Unit 2 opens a window into water accounting and reveals intensive water use that few people think about. How much water goes into common commodities? Have you considered how much water it takes to support our modern American lifestyle and agricultural trade? Water that is embedded in products and services is called virtual water. Looking at the world through the lens of virtual water provides a watery focus to thorny discussions about water such as: the pros and cons of globalization and long distance trade; self sufficiency vs. reliance on other nations; ecosystem impacts of exports; and the impacts of relatively cheap imports on indigenous farming. Unit 2 also introduces the concept of a water footprint. A water footprint represents a calculation of the volume of water needed for the production of goods and services consumed by an individual or country. In this unit students will calculate their individual footprints and analyze how the water footprints of countries vary dramatically in terms of gross volumes and their components. As a result of these activities, students will learn of vast disparities in water access and application. They will also be challenged to consider mechanisms or policies that could foster greater equity in water footprints.

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The basic concepts of geology will be considered to address the widely ranging textures and compositions of rocks and sediments formed in a wide range of environments. These variations in turn can affect soil formation and many related Critical Zone processes and architectures.
This unit requires substantial reading to cover basic concepts of geology: the rock cycle, plate tectonics, geologic time, erosion, weathering, and deposition, so that students have a firm grasp on how geology relates to and controls CZ processes. This background knowledge is accessed through a review of web sites and a scientific papers. An in-class activity uses the U.S. Geological Survey's National Geologic Map Database to identify resources for understanding and classifying the geology of a region.

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The example of a proposed land-use change that was used in Unit 2.3 is built upon here. The activities in this unit are meant to broaden the discussion beyond calculating quantitative run-off changes. Now we will also bring in consideration of a broader range of ecosystem services, as well as other ways in which a landscape can be valued, some of which may not be easily measured or even conceptualized as "services." Classroom time is devoted to the instructor and students exploring both (a) the stakeholders who have an interest in a particular place and (b) the various interests/uses those stakeholders may have for that place. By the end of the activity, the class should have identified several major stakeholder groups and several distinct ecosystem services. Students, organized into groups representing particular stakeholders, will then be tasked to prepare, for Unit 3.2, a group presentation, to be discussed on class on the last day of the module, that utilizes those ecosystem services as much as possible.

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In this activity, the student groups organized at the end of Unit 3.1 will prepare presentations representing different stakeholder positions. This artifact -- Part I of the Module Summative Assessment (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 25kB Sep4 16) -- can be part of a presentation to the instructor, to a panel of faculty/students, or to a "board" representing some decision-making unit (Community Council, University Board of Trustees, City/County Planning Commission). At the conclusion of this unit, students will be prompted to reflect, individually, on an ecosystem services approach to natural resources management -- Part II of the Module Summative Assessment (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 23kB Sep4 16) .

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This unit is designed to allow students to quantitatively assess how much water is used for irrigating crops and how this varies across the United States. This unit also has students link water use to the economic value of the crops that are produced--spanning the scientific and economic disciplines. The concepts that students learn here will connect back to the Water Footprint concept that was introduced in Unit 2, as students consider the accuracy of water calculators.

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Students will be able to identify the functional roles that organisms play in ocean ecosystems. How do human-induced changes in ocean conditions affect biodiversity, and thereby the health and resilience of a coral reef? Students explore and discuss the direct and indirect impacts that ocean acidification can have on species, food web dynamics, ecosystem function, and commercial resources. At the end of this unit the students should be able to articulate how changes in ocean chemistry can create negative outcomes for humans who depend on living ocean resources.

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Using a systems dynamics approach, students will work in groups to conceptualize and construct a model of the global carbon cycle considering five major Earth systems: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere. The models will draw on information from the pre-class activity and invoke system features such as boundaries, stocks, flows, and control variables. Using a scenario describing a global, catastrophic event, the students will consider how new conditions change the behavior of carbon cycling in their model world. Students will use the model to explain changes in environmental variables such as permafrost cover, atmospheric gases, and global temperature, as well as feedbacks within the system.

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How do slope characteristics and magnitude of forces dictate whether or not a slope will fail? Can environmental and built characteristics change the magnitude of these forces? In this unit, students qualitatively and quantitatively consider the impact of slope angle, driving force, and frictional force on mass-wasting potential. A map activity prompts students to think about how climatic, tectonic, and geologic factors, as well as population and land use characteristics can influence mass-wasting potential.

