methods before going to the field) to evaluate expected investigation depth and sensitivity is introduced. The Excel-based Scenario Evaluator for Electrical Resistivity (SEER) tool provided by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) is used to demonstrate some key concepts.

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Students will be able to identify the functional roles that organisms play in ocean ecosystems. How do human-induced changes in ocean conditions affect biodiversity, and thereby the health and resilience of a coral reef? Students explore and discuss the direct and indirect impacts that ocean acidification can have on species, food web dynamics, ecosystem function, and commercial resources. At the end of this unit the students should be able to articulate how changes in ocean chemistry can create negative outcomes for humans who depend on living ocean resources.

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Using a systems dynamics approach, students will work in groups to conceptualize and construct a model of the global carbon cycle considering five major Earth systems: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere. The models will draw on information from the pre-class activity and invoke system features such as boundaries, stocks, flows, and control variables. Using a scenario describing a global, catastrophic event, the students will consider how new conditions change the behavior of carbon cycling in their model world. Students will use the model to explain changes in environmental variables such as permafrost cover, atmospheric gases, and global temperature, as well as feedbacks within the system.

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Students will read and summarize an article that details scientific studies on behavioral changes of gray whales. Discussed are their feeding behavior, migratory behavior, and breeding patterns in the Pacific. Students will examine the whales' responses and discuss in small groups how the responses relate to climate change. By interpreting potential links between gray whale behavior and changed ocean conditions, students will be able to infer the ecological role that gray whales play within a community and an ecosystem. Students will summarize the main concepts, scientific evidence, data and observations cited, and justify why gray whales can be considered "ecosystem sentinels."

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The concepts of forward modeling and inverse modeling

Provenance: Lee Slater, Rutgers University-Newark
Reuse: If you wish to use this item outside this site in ways that exceed fair use (see http://fairuse.stanford.edu/) you must seek permission from its creator.
This unit introduces the student to the concept of geophysical inversion, which is the process of estimating the geophysical properties of the subsurface from the geophysical observations. The basic mechanics of the inversion process used to estimate spatial variations in electrical conductivity from electrical imaging (EI) datasets are introduced in a way that avoids the heavy mathematics. The challenges of inverting two dimensional geophysical datasets and the strategies for limiting the inversion to geologically reasonable solutions are described. The unfortunate characteristics of geophysical images (blurriness, imaging artifacts) are explained to highlight the limitations of inversion and to emphasize that the inverted images never match with geological reality. Students use the Excel-based Scenario Evaluator for Electrical Resistivity (SEER) tool introduced in Unit 3, Field Geophysical Measurements, to investigate key inversion concepts associated with measurement errors and the benefits of adding boreholes to surface data using synthetic datasets. Students are then led through an inversion of the two-dimensional EI dataset acquired in Harrier Meadow using ResIPy, a Python-based graphical user interface developed for instructional use. Following the instructional video, students then perform the inversion in ResIPy themselves and explore how variations in inversion settings related to the errors in the measurements result in distinctly different images.

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The assignment is to calculate an annual water balance for a tree using data gathered at the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory. In the framework of experimental design, students will organize around a research question "Is there enough water in the soil to account for transpiration?" After gathering and organizing data, students will calculate the annual water fluxes and reservoirs using a mass balance approach. Later these lessons can be expanded to catchment-scale calculations.

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Screenshot of the slider tool used to relate geophysical images to vegetation pattern

Provenance: Lee Slater, Rutgers University-Newark
Reuse: This item is in the public domain and maybe reused freely without restriction.
In this unit, students explore spatial associations between the three-dimensional electromagnetic (EM) conductivity inversions and the visible patterns of Salicornia (Pickleweed) introduced in Unit 1, Exploring Harrier Meadow. The Arcview Storymap started in Unit 1 allows students to overlay inverted electrical conductivity patterns for different depths on aerial photographs of Harrier Meadow that highlight the patches of Pickleweed. Students analyze how conductivity patterns vary with depth and explore for evidence for a relationship between electrical conductivity and Pickleweed patches based on the hypothesis introduced in Unit 1. Students then perform an integrated interpretation of both the EM and electrical imaging inversions along with the results of direct sampling (coring, pore water sampling, soil characterization) conducted at locations selected using the electrical conductivity patterns observed in the EM dataset. Students perform basic qualitative assessments of the correlation between physical and chemical properties of the sampled soils and soil electrical conductivity from the EM inversions. Students finish the module by evaluating the extent to which the geophysical dataset and supporting direct measurements support the hypothesis pertaining to the cause of the Salicornia clusters introduced in Unit 1.

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In this unit, students will learn about the dynamic movement of nutrients among and within ecosystems primarily through the reading and discussion of scientific literature. This unit is generally subdivided into three sections: (1) allochthonous inputs (2) the role of organisms in biogeochemical cycles and how ecological theory can be applied to biogeochemistry and (3) how biogeochemical processes can assist in creating solutions for humanity's grand challenges. This unit is designed to provide students with the opportunity to develop their reading and interpretation of scientific literature. Students will also become familiar with the utility of isotopic techniques and their use in biogeochemistry through readings and data analysis of carbon and nitrogen isotopic data sets. Chosen scientific articles are provided, each with their own set of reading questions. Additionally, short introductory materials are provided to introduce students to some of the general concepts and processes in the study of biogeochemistry.

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