Initial Publication Date: February 26, 2020

Jonathan Harvey: Using Eyes on the Hydrosphere: Tracking Water Resources in Earth Systems Science at Fort Lewis College

About this Course

Lower level, general education course, with mostly freshman and sophomore non-science majors.

students

three 55-minute lectures and one 3 hr lab per week

GEOL107 Earth Sys Sci Syllabus (Acrobat (PDF) 207kB Feb26 20)

Show the catalog description of my course

This course explores the solid earth, the oceans and the atmosphere as an integrated set of systems that act together to control climate, topography and other physical aspects of the natural environment. The lab work includes field trips and the study of rocks, minerals, plate tectonics, ocean systems and weather. There is one semester-long independent project in which students apply the scientific method to understand a local environmental issue.

Show more about the course goals and content

The main objective of this course is to help equip you with an understanding of the interactions between geologic processes and society. Specifically, by the end of this course, you will:

Understand the basic concepts of physical and environmental geology, including Earth materials and driving processes such as plate tectonics.
Understand the geologic origins of many natural resources and the environmental impacts associated with their extraction and use.
Be able to describe the science behind modern climate change, and its relevance in the context of Earth's past climatic variation.
Provide you with an understanding of the hazards presented by earthquakes, landslides, flooding, volcanic eruptions, and toxic materials so that you will be more informed and better prepared to make decisions concerning where you will live and how society responds to these hazards
Increase your knowledge about environmental management, remediation, and restoration through global, regional, and local case studies
Gain experience communicating complex topics and issues to lay audiences

The course was an introductory survey of Earth science taught to mainly lower-level non-science majors. In the past, it has included 3 fairly traditional hours of lecturing per week, with one 3-hr lab each week, in which students do more active-learning, hands-on activities. I thought it would be a good venue for testing the Eyes on the Hydrosphere module. I was not actually the professor of the course during the test of the module, but I did teach the module as a guest lecturer. I have taught the entire course at other times.

The Eyes on the Hydrosphere module really opened my students eyes to the how we keep track of the mostly invisible world of water resources in the air and under our feet!

My Experience Teaching with GETSI Materials

I was pilot testing the module, so I did not modify it from its intended use.

Relationship of GETSI Materials to my Course

The course is 16 weeks long, and the module was implemented for 2.5 weeks from Weeks ~5 to ~7. Students had already had an introduction to the lithosphere and atmosphere, and this was their introduction to the hydrosphere.

To be honest I'm not sure how the module was referenced after it was completed as I was not in the classroom to see.

A Unit-by-Unit Breakdown of How I Taught this Module

Unit 1

Unit 1.1 was implemented as pre-class homework (come to class w/ labeled diagram). I used the following lecture period to compare diagrams in groups of 6, then report out ... followed by summary discussion led by me. The same class period was used to introduce GETSI module/goals. At end of that class day, students were assigned Unit 1.2 reading (become expert on water cycle measurement technique). In the next class period (Friday) students came to class and did Unit 1.2 jigsaw exercise. For that, students first met with people who studied same method to get on same page, then formed new jigsaw groups with one "expert" for each method. I passed out sheets on which to take notes about the methods they were hearing about, with prompting questions to make sure to answer about each method. Some tips from that period:

Forming the jigsaw groups was a little chaotic in our large class.
A number of students had missed Wednesday and didn't know what the jigsaw was about. Wished I was more ready to assigned them to groups to learn on the go.
Students were told to keep their spiels to 5 minutes per method...but some groups were MUCH slower. Important to keep them on time; next time I would use a timer with a loud 'ding'. That said, many groups did complete the presentations.

Unit 2

The following Monday lecture period was used by course instructor (not me) to teach about watersheds / river systems / hydrographs. On Wednesday I gave a motivational lecture to prep them for the unit (using prep slides personalized for our area). On Thursday I implemented Units 2.1 and 2.2 exercises as a lab, with the stated expectation that Friday class time would be 'open lab' time (i.e. flipped classroom) needed to complete the assignment.
Units 2.1 and 2.2 were handed out as separate packets, and students worked in pairs. Main note from that period is that speed of student completion depends a lot on amount of guidance from instructor. I am told other sections where I was not present moved more slowly through the packets. We have subsequently modified the exercises a bit to have the reading be before coming to class rather than part of the exercise. I think that will help to speed the in-class time along.