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Online-adaptable: Part 1 (lecture) and Part 3 (discussion) are particularly straight forward to adapt to online. Part 2 student exercise is typically done with printed maps but can be successfully adapted to online by having synchronous groups of students work together to annotate digital map files using: 1) PDF annotation tools in Adobe or 2) putting the map images into a Google Slides file and using the scribble tool. Google Earth files are also provided as an additional option.

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The purpose of this unit is to explore, compare, contrast, and calculate energy fluxes from different CZO field sites to better appreciate the critical differences in the driving radiative forces affecting each site. This module will help students complete their semester-long project by introducing them to critical baseline data collection and databases related to energy budgets.
The primary data set for this activity is the CZO tower network of a dozen met/flux towers spanning six different biomes/sites. Each site has a slightly different data format but it is easily manipulated in a spreadsheet. The lesson is divided into the following engaging activities:

Background lecture: Introduction to water and energy fluxes and balances
Database access and graphing activity: Students will learn what data exists in the CZO database and how to load and manipulate it using Excel.
Discovery activity: Students in small groups will compare monthly bar graphs of energy fluxes drawn from six Ameriflux sites and address questions concerning linkages with other variables and processes affecting energy partitioning.
Reference ET Activity: Students will learn about the Penman-Monteith formulation of evaporation and calculate this from common meteorological data and compare with field measurements of evapotranspiration. The class will discuss these results as time allows.

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The purpose of this unit is to explore, compare, contrast, and interpret carbon fluxes from the Ameriflux network to better appreciate the critical factors that account for the different timing and magnitudes of fluxes among these sites. This module will help students complete their semester-long project by introducing them to critical baseline data collection and databases related to carbon budgets.
The primary data set for this activity is the Amerflux network database, which spans over 150 sites throughout the Americas. Each data set is uniformly formatted and can contain up to 45 fields of meteorological and flux data collected from various eddy correlation tower instruments. The lesson is divided up between the following engaging activities:

Background lecture: Introduction to carbon fluxes and balances
Discovery Activity: Students in small groups will compare various annual flux records from four different sites to address questions regarding driving variables, correlation among variables, and causative factors responsible for the overall trend in annual CO2 flux. Group results will be shared and discussed by the whole class as time allows.
Database Access Activity: Students will learn what data exists in the Ameriflux data base and how to load it into an Excel spreadsheet for display using an Amerflux site that also is part of the CZO network.
Carbon Flux Hypothesis Activity: Students will develop a simple hypothesis regarding the timing and/or magnitude of CO2 fluxes and use data from the Ameriflux database to support their ideas.

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Landslides can have profound societal consequences, such as did the slide that occurred near Oso, Washington in 2014. Forty-three people were killed and entire rural neighborhood was destroyed. In this unit, students consider the larger-scale tectonic and climatic setting for the landslide and subsequently use lidar and SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) hillshade images, topographic maps, and InSAR (interferometric synthetic aperture radar) to determine relationships between landscape characteristics and different types of mass-wasting events. They conclude by considering the societal costs of such a disaster and ways that communities in similar situations may mitigate their risk.

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Online-adaptable: The exercises in unit are completely digital and thus at a logistical level it can be switched to online fairly easily. However, due to the relative complexity of the data investigations and group discussions, there will still be a fair bit of instructor support needed and/or extended small group that should be arranged.

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In this unit, student groups will evaluate different environmental case studies to critically investigate qualitative and quantitative data analysis, collection, and inquiry. Students will begin to consider different forms of sensory-related data collection and how experiential knowledge informs the ways in which one forms analytical, evaluative questions. Student expert groups are provided one case study (different expert groups will examine at least two different cases) that has a number of different kinds of resources that students will examine (e.g. journalistic, scientific, narrative, visual, auditory). Students will use cooperative learning methods to engage with problem-based inquiry rather than have the case study information delivered via instructor-based lecture. Given that students across disciplinary contexts may not have been exposed to scientific methods of investigation, this unit encourages systems thinking alongside other methods of investigation. As students consider the variety of perceptions that occur within a group of people sharing an environmental experience, students are able to consider the impact that different types of data have on one's perception of data collection and its analysis. This exercise also demonstrates the utility of interdisciplinary thinking -- by examining data sets from multiple academic disciplines, students gain a more complete understanding of the case study compared to what they would have understood by examining data from a single research approach. The activity also provides students with an opportunity to practice interdisciplinary thinking and collaboration skills. The cases address several key environmental challenges: soil contamination, water resources, and the impacts of industrial agriculture.
A collaborative learning method is used in conjunction with guided class and group discussion to critically examine different types of data and encourage consistency of data analysis between student groups. This unit uses a group exploration and presentation activity to ensure equal distribution of materials and accountability among class participants. In essence, the students teach each other about the case studies with the instructor providing questions to elicit depth and synthesis between groups as well as to ensure that critical data analysis is undertaken.

