HYDRO BASIN: A WINTER FIELD-BASED WATER BUDGET EXERCISE

Teaching hydrogeology during the winter months in northern climates can make field-based lab activities difficult and uncomfortable for students and faculty. The easy solution is to postpone field activities until spring, but this can mean many weeks of indoor activities that make it hard for students to experience the application of ideas. One alternative is to use a field-based exercise during the winter months that doesn't require the participants to be outside for extended periods of time, but gets them out frequently.

I use a field water budget exercise that involves determining the water content of the snowpack in a small on-campus basin and gaging the stream that drains it over a period of seven weeks starting in late January. Two to three times each week, teams of two students measure the water content at multiple locations within the basin, using a GPS unit to record their position. During times when there is streamflow, students also measure it. Each measuring session takes about 60 minutes. The students calculate the volume of water stored in the form of snow in the basin along with the volume of water leaving the basin as steamflow and enter it into a database. Periodically, I use about 20 minutes of a class to discuss the results to date. The discussions focus on the spatial and temporal variability of the water content, but I also ensure that we discuss the unaccounted components of the water budget and measurement bias and error. This exercise works because everyone participates and the students feel part of a team effort. The actual time that each student spends outside is relatively short. The long-term nature of the project is very effective at demonstrating the temporal variability of hydrologic reservoirs and processes.