Hands-On Laboratory Exercises for an Undergraduate Hydrogeology Course

The interdisciplinary nature of hydrogeology may create some difficulties for students, even at the introductory level, as they struggle to understand the interconnection between topics in geology, physics, chemistry, and, mathematics. Because hydrogeology includes field, experimental, and theoretical (mathematical modeling) activities, teaching hydrogeology presents unique challenges and requires an innovative approach. This paper describes hydrogeology laboratory exercises that undergraduate students could use to (1) obtain hands-on, practical experience of field data acquisition using appropriate instrumentation and (2) experience the ground-water investigation process from field data collection to data analysis (by hand or by computational methods) and final interpretation. Through the field, experimental, and computational exercises, students become familiar with water sampling, water-level mapping, aquifer-testing techniques and data analysis, stream gauging, flow-net construction, data visualization, and ground-water modeling. This broad training better prepares students for environmental employment.