Introduction to Groundwater Assignment
This activity has benefited from input from faculty educators beyond the author through a review and suggestion process.
This review took place as a part of a faculty professional development workshop where groups of faculty reviewed each others' activities and offered feedback and ideas for improvements. To learn more about the process On the Cutting Edge uses for activity review, see http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/review.html.
This activity was selected for the On the Cutting Edge Reviewed Teaching Collection
This activity has received positive reviews in a peer review process involving five review categories. The five categories included in the process are
- Scientific Accuracy
- Alignment of Learning Goals, Activities, and Assessments
- Pedagogic Effectiveness
- Robustness (usability and dependability of all components)
- Completeness of the ActivitySheet web page
For more information about the peer review process itself, please see http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/review.html.
This page first made public: Nov 16, 2009
Skills and concepts that students must have mastered
How the activity is situated in the course
Content/concepts goals for this activity
- Master field data collection of surface and groundwater quantity and quality
- Utilize data to construct a water table map
- Develop a flow net
- Calculate hydraulic gradient
- Understand the difference between porosity and permeability
- Interpret gaining or losing nature of a stream
- Calculate a contaminate transport rate
Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
- Interpret groundwater flow relative to surface flow
- Construct a hydrogeologic cross section
- Evaluate differences between groundwater and surface water quality
- Predict how human activities might affect each of the parameters
Other skills goals for this activity
Description of the activity/assignment
Materials needed for this lab include:
- Groundwater equipment: Groundwater well or wells adjacent to a perennial stream.
- Water quantity equipment: Electronic water meter, staff, plate, tape, stop watch, and float to measure surface velocity.
- Water quality equipment: pH, temperature specific conductance, and dissolved oxygen meters, bailer, and bucket to collect samples.
- Other equipment: Map of site showing location of wells and stream.