Piloting an Interdisciplinary Watershed Field Camp

流域是地质、水文和生态景观的重要特征。它们是解决许多令人烦恼的社会问题的景观规模管理决策的基本单位，包括侵蚀控制、雨水管理、污染物运输和水资源开发。通常，对流域的研究以及对流域科学学生和教育工作者的培训是分散的，地质学家研究侵蚀，水文学家收集流量数据，生态学家监测社区，工程师设计修复策略。受过特定学科训练的学生往往只看到问题的一部分，或者只看到描述称为流域的复杂自然系统的一种方法。鉴于流域的科学和社会重要性，pi将开发、测试、完善和实施一种新的、不同的方式来培训自然科学和科学教育专业的本科生以及科学教育者：为期四周的跨学科流域实地营，提出现实生活中的问题，学生们将在一系列报告中回答这些问题。营地将采用一种基于地点的模式，结合密集的住宿学习社区，这是一种在实地教授地质学的成功方法。然而，我们的方法将与这种教育传统不同，我们将整合来自各种流域相关科学学科的教师教学团队，包括地质学、水文学、工程学和生态学。我们给学生提出的问题，以及他们创造的解决方案，都需要跨学科的整合。威努斯基河流域是野外营地的所在地，从阿巴拉契亚山脉的高山山峰一直延伸到尚普兰湖的城市化低地边缘，为培养湿温带流域系统的学生提供了理想的样带。学生们将跨越海拔和人类影响的连续体，从成对的高海拔山区盆地开始，沿着支流和主要干流进入湖泊。每4周，学生将花3.5天在实地，1天在实验室，1.5天整理他们的数据。他们将学习具体的数据收集技能：使用传统的纸张和最先进的GPS工具进行景观和地质制图；现场和实验室的流量、水质、物性和地球化学数据采集；利用各种代理数据进行生态评估。更高层次的综合技能将通过撰写和修改报告得到完善。通过与各种流域专业人员的反复非正式接触，将扩大广度和背景。

Watersheds are a key feature of the geologic, hydrologic, and ecologic landscape. They are the fundamental unit in which many landscape-scale management decisions regarding vexing societal problems are addressed including erosion control, storm water management, contaminant transport, and water resource development. Typically, the study of watersheds and the training of watershed-science students and educators are fragmented with geologists addressing erosion, hydrologists gathering flow data, ecologists monitoring communities, and engineers designing remediation strategies. Students trained in specific disciplines often see only one part of a problem or one approach to characterizing the complex natural systems called watersheds. Given the scientific and societal importance of watersheds, The PIs will develop, test, refine, and implement a new and different way of training undergraduate natural science and science education students as well as science educators: a four-week interdisciplinary watershed field camp that poses real-life questions that the students will answer in a series of reports. The camp will use a place-based model incorporating an intensive residential learning community, long a successful method of teaching geology in the field. However, our approach will depart from this education tradition in that we will incorporate faculty instructional teams from a variety of watershed-germane science disciplines including Geology, Hydrology, Engineering, and Ecology. The problems we pose to students, and the solutions they create, will require integration across disciplinary boundaries. The Winooski River watershed, home to the field camp, stretches from the alpine peaks of the Appalachian Mountains to the urbanized, lowland margins of Lake Champlain, providing an ideal transect for training students in humid-temperate watershed systems. Students will work across a continuum of elevation and human impact beginning in paired high-altitude, mountain basins and working down tributaries and the main stem river to the lake. For each of 4 weeks, students will spend 3.5 days in the field, 1 day in the lab, and 1.5 days collating their data. They will learn specific data collection skills: landscape and geologic mapping using both traditional paper and state-of-the-art GPS tools; flow, water quality, physical property, and geochemical data acquisition both in the field and in laboratory; and ecological assessment using a variety of proxy data. Higher-level, integrative skills will be refined by report writing and revision. Breadth and context will be augmented by repeated informal exposure to a variety of watershed professionals.