THE GROUND WATER TUTOR: AN INTERACTIVE METHOD TO DEVELOP UNDERSTANDING OF HYDROGEOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

In most high school earth and environmental science classes, there is little if any opportunity to develop deeper understanding of the environmental issues related to contamination of water resources as a result of human activities or the role of technology in the resolution of those issues. Public perception of the issues surrounding protection of ground and surface water and the impact of technologies, such as remediation, on water quality is lacking. The Ground-Water Tutor enables students to actively engage in scientific inquiry and problem solving. The Tutor provides students with an opportunity to apply concepts related to ground-water flow, contamination, and remediation in a realistic scenario using role-play and model simulation and to engage in follow-up discussions on these issues.

The current version of the Tutor is an interactive Java application with accompanying web pages in which students use their knowledge of ground-water flow principles and contaminant transport to prevent environmental disaster. The application simulates movement of a plume from a pipeline break through a shallow alluvial aquifer towards a major river just upstream from a municipal water supply intake.

The student plays the role of a consultant hired by the pipeline owner to locate and remediate the plume at a minimum possible cost and time before it reaches the river. In the plume-finding phase, students place observation wells on a grid representing the study area and the simulation returns the contaminant concentrations at those locations on the appropriate sample dates. Once students have located the plume, they are able to place pumping and injection wells on the board to begin remediation. The simulation then computes the movement of particles to the pumping wells and returns a cumulative mass curve at each well, along with the total mass recovered. The accompanying web pages provide students with background material on ground-water flow and transport principles, establish the contamination scenario simulated in the application, and emphasize the potential ecological and economic impacts of the contamination. The Tutor promotes national science-education curriculum goals through student role-play using science to solve real-world problems.