This is a partially developed activity description. It is included in the collection because it contains ideas useful for teaching even though it is incomplete.
Modeling an Acid Mine Drainage System
Selby Cull, Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis
Topic: Geochemistry
Course type: Introductory or upper-level undergraduate course
Description
Students will build a simple geochemical model of an acid mine drainage site, then change various starting parameters to see how the system changes.
Learning Goals or Outcomes
By the end of the exercise, students should be able to identify the controls on the system, and predict how changing some initial parameters will affect the final state of the system.
How would you assess whether those goals have been met?
This will be part of a semester-long research project. They will be required to write up their results, incorporate them with findings from other parts of the study, and submit a final report.