Students explore the USGS water website to identify the location of stream gauges on the Minnesota River and the types of data that can be retrieved from the website. They determine which data to download based on the area of interest in the exercise (St. Peter, MN) and import historical flood data into MS Excel. The students use a spreadsheet to rank each flood and calculate a recurrence interval for a given flood, then estimate the discharge and stage of the 100-year flood in St. Peter, MN. The final task is to establish a flood hazard zone on a topographic map of the city of St. Peter. Note: this exercise can be applied to almost any non-dammed river with two or more USGS gaging stations on it. Go to http://water.usgs.gov and select your state from the pull-down menu to view an interactive map of your state's rivers and gaging station locations.

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This exercise looks at the dollar losses and deaths caused by flooding in the US, and at the causes of, and relationships between the two trends.

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This is the data collection portion of a semester-long project. Before this lab, students will have graphed discharge data for one previous water year, graphed similar data collected by classes during a previous year, written one-page explanations of the techniques that they will be using, and speculated about the results they expect to get. After this lab, their data will be shared with other lab sections, which will have collected similar data at other sites along the same river. Each research group will present their preliminary data to the class during a later lab meeting, and the class will discuss how the different types of data relate to one another. The project culminates in a final paper (one per research group).

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This is a homework assignment used as preparation for a group research project. Students graph annual discharge data from a local river by hand, and compare the discharge patterns from the stream above a reservoir with those below the dam. This exercise gives students practice graphing a small amount of data by hand, and gets them thinking about ways graphs can be used to help interpret data.

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This group research project serves as the focus for our introductory Earth Systems Science classes. Each of four to six lab sections of 15-25 students collect discharge, sediment load, and water chemistry data from a different site along a local river, and compare their data to that collected in previous years and at other sites along the river. The project incorporates topographic map reading and graphing as well as collecting and analyzing data, and presenting the results in oral and written form. Labs on rocks and minerals use samples from the project area to encourage students to make connections between the solid Earth and surface processes.

Each component of the Florida River Project is described below, with a link to the activity sheet and related files.

Topographic Maps: Integrated Florida River project
Florida River Project: Minerals in the field
Florida River Project: Sedimentary and metamorphic rocks lab
Florida River Project: Plotting discharge data
Plotting Florida River Data Using Excel
Florida River Project: Measuring discharge, sediment, and water chemistry

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The Florida River Project is a semester-long project involving (1) an individual project in which students pose a scientific question and use existing data to test their hypothesis, and (2) a group project in which students collect and present data associated with stream monitoring.

Outcomes of the individual project include:
- Practice applying the process of science
- Graphing and interpreting data
- Making an argument supported by quantitative evidence.
- Communicating a scientific argument in writing.
- Supporting a scientific argument using appropriate formats (especially graphs and tables)

Outcomes of the group project include:
- Collecting field data (discharge, sediment load, water chemistry)
- Presenting data orally.
- Discussing preliminary interpretations of data.

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This activity is a field investigation where students make observations, formulate a question, construct and collect data on that question on stream flow on the Crow River in Central Minnesota

The lab starts with a short lecture on the scientific method, after which students observe the results of a flume run that includes skeletal clasts. They form hypotheses about how bone clasts (or any clast for that matter) move and are deposited by a flow, then the students test their hypotheses by running a flume trial. The hypothesis tests take place in small groups (3-5 students), and the lab ends with homework where students use the information they learned from their hypothesis tests to interpret a fossil assemblage. As such, this is a wonderful activity for introductory geology classes, could be used effectively with minor adjustments for advanced paleontology, taphonomy, and forensic physical anthropology classes.

Short Description:
Drawing upon the food security literature and current events in the media, this survey course will encourage learners to build a new understanding of food security, water shortages in agricultural production, and climate change challenges in agriculture. We will introduce policy tools and case studies illustrating the effects that climate change has on agriculture which will be useful and applicable to individual cross-disciplinary learning.

Long Description:
Food security is one of the most pressing dilemmas of our time. Around the globe, approximately 2 billion people experience some form of food deprivation each day. One in ten people suffer from some form of food insecurity in Canada. This has led scholars to question why food insecurity exists in an ostensibly food secure country. The literature on food security and climate change has also grown exponentially over the past several decades in large part as a response to world events such as the Green Revolution and other forms of industrial agricultural development since the 1970s. Despite the advances in research and technology, we still possess inadequate knowledge of the dynamics causing the onset of food insecurity, and significant disagreement persists among scholars concerning the best way to ameliorate food insecurity.