Unit 3

The following Monday lecture period, students completed the Unit 3.1 stakeholder analysis exercise. We used the Los Pinos river as our local watershed because students had just learned about it in Unit 2.1, and it is <20 miles away. Students were assigned one of five stakeholder roles on the Friday prior and formed groups based on those roles. In stakeholder groups, students discussed and summarized their positions on the stakeholder matrix. I then had them write on the whiteboard their groups' responses to the matrix categories. Next I led a whole-class discussion about the competing needs for water resources, with questions like:

Which group here thinks they are the MOST reliant on the waters of the LPR?
Which group here thinks they have the most/least influence in water decisions

Overall it went well but students needed help understanding their stakeholder's situation. Some locations have complicated water systems and sorting out the influence a particular group wields is not always intuitive. Giving the students more time to research their roles would have been helpful, but frankly I'm not sure intro students can be expected to, for example, figure out who controls the headgates on surface water diversion from the Los Pinos River, without some guidance from the instructor. Below I show the guidance I gave.

I used these Stakeholder Groups and gave students the bulleted advice/resources to help them prepare:

Vallecito Lake recreational users (and related industries; think fishing, boating, etc, and vacation homes, shops/cafes feeding summer visitors, etc.) --> want water IN the lake.
Los Pinos River irrigators (downstream of dam to Navajo Lake); relying on water released from Vallecito - that water is diverted from river into irrigation ditches managed mostly by the Pine River Irrigation district , who also manages the dam --> want water used for crop production along river corridor (1,150 individual irrigators, watering 45,000 acres)
Los Pinos River recreational users (downstream of dam to Navajo Lake): --> are concerned with recreation along river below dam, including fishing, bird/wildlife viewing, etc.; rely on water released from Vallecito.
Domestic users in Bayfield, Ignacio, rural users, and Southern Ute lands: --> want normal household use (yards/garden/showers/drinking/toilets/car washing, etc.)
Colorado River water users downstream: --> need water from tributaries like the Los Pinos River to contribute to flow on the Colorado. Water moves from Vallecito Lake --> Los Pinos River --> Navajo Lake --> San Juan River --> Lake Powell/Colorado river
Water in Colorado River is relied upon by ~40,000,000 users, for all kinds of purposes. Despite its importance, Colorado River water users have little influence over tributary waters.

In the next lab period we completed Unit 3.2, the 'Whats in your watershed' assignment.

At beginning of lab students chose a city or watershed to investigate
Students need guidance choosing appropriate-scale study areas (i.e. don't choose the Colorado River, choose a small part of it)

Assessments

I employed only formative assessment during Unit 1 exercises: collecting the water cycle diagram to make sure each had completed it with reasonable accuracy. I also posed no-stakes questions to groups as I made roaming observations of the jigsaw exercise.

In Unit 2, I used both formative assessment (asking questions to the group prior to starting unit 2 exercises, then to individuals while they worked on the lab) and summative assessment (more thoughtful questions within Unit 2.1 and 2.2) as a summative assessment.

In Unit 3, I did only formative assessment, and collected the 'What's in my watershed' assignment to make sure they completed it with acceptable effort.

I was not the instructor of the class, so additional methods of assessment of the exercises were not up to me. That said, I believe students were asked questions from the assignment (e.g. about measuring the hydrosphere) on the midterm later in the semester.

Outcomes

I wanted to use the module to give the students an active-learning route to understanding the hydrosphere and how we keep track of it. In introductory courses like this one, it is easy to fall into a rut of lecture-lecture-lecture-lab, lecture-lecture-lecture-lab, etc. This provided a more active and dynamic way to teach students about the hydrosphere.

I think that in my implementation, it was mainly those students who were independently interested and motivated that benefited from the module. The module exercises ask a lot from the student in terms of what they learn in Unit 1 and must recall in Units 2 and 3. The computer exercises in Unit 2 were also quite laborious (less so now that they have been revised). Given the high expected input from the students, some were frustrated by it and vocalized that they wish they could just be lectured about it. So it goes with any class, though. That said, I got a lot of comments about how people found it fascinating to learn about the water resources of their hometowns (Unit 3) and how we keep track of them. That tells me that students on the whole got more out of it when they are asked to dig into the data.

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