An project-based course that brings state-of-the art research into the classroom sponsored by NSF

Flow Modeling - Particle Tracking - Transport Modeling -Mass balance Analysis - Calibration - Uncertainty Analysis and Stochastic Modeling

This is one of a sequence of NSF-sponsored environmental science and engineering courses that aim at  integrating the student's education and research roles, and stresses active, hands-on, and collaborative learning and practical problem solving skills and critical thinking abilities with less dependence on traditional lectures. Using the practical and engaging context of the high-profile superfund investigation at the groundwater contamination site in Woburn, MA, documented in the best seller and movie "A Civil Action", the course develops simultaneously students' problem solving skills and disciplinary knowledge bases by placing them in the active role of researchers and problem solvers confronted with ill-structured real -world situations. Students learn applied groundwater modeling by actually conducting a comprehensive model-based characterization study of the Woburn site.  Specifically, the class will be divided into several teams who act as consultants representing, respectively, the victims/local community and each of the potential responsible parties and provide expert witness for their respective "clients". Utilizing a state-of-the art groundwater modeling software developed at Portland State University under the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation, each consultant team will develop and calibrate a groundwater flow and contaminant transport model that can be used to characterize the complex  groundwater contamination site and address a series of focal problems surrounding the controversy regarding the fate and transport of the groundwater contaminants at the various  industrial sites in the vicinity of the City drinking wells.

The course involves  group work,  class debate, brainstorming, written report, and final oral defense on the groundwater flow and solute transport issues at the Woburn site. The instructor organizes and pilots this cycle of activity, and teaches groundwater modeling concepts, principles, and skills within that context.  The course will adopt performance-based evaluations that take as the object of assessment the final product or the groundwater model that students develop.  Specifically, students will be evaluated based on how well they can characterize the site given the limited data available and on how effectively they communicate and defend their results, findings, and the decision-making process to their client and the public (in this case it is the instructor and their peer students) both orally and in a formal technical report. The assessment tests the whole-system learning that emphasizes such activities as defining problems, making assumptions, testing hypothesis, developing strategies, trial and errors, evaluating data and data worth, detecting "signal" from seemingly random measurements, integrating sciences, constructing arguments, and debating conclusions.

The course is open to graduate and undergraduate students with some background in groundwater hydrology, especially to students from the Departments of Civil Engineering,  Environmental Sciences, and  Geology.

CE570, CRN 40371, Section 001, TTH 1600-1750, Winter 2001, Room SB2-148

Instructor: Dr. Shu-Guang Li, Department of Civil Engineering