Drawing upon the food security literature and current events in the media, this survey course will encourage learners to build a new understanding of food security, water shortages in agricultural production, and climate change challenges in agriculture. We will introduce policy tools and case studies illustrating the effects that climate change has on agriculture which will be useful and applicable to individual cross-disciplinary learning.

This course is part of the Adaptation Learning Network led by the Resilience by Design Lab at Royal Roads University. The project is supported by the Climate Action Secretariat of the BC Ministry of Environment & Climate Change Strategy and Natural Resources Canada through its Building Regional Adaptation Capacity and Expertise (BRACE) program. The BRACE program works with Canadian provinces to support training activities that help build skills and expertise on climate adaptation and resilience.

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Between 70 and 75% of the Earth's surface is covered with water and there exists still more water in the atmosphere and underground in aquifers. In this lesson, students learn about water bodies on the planet Earth and their various uses and qualities. They will learn about several ways that engineers are working to maintain and conserve water sources. They will also think about their role in water conservation.

In this activity, students will use a tutorial on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's website to learn about how surface water is treated to make it safe to drink.

This is one component of the Source to Sink Mini Lesson Set
Continental margins are phenomenal places to study the modern sedimentary cycle because sediment in margin regions has been routed from mountains (source) through river systems to the sea (sink); in some cases, sediment has continued across continental shelves and been delivered to the deep sea. The goal of this mini-lesson is to let students explore the characteristics of some key regions in the modern sedimentary cycle to identify and relate the variables that control source-to-sink systems. Which areas are eroding most rapidly and why? Which systems are responsible for the most rapid transfer of sediments from continents to the oceans? How do the characteristics of river systems affect the properties of the sediments they discharge? How can we apply our knowledge of these modern source-to-sink systems to the ancient sedimentary rock record?

Students will learn about the water cycle, watersheds, and specifically, the watershed that feeds Springfield, Oregon. After analyzing drought maps, reading news reports, and seeing images and videos, students will realize that drought is a real life concern. Students, as concerned citizens, will create a water collection device, at first on a small scale, and then a true to life water collection system to help re- purpose rainwater in our garden area.

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This project is used instead of a final exam in an upper level undergraduate course in Applied GIS. A student may propose their own project, or choose one from a list from the instructor. A brief proposal must be approved by the instructor before the project can begin. Students will construct a working, query-able database, use appropriate imagery, and use it to analyze a problem, understand cause and effect, and show changes with time. A final report must be submitted with all supporting documentation in digital form. Students also give a PP presentation in one of the last class meetings.

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Students work with data bases and GIS to develop saturated thickness maps. Each data base consists of observations made by drillers where they have encountered the High Plains aquifer base and the annual water-level measurements taken in wells screened in the High Plains aquifer by field technicians.

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Focusing on air, water, land and life, this video describes how these components are connected in the Earth system through the flow of energy, cycles of water and biogeochemistry. Methods of studying the Earth system, ranging from field observations to analysis of satellite images are discussed. This video is one of the 24-part instructional video series describing scientific protocols used by GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment), a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

This video highlights students taking scientific measurements to support investigations in atmospheric science, hydrology, soils, and land cover. It shows students reporting data through the Web, creating scientific visualizations for analysis, and collaborating with students and scientists around the world. This is one two introductory videos in the 24-part GLOBE video series. GLOBE (Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide, hands-on, K-12 school-based science education program.

The studio will focus on the district of Gaoming, located in the northwest of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) - the fastest growing and most productive region of China. The District has recently completed a planning effort in which several design institutes and a Hong Kong planning firm prepared ideas for a new central area near the river. The class will complement these efforts by focusing on planning and design options on the waterfront of the proposed new district and ways of integrating water/hydrological factors into all aspects and land uses of a modern city (residential, commercial, industrial) - including watershed and natural ecosystem protection, economic and recreational activities, transportation, and tourism.

This course examines diagnostic studies of the Earth’s atmosphere and discusses their implications for the theory of the structure and general circulation of the Earth’s atmosphere. It includes some discussion of the validation and use of general circulation models as atmospheric analogs.