Incorporating Student-Centered Approaches Into Catchment Hydrology Teaching: a Review and Synthesis

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 16, 3263–3278, 2012 www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/16/3263/2012/ Hydrology and doi:10.5194/hess-16-3263-2012 Earth System © Author(s) 2012. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Sciences Incorporating student-centered approaches into catchment hydrology teaching: a review and synthesis S. E. Thompson1, I. Ngambeki2,5, P. A. Troch3, M. Sivapalan4, and D. Evangelou2 1Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA 2School of Engineering Education, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA 3Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA 4Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA 5Global Policy Research Institute and Department of Technology, Leadership, and Innovation, College of Technology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA Correspondence to: S. E. Thompson ([email protected]) Received: 15 December 2011 – Published in Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss.: 13 January 2012 Revised: 20 August 2012 – Accepted: 22 August 2012 – Published: 13 September 2012 Abstract. As hydrologists confront the future of water 1 Introduction resources on a globalized, resource-scarce and human- impacted planet, the educational preparation of future gen- erations of water scientists becomes increasingly important. There is an increasing need to understand the dynamics of Although hydrology inherits a tradition of teacher-centered water resources as key determinants of development, hu- direct instruction – based on lecture, reading and assign- man and environmental health, and conflict and sustainabil- ment formats – a growing body of knowledge derived from ity (Gleick and Palaniappan, 2010; Postel and Wolf, 2001; engineering education research suggests that modifications United Nations Development Program, 2011). The context of to these methods could firstly improve the quality of in- the global water crisis provides a strong motivation for uni- struction from a student perspective, and secondly contribute versities to train cohorts of hydrological professionals who to better professional preparation of hydrologists, in terms can provide expertise in interpreting, predicting and manag- of their abilities to transfer knowledge to new contexts, to ing the dynamics of water in the 21st century. Sustainable frame and solve novel problems, and to work collabora- management of water resources is challenging for many rea- tively in uncertain environments. Here we review the theo- sons: the global nature of water scarcity, the complex inter- retical background and empirical literature relating to adopt- connections between hydrologic dynamics and a myriad of ing student-centered and inductive models of teaching and physical, biological, social and economic processes that take learning. Models of student-centered learning and their ap- place in catchments (Rockstrom et al., 2009; Vorosmarty et plications in engineering education are introduced by out- al., 2010; Crutzen and Stoemer, 2000), and the difficulties lining the approaches used by several of the authors to in- that global changes in climate and land use pose for predic- troduce student-centered and inductive educational strategies tion (Milly et al., 2008). In this context, the hydrologic com- into their university classrooms. Finally, the relative novelty munity needs to critically appraise the teaching of hydrol- of research on engineering instruction in general and hydrology, not only in terms of the content of hydrologic courses, ogy in particular creates opportunities for new partnerships but also in terms of the way that the subject is taught as it between education researchers and hydrologists to explore impacts the professional development of future hydrologists the discipline-specific needs of hydrology students and de- (Uhlenbrook and de Jong, 2012; Wagener et al., 2012). velop new approaches for instruction and professional prepa- The science of education research expanded significantly ration of hydrologists. during the latter half of the 20th century (Piaget, 1954; Smock, 1981; Zimmerman, 1981), with a specific focus on engineering education emerging in the past 10 yr (Shulman, Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 3264 S. E. Thompson et al.: Incorporating student-centered approaches into catchment hydrology teaching 2005). This body of research into how students learn, and this macroscopic approach the “external description” of the into the kinds of educational efforts that can promote desir- catchment. Both approaches have strengths and limitations: able educational outcomes offers a valuable resource to hy- the internal description perspective is challenging to apply drologists as they confront the challenge of evaluating and at large spatial scales, because natural systems are heteroge- reforming hydrology education. The revolution in hydrol- neous, contain complex forms of spatial and temporal orga- ogy teaching demanded by practitioners and commentators nization, and are usually impossible to completely observe; is broadly reflected in discussions surrounding the future of while methods based on external descriptions are difficult to science and engineering education (Rugarcia et al., 2000). extrapolate to different places or different times. The aim of this paper is to provide a summary of some There are many traditional tools that are used to make hy- of the theoretical developments in educational research that drological predictions from both perspectives (e.g., flood fre- are pertinent to the teaching of hydrology, to illustrate these quency analysis, rational method, US-SCS curve numbers, concepts with hydrological examples, and to review our at- unit hydrograph approaches, Green and Ampt infiltration tempts to apply these developments in our own classrooms equation). These tools have strengths and are often embed- and within targeted hydrology summer schools. Despite the ded in standard approaches for hydrological prediction, but expansion of engineering education research, there remains are also subject to limitations (Wagener, 2007; Beven, 1993), a dearth of research specifically targeting hydrology educa- which may be exaggerated under scenarios of land use and tion, meaning that we have relied largely on anecdotal ac- climate change (Sivapalan et al., 2003; Milly et al., 2008). counts when discussing hydrological examples, and on ex- As human activity increasingly drives hydrological dynam- amples from the broader literature to provide empirical data. ics, hydrologists are also forced to confront the interaction of The only clear way to overcome these limitations is to en- natural and engineered systems, and of water resource man- gage upon a program of educational research within hydrol- agement decisions on the dynamics of the hydrological cycle, ogy, and the paper concludes with a discussion of where the in effect expanding the domain of the discipline as a whole opportunities for such research might lie. (Gupta et al., 2000). Numerous calls have been made to the To avoid confusion between different disciplinary foci hydrology community to alter its perspectives from a “busi- within hydrology, the paper primarily addresses educational ness as usual” model to one which can respond to the chal- issues associated with teaching catchment hydrology at an lenges posed by global change (Gupta et al., 2000; Dooge, upper undergraduate–graduate level. The arguments may 1986, 1988; Torgersen, 2006; Hooper, 2009; Uhlenbrook and therefore reflect the perspectives of catchment hydrologists, de Jong, 2012; Wagener et al., 2012). but we hope that they will prove relevant to teaching and This emerging perspective in many ways requires a unifi- learning across multiple hydrological sub-disciplines. cation of the internal and external approaches. It challenges students to generate new knowledge, expertise and experiences that represent a synthesis of process knowledge and 2 Hydrology graduates: traditional requirements and knowledge gained from interpreting data relating to hydro- modern challenges logical response directly at the catchment scale. Hydrology education must provide students with the abil- Lying at the interfaces of many disciplines and perspec- ity to approach the hydrological prediction problem from tives, there are multiple dimensions to knowing and under- both perspectives, and provide experiences to gain the depth standing catchment hydrology (Wagener et al., 2010; Vo- of understanding to synthesize the knowledge derived from gel, 2011). The working definition of a catchment hydrol- each one. Comprehending this level of complexity, and the ogist for our purposes is someone who is engaged in the duality of the ways to conceptualize hydrological processes, quantitative study of the terrestrial water cycle at the scale requires higher-order, reflective, metacognitive and critical of individual catchments (Wagener et al., 2004). Two op- thinking skills – skills that are increasingly identified across posing approaches to conceiving catchment hydrology can multiple scientific and engineering disciplines as the core el- be outlined: the first based on the application of fundamen- ements of professional competence (Lenschow, 1998). tal physical laws – specifically the conservation of energy, Future hydrological scenarios are characterized by uncer- mass and momentum – within boundary conditions set by tainty, associated with non-stationarity, human influences, the natural

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