Subsections

• Organizational Meeting
• Syllabus
• Textbook
• Grading
• Graduate Section
  • Persuasive Writing

Course Organization

Organizational Meeting

The first class meeting (Aug. 25th, 1:00pm) will be dedicated to an organizational meeting, at which time a general outline of the class topics, and any desired changes in lab or lecture schedule will be discussed. The laboratory portion of the class consists of two 1-day field trips to a local field site to make hydrogeologic measurements.

Syllabus

Table 1: Course Syllabus.

Week	Date	Text Chapters	Topic
0	Aug. 25	-	Organizational Meeting
1	Aug. 30, Sep. 1	1	The Importance of Hydrogeology
2	Sept. 1, 6	2	Hydrologic Cycle: Measurement & Quantification
3	Sept. 8	2	Hydrologic Cycle (cont.)
4	Sept. 13, 15	2	Streamflow/Baseflow
5	Sept. 20, 22	3	Aquifer Properties
FT1	Sat. Sept. 24		Field Trip: Surface Water Measurements
6	Sept. 27, 29	3	Aquifer Properties (cont.)
7	Oct 4,6	4	Darcy's Law, Principles of Flow
8	Oct.11, 13	4	No class (GSA), Regional Flow
9	Oct. 18, 20	4	Regional Groundwater Flow, Flow Nets
10	Oct. 25, 27	7-8	Flow Nets, Mid-Term
11	Nov. 1, 3	9	Well Hydraulics
FT2	Sat. Nov. 6		Field Trip: Groundwater Measurements
12	Nov. 8, 10	10	Unsaturated Flow, Water Quality/Water Chemistry
13	Nov. 15, 17	11	Water Quality/Water Chemistry (cont.)
14	Nov. 22, 24	11	Chemical Transport/Modeling
15	Nov. 29, Dec. 1		Climate Change Hydrology
16	Dec. 10 11am Saturday		Final Exam

Textbook

The course textbook will be Applied Hydrogeology by C. W. Fetter (see Publisher's Description ). The author's textbook website has useful problem solutions and example material.

Grading

Course grades for undergraduates determined using the following weights: 60% homework, 20% midterm, 20% final. For graduates the following weights will be used: 50% homework, 15% midterm, 15% final, 20% research paper.

Graduate Section

The graduate section (GEOS 5310) will meet in concert with the undergraduate section (including field trips), but in addition registrants will be required to prepare, submit, and present to the class a research paper (see Syllabus section 1.2 for deadlines). Possible topics include the following:

1. Hydrologic Impact of Mountain Top Removal Mining Techniques. Useful links: West Virginia Environmental Org. website
2. UNDEP report on international availability of water

Advice on persuasive writing is widely available on the Internet. Here are a few places to start:

• Persuasive Writing
• Paragraph Structure

A detailed outline of the paper is due Oct. 13th, first draft due Nov. 10th, final draft due on the last day of class (Dec. 1st).

Persuasive Writing

Here is my own list of Do's and Don'ts for persuasive writing:

• Motivate your reader. Explain the significance of your topic in the first few sentences so the reader knows why its worth reading more.
• Remain focused: omit extra details, such as climate of neighboring regions. Report only the information needed for your immediate topic.
• Organize paragraphs: each paragraph should start with its own statement of purpose, and the following lines should justify or explain that statement. If your reader knows why the paragraph is important, they'll know what is worth remembering and why.
• Don't make the reader do all the work. Don't list a number of facts, and then make a bald statement loosely based on them. A good writer will carefully craft an argument, leading the reader along, pointing out how each fact/sentence fits into the argument.