TRANSDISCIPLINARY STUDENTS’ LEARNING AND REASONING ABOUT SOCIO-HYDROLOGICAL ISSUES IN AN UNDERGRADUATE WATER COURSE

Societies today face an array of global, water-related challenges with significant scientific dimensions within the Food-Energy-Water-Nexus. To prepare students to become tomorrow’s global citizens, postsecondary learning experiences must provide them with the ability to learn and reason about socio-hydrological issues such as agricultural water use, water quality, and water security. However, prior research has illustrated limitations in undergraduate students’ disciplinary knowledge and little research has been conducted to understand how they use this knowledge to solve problems and make decisions about socio-hydrological systems (i.e., water literacy). Here, we report on discipline-based education research from the first iteration of the course, Water in Society, during which we engage a diverse population of students, from a variety of majors, and backgrounds. Principles of effective undergraduate STEM instruction include: socio-hydrological systems, student engagement with authentic hydrological data, and computer-based models. We draw upon these constructs, data, and models to investigate (1) undergraduate students’ science content knowledge, (2) values, (3) reasoning about socio-hydrological issues, (4) model-based reasoning, and (5) model-based content retention. Findings illustrate growth in model-based reasoning and model based content retention, as well as growth in students' science content knowledge and socio-hydrological reasoning over the semester. Student values were also found to be different among STEM and non-STEM majors. We use these empirical findings to consider challenges and opportunities in course material, simulations, and modeling improvement.