Unit 7 continues the use of the CME Building Case Study to explore water sustainability in the context of a building. The activity is extended to the catchment level, and a new tool for catchment level storm water management is introduced. Students are exposed in the pre-class assignments to low impact development (LID) and green infrastructure and the EPA National Stormwater Calculator. In class, the central activity is applying the EPA National Stormwater Calculator to evaluate an LID control plan for the CME building case study. The unit brings together concepts from previous units through the use of the calculator. The impact of landscapes, buildings, and other features on storm water runoff is illustrated. And the potential benefit of LID controls is analyzed. The homework assignment engages students in the search for a local green infrastructure site to take a picture and summarize the site in the context of a sustainable site.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

The unit has two parts. In each, students dive into inquiry to answer the compelling questions:

1. Who are some of our closest tribal neighbors, and what have they been their lifeways since time immemorial?
2. Why do people explore, and how does this lead to expansion?

Part 1 is focused on the examination of the northwest and some of the original inhabitants. Through these questions students will learn about the culture of some of their closest tribal neighbors, the Spokane Indians. The final project for Part 1 is a cultural investigation display, in which students will show what they know about the culture of the Spokane Tribe.

In Part 2, Students will also learn about forces that brought change to the northwest: fur trade era and exploration. Students will ultimately learn about the Corps of Discovery and the Oregon Trail and know the impact each had on the west. Students will finish Part 2 with a timeline activity that will reflect choice and build upon student strengths according to their skill set.

Finally, a lesson on a Tribe of the Columbia Plateau is offered as an extension, but it is strongly recommended that students get to experience this lesson.

Note that the emphasis here is on the Spokane Tribe as one of our closest tribal neighbors. In no way is this an exhaustive study nor should the tribal cultures be generalized to other tribes of the region. We understand that each tribe in our region and North America was and continues to be unique in its culture, practices, lifeways, and traditions.

An extreme precipitation event in 2008 cost one town more than a million dollars in infrastructure repairs. Now, other municipalities can simulate how their homes, businesses, and facilities might fare if they experienced a similar event.

This case study is retrieved from the open book Open Data as Open Educational Resources. Case studies of emerging practice.

It explores why and how open data can be used as a material with which to produce engaging challenges for students as they are introduced to programming. Through describing the process of producing the assignments, and learner responses to them, we suggest that open data is a powerful material for designing learning activities because of its qualities of ease of access and authenticity.

In two successive years, forms of open data were used to construct coursework assignments for postgraduate students at the University of Nottingham, UK. The rationale for using open data was to shift the focus towards an outward-looking approach to coding with networks, files and data structures, and to engage students in constructing applications that had real-world relevance.

Python was chosen as the programming language.

The assignment in the first year utilised e-book text files from Project Gutenberg1, and required students to build an e-reader application. In the next year, car park status data, which was made available in a regularly updated form by the city council through their open data initiative2 was used as the basis for an assignment in which students developed a city-wide car park monitoring application.

Students are trained to use the Visual MODFLOW computer program (Waterloo Hydrogeologic, Inc.) and they learn first-hand how to apply the Dupuit Approximation to groundwater flow and transport problems in unconfined aquifers. The students apply the Dupuit Approximation (Fetter, 2001) to a case study developed from Anderson and Woessner (1992) in which they are given system dimensions, aquifer properties, and well water levels. Learning objectives include (1) prediction of groundwater flow and transport and (2) model calibration (e.g., getting the model output to match well water level data). Students also learn how to solve the equations using a computer spreadsheet program, further expanding their ability to understand and work with the equations.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Vital Ice STEM Kit. The Natural Sciences Education & Outreach Center collaborates with CSU faculty, National Parks and citizen science programs to translate their current scientific research into unique STEM experiences for students in the form of Educational Kits that can be checked out. Each kit contains just about all of the materials needed (minus common things like water and paper towels) to explore some really interesting scientific research topics.The kits are available for teachers and informal educators in Colorado to check out for a duration of a week by submitting either a local pickup form or a delivery form available at the linked website. This kit is provided free for educational use. This Kit is available in Spanish. Global Surface Temperatures: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/283054052/

Vuelve Viral Equipo STEM. El Centro de Extensión y Educación en Ciencias Naturales colabora con la facultad de CSU, los Parques Nacionales y los programas de ciencia ciudadana para traducir su investigación científica actual en experiencias STEM únicas para los estudiantes en forma de kits educativos que se pueden prestar. Cada kit contiene casi todos los materiales necesarios (menos cosas comunes como agua y toallas de papel) para explorar algunos temas de investigación científica realmente interesantes. enviando un formulario de recogida local o un formulario de entrega disponible en el sitio web vinculado. Utilice la información de contacto en la página de descripción general del kit STEM para obtener más información. https://www.cns-eoc.colostate.edu/stem-kits/ Este kit se proporciona de forma gratuita para uso educativo.

Climate scientists project that future climate conditions will result in increased risk of wildfire across much of the Southwest. Although fires are a natural part of Southern California landscapes, efforts by SDG&E and their partners may help minimize the impacts of future fires.

