Integrating a real-time environmental monitoring lab into university and community college courses

• Autores: Walter M. McDonald, Daniel S. Brogan, Vinod K Lohani, Randel L. Dymond, Richard L. Clark
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 31, no. 4, 2015, págs. 1139-1157
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The Learning Enhanced Watershed Assessment System (LEWAS) is a high-frequency, real-time environmentalmonitoring lab on the Virginia Tech campus that supports watershed research and education. Student-centered modulesthat incorporate hands-on activities and LEWAS data have been implemented into a senior level hydrology course at VT(30 students) and several freshman level introductory engineering courses at Virginia Western Community College (73students). A multi-loop assessment plan demonstrates how researchers at a large public university can collaborate withcommunity college faculty to improve assessment methods and classroom module development. Assessment results showstudent learning gains through active and collaborative LEWAS-based learning modules. A pilot test of a LEWAS-basedinteractive online educational tool called the Online Watershed Learning System (OWLS), which allows students to accessreal-time data, virtually explore the LEWAS watershed, and examine case studies, has also produced results that indicatethat student learning improves through virtual access to real-time and historical watershed data.