ABSTRACT:

This dataset contains stream bed material size distributions for 39 stream reaches along 12 streams in and near Cuyahoga County, Ohio. All data were collected using the Wolman pebble count technique (Wolman, 1954), in either transect or zig-zag forms (Bunte and Abt, 2001). Data were collected between 2016 and 2023 over the course of several projects.

ABSTRACT:

This resource contains the survey questions, compiled results, and code for Fisher's exact test, as associated with the following manuscript:

"Faculty Perspectives on a Collaborative, Multi-Institutional Online Hydrology Graduate Student Training Program" by Anne J. Jefferson, Steven P. Loheide, and Deanna H. McCay.
Submitted to Frontiers in Water, in the research topic: “Innovations in Remote and Online Education by Hydrologic Scientists", May 2022

Abstract:
The CUAHSI Virtual University is an interinstitutional graduate training framework that was developed to increase access to specialized hydrology courses for graduate students from participating institutions. The program was designed to capitalize on the benefits of collaborative teaching, allowing students to differentiate their learning and access subject matter experts at multiple institutions, while enrolled in a single course at their home institution, through a framework of reciprocity. Although the CUAHSI Virtual University was developed prior to the covid-19 pandemic, the resilience of its online education model to such disruptions to classroom teaching increases the urgency of understanding how effective such an approach is at achieving its goals and what challenges multi-institutional graduate training faces for sustainability and expansion within the water sciences or in other disciplines. To gain faculty perspectives on the program, we surveyed water science faculty who had served as instructors in the program, as well as water science faculty who had not participated and departmental chairs of participating instructors. Our data show widespread agreement across respondent types that the program is positive for students, diversifying their educational opportunities and increasing access to subject matter experts. Concerns and factors limiting faculty participation revolved around faculty workload and administrative barriers, including low enrollment at individual institutions. If these barriers can be surmounted, the CUAHSI Virtual University has the potential for wider participation within hydrology and adoption in other STEM disciplines.

ABSTRACT:

When Kent State “pivoted to online” in mid-March, I was about half-way through my Watershed Hydrology class. For context, this class typically has about 20-25 undergraduate students, from geology, environmental studies, and conservation biology majors, and about 5-8 graduate students from geology and geography. I use the first part of the Brooks et al “Hydrology and the Management of Watersheds” textbook, which students have access to as an e-book through the Kent State library, but I don’t rely heavily on assuming the students are reading it.

When we went online, I decided to use an asynchronous approach so that students could work through the material at times that worked best for them, and then use class time for “online office hours” where students could optionally come and get help with concepts and problem sets. I used a mix of videos I created and those by others, blog posts I wrote and existing web pages to support their learning. I wrote out learning objectives for each unit (~1 week of material) and created a multiple choice quiz that they could take 2 times to check their understanding of the material. Each week the students also had to a problem set tied to the concepts of the unit, but I made those deadlines soft, recognizing that it would be easy for students to get overwhelmed with everything going on during this turbulent semester.

We start the semester talking about the topographic definition of watersheds and water and energy balances. Then we spend the rest of the semester working our way through the water cycle, starting with precipitation and evapotranspiration. So by mid-March, we were in the midst of discussing soil moisture and just moving into infiltration. Because of the disruption associated with moving online, I essentially just started the unit over when classes resumed. Following that material, I had fully online units on streamflow generation, streamflow, and floods.

This resource provides documents linking to the online resources, organized by topic. The actual online resources are hosted elsewhere.