Nutrient Loading Module part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Estimating nutrient loads is a critical concept for students studying water quality in a variety of environmental settings. Many STEM/Environmental science students will be asked to assess the impacts of a proposed anthropogenic activities on human water resources and/or ecosystems as part of their future careers. This module engages students in exploring factors contributing to the actual loads of nitrogen that are transmitted down streams. Nitrogen is a key water quality contaminant contributing to surface water quality issues in fresh, salt, and estuarine environments. Students will utilize real-time nitrate data from the US Geological Survey to calculate nitrate loads for several locations and investigate the interplay of concentration and discharge that contributes to calculated loads.

Molecular Parasitology part of CUREnet:CURE Collection
Embedding inquiry driven research in undergraduate courses allows integration of core concepts and competencies necessary scientific thinking and develop lab skills. These are critical skill for undergraduates to be successful in science careers and for admission into graduate school. However, there are only a handful of examples of collaborative CUREs in Biology where students have an opportunity to connect with a network of researchers outside of their own institution, and none in the field of parasitology. In Spring 2021, we piloted a mini-CURE where student groups from University of Mary Washington and Georgia State University collaboratively completed research projects as part of a research-intensive course on Molecular Parasitology. The benefits of this approach were immediately obvious as students interacted across institutions, learned from each other's disciplinary expertise while informing their own research with data collected by their collaborators. It provided enrichment to the course by adding networking opportunities as well as cross-disciplinary knowledge sharing. We present here our CURE model as a way for other educators to design and implement similar cross-institutional inter-disciplinary CUREs that can be modified to align with their research expertise.

Unit 6: Hydrologic Balance and Climate Change part of Modeling Earth Systems
In this unit, students create a STELLA model of the Owens River chain of lakes in eastern California and then experiment with different climate change scenarios to simulate the Pleistocene history of lake filling ...

Unit 7: Heat Flow in Permafrost part of Modeling Earth Systems
In this unit, students create a STELLA model of heat flow in the top 1 km of Earth's crust to explore the use of Arctic borehole temperature profiles as recorders of anthropogenic warming. The exercise draws ...

Unit 8: Thermohaline Circulation part of Modeling Earth Systems
In this module, students first review some background material on density-driven deep currents in the oceans, and then create a STELLA model of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean. The model ...

Unit 3: Simple Climate Models part of Modeling Earth Systems
Students will explore Earth's radiation budget using several versions of a simple climate model often referred to as a "layer model." Earth receives energy from the sun, some of which is reflected ...

Unit 5: Growth and Decay of Ice Sheets part of Modeling Earth Systems
Large continental ice sheets, such as the Laurentide Ice Sheet from the last glaciation, as well as Antarctica and Greenland of today, are some of the most important features of the global climate system — they ...

Unit 9: Carbon Cycle and Ocean Chemistry part of Modeling Earth Systems
In this module, students first review some background material on the terrestrial, marine, and anthropogenic processes involved in the storage and transfer of carbon in the Earth system. The students then build a ...

Unit 2: Modeling Population part of Modeling Earth Systems
In this unit, students create three different STELLA models to explore a variety of concepts related to population growth and resource use. The first model simulates the classic lynx-snowshoe hare predator-prey ...

Summative Assessment: Creating a model part of Modeling Earth Systems
The summative assessment for this course requires students to construct, utilize, and critique a numerical model of a climate-related Earth system of their choosing. The project involves four pieces: creating a ...