Geography 431 is designed to further understanding of the natural processes of aquatic ecosystems, management of water resources, and threats to sustaining water quantity and quality – for all types of freshwater – surface, ground, rivers, lakes, wetlands … for geographers, ecologists, earth scientists, engineers, planners, other environmental professionals as well as those in non-science fields. This course will develop awareness and appreciation of the multiple perspectives about water as a precious resource, commodity, and sometimes hazard. We will learn how and why water is distributed unevenly in space and time around the Earth. We will examine the ways in which resource management decisions made in human society are strongly related to the availability, quantity, and quality of water. The course examines water resources management, including issues surrounding irrigation; dams and dam removal; provision of safe potable water; threats to water quantity and quality including human and aquatic ecosystem effects; land use changes; the water economy including bottled water, privatization, and water as a free good; water laws and policy; institutions for water management at the global, national, regional, and local scale; and issues of water security and climate change.

This activity is an easy way to demonstrate the fundamental properties of polar and non-polar molecules (such as water and oil), how they interact, and the affect surfactants (such as soap) have on their interactions. Students see the behavior of oil and water when placed together, and the importance soap (a surfactant) plays in the mixing of oil and water which is why soap is used every day to clean greasy objects, such as hands and dishes. This activity is recommended for all levels of student, grades 3-12, as it can easily be scaled to meet any desired level of difficulty.

This hands-on activity explores five different forms of erosion (chemical, water, wind, glacier and temperature). Students rotate through stations and model each type of erosion on rocks, soils and minerals. The students record their observations and discuss the effects of erosion on the Earth's landscape. Students learn about how engineers are involved in the protection of landscapes and structures from erosion. Math problems are included to help students think about the effects of erosion in real-world scenarios.

For the first time in history, the global demand for freshwater is overtaking its supply in many parts of the world. The U.N. predicts that by 2025, more than half of the countries in the world will be experiencing water stress or outright shortages. Lack of water can cause disease, food shortages, starvation, migrations, political conflict, and even lead to war. Models of cooperation, both historic and contemporary, show the way forward. The first half of the course details the multiple facets of the water crisis. Topics include water systems, water transfers, dams, pollution, climate change, scarcity, water conflict/cooperation, food security, and agriculture. The second half of the course describes innovative solutions: Adaptive technologies and adaptation through policy, planning, management, economic tools, and finally, human behaviors required to preserve this precious and imperiled resource. Several field trips to water/wastewater/biosolids reuse and water-energy sites will help us to better comprehend both local and international challenges and solutions.

Students learn about energy and nutrient flow in various biosphere climates and environments. They learn about herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, food chains and food webs, seeing the interdependence between producers, consumers and decomposers. Students are introduced to the roles of the hydrologic (water), carbon, and nitrogen cycles in sustaining the worlds' ecosystems so living organisms survive. This lesson is part of a series of six lessons in which students use their growing understanding of various environments and the engineering design process, to design and create their own model biodome ecosystems.

Students learn about water poverty and how water engineers can develop appropriate solutions to a problem that is plaguing nearly a sixth of the world's population. Students follow the engineering design process to design a gravity-fed water system. They choose between different system parameters such as pipe sizes, elevation differentials between entry and exit pipes, pipe lengths and tube locations to find a design that provides the maximum flow and minimum water turbidity (cloudiness) at the point of use. In this activity, students play the role of water engineers by designing and building model gravity-fed water systems, learning the key elements necessary for viable projects that help improve the lives people in developing communities.

Students are introduced to innovative stormwater management strategies that are being used to restore the hydrology and water quality of urbanized areas to pre-development conditions. Collectively called green infrastructure (GI) and low-impact development (LID) technologies, they include green roofs and vegetative walls, bioretention or rain gardens, bioswales, planter boxes, permeable pavement, urban tree canopy, rainwater harvesting, downspout disconnection, green streets and alleys, and green parking. These approaches differ from the traditional centralized stormwater collection system with the idea of handling stormwater at its sources, resulting in many environmental, economic and societal benefits. A PowerPoint® presentation provides photographic examples, and a companion file gives students the opportunity to sketch in their ideas for using the technologies to make improvements to 10 real-world design scenarios.

Student teams locate a contaminant spill in a hypothetical site by measuring the pH of soil samples. Then they predict the direction of groundwater flow using mathematical modeling. They also use the engineering design process to come up with alternative treatments for the contaminated water.

Students are presented with a guide to rain garden construction in an activity that culminates the unit and pulls together what they have learned and prepared in materials during the three previous associated activities. They learn about the four vertical zones that make up a typical rain garden with the purpose to cultivate natural infiltration of stormwater. Student groups create personal rain gardens planted with native species that can be installed on the school campus, within the surrounding community, or at students' homes to provide a green infrastructure and low-impact development technology solution for areas with poor drainage that often flood during storm events.

Students explore materials engineering by modifying the material properties of water. Specifically, they use salt to lower the freezing point of water and test it by making ice cream. Using either a simple thermometer or a mechatronic temperature sensor, students learn about the lower temperature limit at which liquid water can exist such that even if placed in contact with a material much colder than 0 degrees Celsius, liquid water does not get colder than 0 °C. This provides students with an example of how materials can be modified (engineered) to change their equilibrium properties. They observe that when mixed with salt, liquid water's lower temperature limit can be dropped. Using salt-ice mixtures to cool the ice cream mixes to temperatures lower than 0 °C works better than ice alone.

Students learn about porosity and permeability and relate these concepts to groundwater flow. They use simple materials to conduct a porosity experiment and use the data to understand how environmental engineers decide on the placement and treatment of a drinking water well.

Students keep track of their own water usage for one week, gaining an understanding of how much water is used for various everyday activities. They relate their own water usages to the average residents of imaginary Thirsty County, and calculate the necessary water capacity of a dam that would provide residential water to the community.

Students learn about the underlying engineering principals in the inner workings of a simple household object -- the faucet. Students use the basic concepts of simple machines, force and fluid flow to describe the path of water through a simple faucet. Lastly, they translate this knowledge into thinking about how different designs of faucets also use these same concepts.

Students learn about the human water cycle, or how humans impact the water cycle by settling down in civilizations. Specifically, they learn how people obtain, use and dispose of water. Students also learn about shortages of treated, clean and safe water and learn about ways that engineers address this issue through water conservation and graywater recycling.

Students learn what causes hurricanes and what engineers do to help protect people from destruction caused by hurricane winds and rain. Research and data collection vessels allow for scientists and engineers to model and predict weather patterns and provide forecasts and storm warnings to the public. Engineers are also involved in the design and building of flood-prevention systems, such as levees and floodwalls. During the 2005 hurricane season, levees failed in the greater New Orleans area, contributing to the vast flooding and destruction of the historic city. In the associated activity, students learn how levees work, and they build their own levees and put them to the test!

This course covers the development of the fundamental equations of fluid mechanics and their simplifications for several areas of marine hydrodynamics and the application of these principles to the solution of engineering problems. Topics include the principles of conservation of mass, momentum and energy, lift and drag forces, laminar and turbulent flows, dimensional analysis, added mass, and linear surface waves, including wave velocities, propagation phenomena, and descriptions of real sea waves. Wave forces on structures are treated in the context of design and basic seakeeping analysis of ships and offshore platforms. Geophysical fluid dynamics will also be addressed including distributions of salinity, temperature, and density; heat balance in the ocean; major ocean circulations and geostrophic flows; and the influence of wind stress. Experimental projects conducted in ocean engineering laboratories illustrating concepts taught in class, including ship resistance and model testing, lift and drag forces on submerged bodies, and vehicle propulsion.

This data layer includes lines representing existing sections of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. This version of the data is hosted by Wisconsin DNR for DNR staff use and public download and is updated approximately every two months.

This layer is hosted by Wisconsin DNR, and reflects Ice Age Trail updates received from the Ice Age Trail Alliance on December 21st, 2023. This layer is typically updated approximately every two months and is primarily for the purpose of DNR staff use and public download from DNR's Open Data Portal. For more current trail data contact Tiffany Stram (tiffany@iceagetrail.org) GIS/Technology Specialist at Ice Age Trail Alliance. For the official depiction of Ice Age Trails in Wisconsin, see Ice Age Trail Alliance's Ice Age National Scenic Trail Existing Sections - Official Layer: https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=735b25ad50e74520b7396d9168f53cfc.

This data layer includes lines representing existing sections of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. This layer is a combination of GPS and digitized data, merged to represent one complete data layer for the IAT. The data was developed by the Ice Age Trail Alliance (IATA) in cooperation with the National Park Service's Ice Age Trail Office.

During this course, we will be exploring basic questions of architecture through several short design exercises. Working with many different media, students will discover the interrelationship of architecture and its related disciplines, such as structures, sustainability, architectural history and the visual arts. Each problem will focus on one of these disciplines and one exploration and presentation technique.

Students are presented with examples of the types of problems that environmental engineers solve, specifically focusing on water quality issues. Topics include the importance of clean water, the scarcity of fresh water, tap water contamination sources, and ways environmental engineers treat contaminated water.

METEO 003 will introduce to you a wide variety of basic atmospheric concepts so that you can become a better "weather consumer" (better understand and evaluate weather information) and gain a better understanding of "how the weather works." You will learn about Weather Analysis Tools, The Global Heat Budget, The Global and Local Controllers of Temperature, The Role of Water in the Atmosphere, Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere, Surface Patters of Pressure and Wind, Mid-Latitude Weather Systems, Stability and Thunderstorms, Severe Weather, The Human Impact of Weather and Climate, Patterns of Wind, Water, and Weather in the Tropics, and Hurricanes.