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Units 4, 5, and 6 provide the opportunity for students to delve into a greater examination of food security at a regional level in small teams selecting one of the following locations (Caribbean, New York City, or Nebraska) OR a new location of their choice (provided that information and datasets are easily available and students will work with the instructor prior to the start of the unit) to apply skills and concepts taught in Units 1-3. Unit 4 materials are designed to provide a place-based overview for students to prepare them for the summative assessment, to be submitted in Unit 6, a community-based action plan of how the selected community can increase food security and lessen vulnerability.

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In this unit, students will gain a deep-time perspective on how life evolves on a dynamic planet. They will use the Equidae (horse family) as a case study to examine the relationship among climate, biomes, and fossils to determine how changing environmental conditions influenced horse morphology and diversity through time. After a brief introduction, students will work in groups to examine data and formulate ideas about why changing climatic conditions and an increase in grasslands led to changes in horse morphology and diversity. This example of adaptive radiation and extinction within one well-known group of organisms in response to changes in Earth's interrelated systems demonstrates how the geologic record provides an important context for understanding modern patterns of biodiversity. Students will also use the data to evaluate earlier and more recent ideas about Equidae evolution to appreciate how scientific ideas can change over time based on new evidence.

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Is groundwater mining sustainable? In Unit 4 students compare and contrast long-term (decades) groundwater well levels in six states representing the East Coast, West Coast, and Midwest Plains states. Satellite imagery maps of the well locations will give students an idea of the land cover, specifically the presence of irrigated crops. Using groundwater well data from the USGS, students will recognize the depletion of aquifers in the western United States (e.g., the Ogallala/High Plains Aquifer), or groundwater mining, as an unsustainable practice.

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This is the second module of a two week-long unit on hydrology in an upper-level undergraduate course on the Critical Zone. After Unit 5.1, students should have a basic understanding of the fluxes and reservoirs in the context of a tree and basin water balance. In Unit 5.2, students will learn how to apply environmental sensor data to larger catchment or regional scales (Part 1) and will connect hydrologic processes in the Critical Zone to societal needs through a quantitative resource availability and decision-making exercise (Part 2).

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Units 3 and 4 of this module explored how water resources are used for agriculture in the United States and how this can vary depending on location. In Unit 5, students explore how agricultural practices can affect the water quality in streams, rivers, lakes, and coastal areas. Important concepts in this unit include processes that transport suspended material (e.g., sediment) and dissolved material (e.g., nutrients) away from crop fields and into regional water bodies. The effects of dissolved nutrients on the health of the water ecosystems will be presented with examples of hypoxic zones in coastal areas and lake eutrophication. This last unit is well-suited to foster student advancement in systems thinking.

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This unit has students build on a system diagram, to include new knowledge about quantitative values and relationships. They will also write about and discuss what they know about their systems, the questions that still remain, and how to find answers to their questions.

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Students use what they have learned in the previous units to link the above-ground part of the rock cycle (driven by the hydrologic cycle, energy from the Sun, and gravity) to the below-ground part of the rock cycle driven by Earth's internal heat energy. This unit is focused on group thinking: interpreting a rock cycle diagram and the role of the hydrologic cycle, identifying energy transfers (including sources and sinks), and describing hypothetical rock material transfer pathways. Students also make connections between erosion and plate tectonics through analysis of a reading, "How Erosion Builds Mountains."

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Unit 5 addresses the concept of Net Zero Water of buildings. Net Zero Water can be defined in different ways. For this module it means a building's water needs are supplied 100% from harvested rainwater or water that is recycled on site. Reducing indoor and outdoor water use is a key element. Reading and videos are assigned to aid students grasping the concept of Net Zero Water as applied to buildings. A spreadsheet tool from the U.S. Green Building Council is introduced and used to estimate indoor water demand for baseline and design (water conservation) scenarios. In addition, this unit links to Unit 4 by including an estimate for outdoor water demand. The central activity for the unit is an active learning team exercise to analyze indoor water use reduction for a case study building and evaluate Net Zero Water.

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