1. Community Tools and Support for Data Driven Education
Earth Educators' Rendezvous 2016
Jon Pollak
Program Manager, CUAHSI

2. What is CUAHSI?
Non-profit funded by the National Science Foundation with over 100 member institutions. We represent the university water research community
Mission: To shape the future of hydrologic science by:
Strengthening multidisciplinary collaboration,
Developing and operating research infrastructure,
Promoting water education and training
Community Governed

3. CUAHSI’s Data Services
Mission is to enable water data publication and reuse
NSF Data Management Plans
Data-Driven Education
Web applications for publishing & accessing data
We are in the process of developing a website on SERC
Why use real data?
Students may better understand scientific concepts if they are demonstrated through data generated from observations in a place they are familiar with
Students can learn what challenges exist when doing “real” research
Data scarcity
Interpreting metadata

4. Tools and Data Availability
Time Series Environmental Data
Data Sources
U.S. Federal Agencies (e.g. USGS, NOAA, NASA, EPA)
Academic projects
Non-profit watershed groups
International governments and projects
HydroClient (data.cuahsi.org) – web application for data access
WaterML R Package – an R package for accessing and analyzing data

5. HydroClient – data.cuahsi.org

6. Plotting Air Temperature with R
require(WaterML) require(ggplot2) USGS <- " AirTemp <-GetValues(USGS,"NWISDV: ","NWISDV:00020DataType=MEAN",startDate = " ", endDate=" ") g <- ggplot(AirTemp, aes(x=AirTemp$time, y = AirTemp$DataValue)) + geom_point(aes(color = AirTemp$DataValue))

7. Example Lesson: Hypothetical Water Supply Complaint Investigation
Investigate 3 scenarios where methane has been detected in stream water in PA
Use HydroClient to discover and analyze data collected by the Shale Network Research Coordination Network and published with CUAHSI
Use additional tools: DEP’s PA Oil and Gas Mapping Tool and the Exploration and Development Web Information Network (EDWIN) to look up well locations and well permits that are near the sites discovered in HydroClient
Assess whether any of the streams may be contaminated by oil or gas wells nearby
Audience: Students, Citizen Scientists, Federal Agency Employees, University Researchers
Teaches about three different sources of methane in surface water.
These tools can be used for teaching many different types of audiences.

8. Search for and Download Methane Data
Use HydroClient to search for and download methane data collected by Shale Network in three different areas of PA and analyze metadata to find the location with highest values in each area:
Plum Run, Washington County
Highest Methane Concentration: 5.28 (µg/l)
Latitude/longitude: (40.258, )
Moshannon Creek, Phillipsburg
Highest Methane Concentration: 24.5 (µg/l)
Latitude/longitude: (40.905, )
Sugar Run, Lycoming County
Highest Methane Concentration: 17.5 (µg/l)
Latitude/longitude: ( , )

9. Combine Data Tools to Further Research
Use important metadata discovered with HydroClient to investigate nearby Oil and Gas Wells using the PA Oil & Gas Mapping Tool and EDWIN
spatial analysis to see what may have caused high values
Sugar Run, Lycoming County
Unconventional Well Development nearby stream
Violations recorded for defective casing and cementing

10. Interpreting Research and Drawing Conclusions
In this activity participants learned about three different sources of methane:
Plum Run: nearby conventional leaky legacy gas well
Sugar Run: nearby unconventional leaky gas well
Black Moshannon: nearby bog that emits gas
Just showed you #2 as an example, but here is a summary of the 3 sources of methane- not all from unconventional leaky wells

11. How you can get involved
Full-time staff available to help you:
Integrate CUAHSI tools to modify existing exercises to include real data from the USGS, NOAA, other government agencies, and university researchers in your curriculum
Publish your data sets with CUAHSI so your students can access and analyze your data
Modules developed are being posted to a website hosted by Carleton College’s Science Educational Resource Center (SERC) for Data Driven Hydrology Education
Submit an abstract to the CUAHSI Data-Driven Education Session at AGU 2017: Tools and Methods for Data Driven Education in the Water Sciences

12. Summary
CUAHSI exists to support the academic community in water related research and education
Our data services and resources can help you integrate real data into your classroom
We are seeking collaborators to share data-driven educational activities through SERC
We also seek feedback on our tools so that we can make them better!
Please contact us if you want to get involved or have any questions: