Community Flood Risk Assessment from Rising/Surging Seas Project part of CUREnet:Institutes:Other Institutes (2019-2020):Examples
Kevin Kupietz, Elizabeth City State University
Globally 634 million people, 10% of the world's population, live in coastal areas less than 10 meters above sea level. According to 2010 census data, 123 million people, 39% of the United States population, live in coastal counties with an estimated increase to this number by 8% in the 2020 census. As natural disasters have been seen to increase in frequency and severity in the past five years coupled with expected sea rises from climate change it is important that anyone involved with the safety and resiliency planning of their organization/community have an understanding of how to scientifically assess risk from flooding in order to mitigate and recover from the effects. This project allows students the ability to develop skills to utilize computer modeling systems and to apply the data to real world communities in examining risk to structures as well as different groups in the community.

Green Infrastructure/Green Roofs part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Elizabeth Farrell, Nassau Community College
Runoff in urban areas is an increasingly important issue when it comes to water quality. It is a major hydrologic issue in New York City, as urban infrastructure creates excess runoff and impervious surfaces ...

Prairie Eco Services part of Project EDDIE:Teaching Materials:Modules
Kelly Knight, Houston Community College System
As densely populated urban areas continue to expand, human activity is removing much-needed greenspaces from our communities; in turn, we are also removing critical buffers that are needed to combat air and water ...

Unit 2: Soil Characteristics and Their Relationship to Land Use Practices part of A Growing Concern
Hannah Scherer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Martha Murphy, Santa Rosa Junior College; Sarah Fortner, Carleton College
In a hands-on exploration, students will learn to describe and quantify the porosity and permeability of soil models representative of both agricultural and natural environments. Students will use this information ...

Unit 4: Using SoilWebTMto Investigate the Soil Beneath You part of A Growing Concern
Hannah Scherer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Martha Murphy, Santa Rosa Junior College; Sarah Fortner, Carleton College
Students will use SoilWeb™, a smartphone and web application that pulls detailed soil survey data from both the 1:24,0000 Soil Survey Geographic database (SSURGO) and the 1:250,000 scale State Soil Geographic ...

Unit 6: Creating an Agricultural "Fact Sheet" part of A Growing Concern
Hannah Scherer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Martha Murphy, Santa Rosa Junior College; Sarah Fortner, Carleton College
For a given region, students will use what they have learned about the interdisciplinary problem of soil sustainability to make recommendations for agricultural practices in response to potential changes in ...

Unit 5: Predicting the Effects of Climate Change on Soil Loss part of A Growing Concern
Hannah Scherer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Martha Murphy, Santa Rosa Junior College; Sarah Fortner, Carleton College
Students will investigate how the factors that influence erosion work together to produce an overall erosion rate. In agricultural areas, these factors are rainfall-runoff erosivity, soil erodibility, slope ...

Unit 3: Natural and Agricultural Erosion Rates part of A Growing Concern
Sarah Fortner, Carleton College; Martha Murphy, Santa Rosa Junior College; Hannah Scherer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ
Students will identify their perceptions of erosion by examining images of mountain and agricultural landscapes and discussing which environment is more erosive. They will use geospatial figures to compare erosion ...

Unit 1: Impacts of Land Use part of A Growing Concern
Hannah Scherer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ; Martha Murphy, Santa Rosa Junior College; Sarah Fortner, Carleton College
In this introductory unit, students will learn about the fundamental role of observation by viewing photographs of both agricultural and non-agricultural (natural) landscapes and making independent observations. ...

Unit 2.2: Mitigation Using Low Impact Development (LID) Controls part of An Ecosystem Services Approach to Water Resources
John Ritter, Wittenberg University; Ed Barbanell, University of Utah; Meghann Jarchow, University of South Dakota
In this activity, students model the impact of changes in land cover on stormwater runoff using the EPA's National Stormwater Calculator. Students mitigate increased stormwater runoff resulting from ...