This is a seven part module that deals with water development. The goal is to get students thinking about water development in terms of its appropriateness, and to get them to think about competing value systems. It is ultimately about ethics and philosophy,not about practicality or utility, but students -- especially undergraduate students -- sometimes have trouble figuring that out. If you you elect to use all seven modules, this is a multi-week project. But, individual parts will stand alone if need be.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Just south of Atlanta’s busy Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Clayton County seems like an obvious place for metropolitan growth. But more homes and businesses mean a higher demand on the county’s limited water supplies.

This exercise demonstrates the role of groundwater in Earth's surface processes and natural hazards through a simple sensitivity analysis using Excel and a case study of a landslide in glacial sediments. In the first part of the exercise, students use a spreadsheet to model the infinite slope equation to determine which variables are sensitive to change. In this part of the exercise students discover the relationship and importance between hydrogeology and Earth's surface processes. In the second part of the exercise students use a case study, of a landslide that occurred in glacial sediments, to calculate the lag time between precipitation events and slope failure. This exercise highlights the relationship between groundwater and natural hazards. Finally, students combine their knowledge of both exercises and use the infinite slope equation to predict the percent of ground saturation for the landslide case study.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Property owners in New Jersey can check their vulnerability to sea level rise and storm surge using an interactive mapping tool—the NJ Flood Mapper. Here's how one restaurant owner used results from the tool in his long-term planning.

After most of the city was flattened by a tornado, Joplin, Missouri’s Mercy Hospital built a new facility, incorporating features to reinforce its resistance to wind.

We hear a lot about the “women’s vote” these days, although most young people take universal suffrage for granted and the fight for women’s right to vote is usually given scant attention in the classroom. Since the late 20th century, women have constituted the majority of the voting public. The number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every presidential election since 1964. In this module we offer resources, information and ideas for examining the role of women in politics as voters and the history of their increased participation in the political sphere.

The goal of this module is to provide resources and information about the history of the women’s vote in the U.S. Looking at the women’s suffrage movement provides a framework for exploring the changing role of women in politics and society in the 19th and 20th centuries. The history of suffrage offers an opportunity to examine women’s roles at critical points in the nation’s history, and to think about the impact of women’s voting behavior on politics in our time.

A town board based classroom scenario where students decide what to do with a parcel of land on the shoreline of a lake. Various interested parties try to purchase, but must answer town board questions in the process. Real issues of land-use, resource allocation, ethics, planning, and impacts.

This exercise uses an analytical method (Grubb, 1993) and Excel to calculate the capture zone shape for a TCE remediation well in Wooster, Ohio. The case study description given in an extensive PowerPoint presentation. The capture-zone equations are programmed by the student into an Excel worksheet and used to delineate the contributing area of a contaminant recovery well. Students can then experiment with by varying the pumping rate, hydraulic conductivity, and hydraulic gradient to better understand the sensitivity of these parameters on capture-zone shape.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Con Edison examined the future vulnerability of electrical infrastructure. Based on the results, they took action to increase their resilience.

Students and community residents of four remote Alaskan villages measure environmental data to identify their climate vulnerabilities.

eComma is a social reading tool teachers can install in their Learning Management System (LMS). It allows students and teachers to read and annotate texts together, pooling their knowledge and perspectives for a deeper understanding and analysis of what they are reading. The eComma website linked here explains how to explain the tool in an LMS and has a user guide and case studies with ideas for how to use it in a class.

After being introduced to some widely used similarity indices through a brief introductory lecture and reading assignment, students receive a handout that includes the genus-level presence/absence data for Jurassic ammonite faunas from the Boreal Craton and four accreted terranes that make up much of what is now western North America. The handout also includes several tables that present values calculated from those data for four different indices, and a map showing the current distribution of the terranes (all extracted from Hammer and Harper, 2006). The students then work collaboratively, in pairs or small groups, to answer a few rudimentary questions that require first-order interpretation of the data to get them comfortable with how the data are presented, and to demonstrate how different indices produce different rankings of relative similarity for the five faunas. For many of the students, it is their first encounter with quantitatively derived, but clearly ambiguous results -- and the struggle begins ("but which one is right?") The exercise then tests them with more complex questions that require (without specific announcement) that they devise multiple explanations for low indices (dissimilar faunas) between Sonomia and the Boreal Craton, and critically evaluate those possible explanations. When they are led to the correct conclusion, that a simplistic interpretation of the dissimilarity as a product of geographic separation conflicts with the well established timing of Sonomia's arrival in the Triassic (based on other geologic evidence), it impresses upon them the importance of considering all the data available. In this case, the data falsify the hypothesis that Sonomia was still far away from North America, and require a different explanation for the faunal contrast, such as a latitudinal separation and/or physical separation by some barrier (perhaps highlands created by the Sonoman Orogeny). The second phase of the exercise involves analysis of a pronounced contrast reported by Loch (2007) in the taxonomic composition of Lower Ordovician trilobite faunas in what is now eastern and western North America, quantified by the Jaccard Index. With the geologic context leaving no doubt that both faunas inhabited the same paleocontinent, the stage is set for discussion of a strong (again, perhaps paleolatitudinal) contrast in environment/lithofacies that produced the contrast. The questions posed in this part of the exercise challenge the students to recognize the strong influence of relative sample sizes (a pitfall of that index), a different taxonomic level (trilobite species, as compared to ammonite genera), and perhaps other factors such as stratigraphic imprecision and inaccuracy in taxonomic assignment in producing values very different from those in the first case study.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)