We want to live in a world that uses groundwater sustainably. What about you?
What do I teach?
I teach in the Department of Civil Engineering which focuses on sustainability and interdisciplinary, project-based learning - that's a mouthful but it is actually true! At the undergraduate level, I teach in geomatics engineering (cive 299; fall) and sustainable water resources (cive 340; fall). At the senior undergraduate and graduate level, I teach groundwater hydrology (cive 445-545; winter) which has a prerequisite of CIVE 440. Grad students can be take a rich variety of other related courses from Terry Prowse (Geography/Environment Canada), Oliver Brandes (POLIS Water Sustainability), Michelle Lee-Moore (Geography), Caterina Valeo (Mech), and others in the Water and Climate Research Impacts Research Center or the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium.
How do I teach?
Experimenting with innovative teaching approaches & sharing the results
​I experiment with all kinds of ideas including gallery walks or a town hall meeting in large classes, an interuniversity graduate class and playing games. I share these ideas through the blog posts on teaching.
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Explaining how groundwater flows like a hula hula song in an active learning classroom.
Encouraging problem-solving and the development of professional skills
​I encourage problem-solving through engineering and/or research group projects in classes which also practice professional skills like technical writing, peer-review, referencing and presenting.
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Poster advertisement for an in-class, student-led mini-conference.
Promoting active learning in the classroom
​I promote active learning in a number of ways including using student response systems (usually clickers) to conduct conceptests (see website description), jigsaws (see website description), weekly ‘water in the news’ updates and in-class discussions.  And we get out of the classroom for field trips and other exercise…
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Students carrying a fraction of their annual water footprint in the #walkmywaterfootprint ‘exercise’.
Resources for other teachers
I am more than happy to share any of the materials or ideas I have developed for teaching. I blog about things I try in the classroom on waterunderground but email me if there is something specific that might be useful to you.
Videos of physical aquifer experiments ...
Amazing stuff by students
Grad student term research projects
Students in my grad classes conduct original research involving numerical modeling, data compilation or a critical review paper. Some of these even end up as peer-reviewed articles, not related to their thesis work. Here are a selection to inspire future students and show how manuscripts can evolve...
  • Mark Ranjram (fall 2013) compiled data on how permeabilty changes with depth crystalline rocks which evolved into this Geofluids article.
  • Hauke Blaken and Leila Pike (fall 2013) modeled how storm surges can lead to saltwater intrusion in barrier islands.
  • Amir Niazi (winter 2013) developed a new method for conjunctively managing water in arid regions using artificial groundwater recharge which was modified into this article in Water.
  • Claire Gassiat (winter 2012) modeled groundwater age in layered aquifer systems, accidentily finding consistent old age zone which turned into an article in Geophysical Research Letters.
Undergraduate student research videos