1. Nanette Marcum-Dietrich
  2. http://blogs.millersville.edu/tesmmw
  3. Teaching Environmental Sustainability - Model My Watershed
  4. Teaching Environmental Sustainability - Model My Watershed
  5. http://blogs.millersville.edu/tesmmw/
  6. Millersville University, Stroud Water Research Center, Concord Consortium
  1. Carolyn Staudt
  2. Principal Investigator, Curriculum/Professional Developer
  3. Teaching Environmental Sustainability - Model My Watershed
  4. http://blogs.millersville.edu/tesmmw/
  5. Concord Consortium
Public Discussion

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  • Icon for: Kevin Brown

    Kevin Brown

    Facilitator
    Senior Research Scientist
    May 11, 2015 | 02:50 p.m.

    Very nice combination of Citizen Science and gaming/modeling activities! I’m curious about the data underlying the model and the algorithms that allow students to manipulate their own watershed characteristics. Did you develop these or were they off-the-shelf? Also, have you created any assessments or done any evaluation of Model My Watershed to determine what scientific content and principles are being addressed (e.g. alignment with national science standards)? Finally, is this publicly available? I would love to try it out!

  • Icon for: Nanette Marcum-Dietrich

    Nanette Marcum-Dietrich

    Lead Presenter
    Teaching Environmental Sustainability - Model My Watershed
    May 11, 2015 | 03:30 p.m.

    Kevin – Thank you for the post.

    The application was developed by scientists at the Stroud Water Research Center (http://www.stroudcenter.org/about/aufdenkampe.shtm) and GIS experts at Azavea (Robert Cheatum – http://www.azavea.com) The application was built from the ground up using national data sets and watershed models.
    MMW version 1 was Java based. It went offline in March, 2015 so that we could update it to run on tablets.
    The application is FREE and available to anyone. You can find it in June 2015 at concord.org/tes-mmw or wikiwatershed.org
    The curriculum is aligned to NGSS. Results of our pilot study can be found at: Gill, S & Marcum-Dietrich, N. (2014). Model My Watershed: Contextualizing problem-based and place-based geoscience learning within a sociocultural context. Journal of Geoscience Education.

    Information about our current research efforts can be found at http://blogs.millersville.edu/tesmmw/research/

  • Icon for: Joni Falk

    Joni Falk

    Facilitator
    Co-Director
    May 11, 2015 | 09:37 p.m.

    This sounds like a great modeling application and I very much enjoyed the video which brought it to life. Where is it being used? In or out of school? Does it complement particular curricula or is it a stand-alone? Love the fact that students are going outside and collecting their own data. Do students tend to work on it in teams or is it an individual thing? Can they share their data with students in different locations?

  • Nathan Marcum

    Guest
    May 11, 2015 | 09:46 p.m.

    Very well done, enjoyed it

  • Icon for: Carolyn Staudt

    Carolyn Staudt

    Co-Presenter
    Curriculum/Professional Developer
    May 11, 2015 | 10:08 p.m.

    Joni,
    This project is for the lower 48 states, so any of those states can join in! Teaching Environmental Sustainability project is being used in five states, CA, IA, KS, PA, and VA for research. Check out the curricula at http://concord.org/projects/teaching-environmen.... Students use a very inexpensive Watershed Tracker for humidity, temperature, light, and soil moisture that uses BlueTooth to record data remotely in an app (both Android and iOS). The activities complement already existing watershed curricula and students work in teams. By posting on the portal students can share among locations.

  • Icon for: James Laffey

    James Laffey

    Professor
    May 12, 2015 | 09:37 a.m.

    Nanette and Carolyn, what a wonderful project. I really like the depth that you make available for kids (and kids of all ages) to explore watersheds and understand key constructs. I will be looking forward to reports about its use and success. Also, we have a potentially complementary project called Mission HydroSci…..see the video labeled Distance Learning through game based 3d VLE. We ar ein the early stages of developing a game for kids to learn about water systems and apply scientific argumentation. regards.

  • Kim Kastens

    Guest
    May 12, 2015 | 06:49 p.m.

    This is a fascinating project, and it is wonderful the way the students can work in their own region. Are you keeping a record of what land use modifications students deploy during “Modify my Watershed?” I’d be interested to see what changes middle school students would be interested in making in their local landscape.

