Addressing Water Resources and Sustainability in Upper Level Courses
Convener
Gigi Richard, Fort Lewis College
This workshop will provide an opportunity for participants to discuss, develop, and share ideas on addressing water resources and sustainability in undergraduate courses. Participants will be introduced to water resources data that can be used in classes as well as water resource-related interdisciplinary course materials from the InTeGrate program.
Several interactive, interdisciplinary modules related to water resources have been developed through the InTeGrate program. InTeGrate course materials are robust, peer-reviewed, and tested and freely available for application in your courses. Participants will be introduced to the structure of InTeGrate resources and in particular to resources on Water Sustainability in Cities, Water: Science and Society, Water, Agriculture and Sustainability, and The Future of Food.
Participants are asked to bring with them an idea for course in which they would like to insert a water-resource activity. During the workshop, participants will explore available InTeGrate materials and develop a plan for how these materials could fit into one of their courses.
This workshop is interactive and will involve actively working on course material development and exploration of online resources. All participants are asked to bring a laptop or tablet for use during the workshop.
Goals
By the end of this workshop, participants will have:
- explored InTeGrate water-resources and sustainability-related resources
- explored water resources data that can be used in class activities and exercises
- developed a detailed plan for a new water resources and sustainability-related lesson or activity
Program - Don't forget to bring your laptop or tablet!
1:30 Welcome and Introductions
- Powerpoint presentation for this workshop:
Water Mini-Workshop EER 2017 (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 18.9MB Jul17 17)
1:45 How and where does water fit into the curriculum?
- Resources:
- Teaching about Water https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/water.html
- Circle of Blue http://www.circleofblue.org/
2:00 Drought jigsaw activity
- National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and the Colorado Climate Center Weekly Summary
http://climate.colostate.edu/~drought/ - Student Data Handout
- Drought Data Handout (Acrobat (PDF) 2MB Jul17 17)
- Drought Data Handout - docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 2.1MB Jul17 17)
- Group Discussion Handout
- Drought Group Discussion Handout - pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 51kB Jul17 17)
- Drought Group Discussion Handout - docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 16kB Jul17 17)
- More info about jigsaw activities
2:20 Guided exploration of water-resource and sustainability related InTeGrate resources and useful data
InTeGrate Water-Related Course Materials:
- Water Sustainability in Cities
- Nine unit (75-min class) module, 3-5 weeks
- Upper-level, engineering and design concepts
- https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/water_cities/index.html
- Water: Science and Society
- Full-semester, intro-level online course
- https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/water_science_society/index.html
- Water, Agriculture and Sustainability
- 11 one-hour class periods, 3-5 weeks
- Intro to intermediate level, five units,
- https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/water_sustainability/index.html
- Interactions between Water, Earth's Surface, and Human Activity
- Two-week, ~10 hours, five units
- Aimed at pre-service teacher course or other intro course
- https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/energy_and_processes/index.html
- Environmental Justice and Freshwater Resources
- Six unit (75-min class period) module - 2-3 weeks
- Intro level
- https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/freshwater/index.html
- Spanish adaptation https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/freshwater_spanish/index.html
Water Data Sources:
- US Geological Survey (USGS)
- New USGS Websites
- https://www.usgs.gov/science/science-explorer/Water
- https://www.usgs.gov/science/mission-areas/water
- Streamflow data downloads https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rt
- USGS Water Data Discovery https://water.usgs.gov/data/
- National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) https://nhd.usgs.gov/
- Streamstats https://water.usgs.gov/osw/streamstats/
- Water Quality Data Portal https://water.usgs.gov/owq/data.html
- EPA Surf Your Watershed https://www.epa.gov/waterdata/surf-your-watershed
- FEMA Flood Map Service Center https://msc.fema.gov/portal
- Climate data
- Western Regional Climate Center https://wrcc.dri.edu/
- Northeast Regional Climate Center http://www.nrcc.cornell.edu/
- NOAA Regional Climate Centers https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/customer-support/partnerships/regional-climate-centers
- National Water Center http://water.noaa.gov/
- National Water Quality Data Portal https://www.waterqualitydata.us/
- Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) - https://www.cocorahs.org/
- ET and Water Balance data & graphs https://cocorahs.org/ViewData/ListETReports.aspx
- National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS)
- Weekly Summary - Colorado River Basin http://climate.colostate.edu/~drought/
- Drought Portal https://www.drought.gov/drought/
2:40 Discussion and brainstorming of how you can integrate these materials and/or data into a course
2:50 Development of a detailed plan for your new activity
- Record your thoughts, ideas and plans on one of the workshop work pages: https://serc.carleton.edu/earth_rendezvous/2017/program/afternoon_workshops/w3/workspace/index.html
3:35 Share activities
3:55 End of Workshop Evaluation
4:00 Adjourn