This activity has been reviewed by 2 review processes (view details)

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 https://serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/activity_review.html.
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.

Initial Publication Date: August 17, 2010 | Reviewed: June 8, 2013 (see revision history: 2 events)

Pollution control and hydrologic Modeling

Eugenio Y. Arima, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Summary
This assignment will introduce students to surface hydrologic modeling in GIS and derived products such as stream power and wetness indices.

Context

Type and level of course
This lab assignment can be used in a second-level GIS course that emphasizes hydrologic modeling or terrain analysis. With a few modifications it could be used in a hydrology class.

Geoscience background assumed in this assignment
This assignment does not address a particular geoscience problem but could be adapted to address surface hydrology, water quality monitoring, nutrient loadings, etc.

GIS/remote sensing skills/background assumed in this assignment
Students should know basic ArcGIS commands such as open/close, add/remove layers, zoom in/out, change symbology (e.g. colors, categories, etc) and have notions of cartography. This lab also assumes students have used flow direction and flow accumulation functions in ArcGIS.

Software required for this assignment/activity:
ArcGIS 9.3 or higher with Spatial Analyst Extension, Winzp or Izarc or similar software to unzip compressed files.

Time required for students to complete the assignment:
60 min

Goals

GIS/remote sensing techniques students learn in this assignment
Students will learn to use hydrologic functions in ArcGIS, use the raster calculator to generate hydrological indices, and interpret results.

Other content/concepts goals for this activity
Students will learn to identify surface hydrological features such as streams, wetlands, and areas subject to runoff.

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity
Students are asked to relate those terrain features with potential pollution problems. With some adaptations, same exercise can be used to inquire about nutrient loadings downstream.

Description of the activity/assignment

Prior to the assignment, students have a 3-hour equivalent lecture about surface hydrological models in GIS and derived products such as wetness and stream power indices and examples of applications in a few disciplines. In this lab, students are asked to provide information to support decision making and to coordinate response to environmental disasters in a NY County. Students task is to identify areas where a chemical plant should not be allowed to be built and assess appropriateness of a particular site.

Determining whether students have met the goals

Students prepare a lab report answering the questions and including maps to illustrate their answers.
More information about assessment tools and techniques.

URLs and References

Download teaching materials and tips

Activity Description/Assignment: Assignment Instructions - Pollution Control and Hydrologic Modeling (Acrobat (PDF) 84kB May20 10)
Instructors Notes: Dataset for Assignment (Zip Archive 2.8MB May20 10)
Solution Set: