INTRODUCING WATER SCIENCE TO MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS THROUGH THE TEXAS PREFRESHMAN ENGINEERING PROGRAM (TEXPREP)

TexPREP is a program that was established in San Antonio in 1979 to introduce concepts of science and engineering to middle school and high school-aged students. For the 2009 TexPREP program at Sul Ross State University, a new water science curriculum was added to the standard program material. This curriculum was implemented to introduce concepts of water science to year 2 PREP students and create a better understanding of water issues in the Far West Texas region. The first week of this program concentrated on general geology, the water cycle, and general geology and hydrology of West Texas which included a field trip to the Alpine Wastewater Treatment Plant. The second week of studies introduced the students to hydrological data collecting methods in the field, data analysis, and techniques for writing scientific papers. In the third week the students moved to more advanced topics of hypothetical surface water analysis and field data collection for discharge calculations using the Manning Equation. This was followed by the manipulation of an existing hydrology model using STELLA (Bice, 2001). The model was adapted to work with a normally dry stream and an arid Chihuahuan desert watershed. Reasonable variables were input and local precipitation data were included to predict the discharge in the creek during flood events. The final week focused on compiling the information from the previous weeks into a presentation that was presented to the year 1 PREP students. The results of these studies were a collection of data by the students, a scientific paper presenting and analyzing that data, a presentation created by the students summarizing what they had learned, and a significant increase in grades from the pre-test to the post-test. Not only did the students gain a better understanding of water science in general, but knowledge of water issues that directly affect them in West Texas.