    Also, does the hydrologic model work on averages only, or does it incorporate weather and seasonal changes in precip and air temp?

    Finally, it might be interesting to make a version for high school or undergrad that incorporates droughts and changes in precip and air temp forecast to occur with global climate change.

  • Icon for: Nanette Marcum-Dietrich

    Nanette Marcum-Dietrich

    Lead Presenter
    Teaching Environmental Sustainability - Model My Watershed
    May 13, 2015 | 09:47 a.m.

    Hi Kim!
    Thank you for your comment. The application has been successfully used with grades 7-graduate school!

    A team at Stroud Water Research Center is currently working on a “professional” version of the application. It is our hope that even the professional upgrades will be available to students.

    Also – we have the ability to track users’ actions. I like your suggestion to look at what modifications students choose to make. Thank you for sharing your ideas!
    Nanette

  • Icon for: Deborah Kariuki

    Deborah Kariuki

    Facilitator
    Computer Science Teacher
    May 13, 2015 | 02:26 a.m.

    I want to do this experiement, very interesting. I enjoyed watching this video and learning that this tool will be available in a variety of tools and not only on the school desktop computer. I want to play my watershed and find out how I too can conserve water by planning my own area of best practices of preventing too much runoff water. I am concern that major work went in to making a tool about one subject matter. Can it be modified to teach other skills in science, geography, or math? Usually a complete curriculum does not allow for teacher modification how will you ensure that many schools will buy into using this tool so that you can reach that 100% of school that can now use the technology which you stated was currently at 3% before the tool?

  • Icon for: Nanette Marcum-Dietrich

    Nanette Marcum-Dietrich

    Lead Presenter
    Teaching Environmental Sustainability - Model My Watershed
    May 13, 2015 | 09:50 a.m.

    Hi Deborah -
    Great questions! The current project does have a complete curriculum so that we can evaluate implementation across 5 difference pilot states. Teachers have the ability to modify the curriculum within the ITSI portal that was developed by the Concord Consortium. Also the Model My Watershed Application and the Water Tracker Probe ware can be used independently by teachers, students, citizens, etc. to explore their own watershed.

  • Icon for: Deborah Kariuki

    Deborah Kariuki

    Facilitator
    Computer Science Teacher
    May 14, 2015 | 06:32 a.m.

    Thanks Nanette, I look forward to seeing web application impact as it reachers across the country as it is relevant and just in time as many states rethink their water issues. Good to hear that classroom teacherw will have ability to modify the curriculum to make it relevant to the groups they are teaching.

  • Icon for: Nanette Marcum-Dietrich

    Nanette Marcum-Dietrich

    Lead Presenter
    Teaching Environmental Sustainability - Model My Watershed
    May 13, 2015 | 09:43 a.m.

    James –
    Your Mission HydroSci project sounds exciting. I will definitely look at the video!
    Nanette

  • Icon for: Dilafruz Williams

    Dilafruz Williams

    Professor, Director/Principal Investigator
    May 14, 2015 | 01:05 a.m.

    I found your watershed modeling web-application to be exciting especially because it provides a holistic perspective that enables students and citizens to simulate and visualize storm-water runoff and water quality. I was wondering whether there is opportunity for any teacher across various states to be able to use this model? Will you be able to collect cumulative data of usage?

  • Icon for: Nanette Marcum-Dietrich

    Nanette Marcum-Dietrich

    Lead Presenter
    Teaching Environmental Sustainability - Model My Watershed
    May 14, 2015 | 04:27 p.m.

    The application will be available for school or public use FREE of charge in June 2015. Using national data sets, the model is FULLY functional for the lower 48 states. Anyone in Charleston, WV to Knox, IN to Pike Creek, DE to Las Vegas, NV to…. can model the hydrology of their own neighborhood. Students who have used the application have compared it to SimCity. They claim, “It’s like SimCity for smart people!” But unlike SimCity, the application models REAL places, using REAL data & REAL models. It let’s people make REAL decisions about their neighborhoods. And we think that is REALLY exciting :) We hope you check it out in June 2015!

  • Further posting is closed as the showcase has ended.