WHAT UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS KNOW ABOUT SURFACE AND GROUNDWATER FLOW

Abstract

The emergence of smart technology has given rise to classroom response systems that offer instructors quick access to students’ understanding. Recently, this technology has been used to explore student understanding of introductory-level geological concepts using click-on-diagram (COD) response-style questions. The current study extends this line of research and investigates student conceptions of groundwater and surface water flow. Participants were predominantly undergraduate non-science majors enrolled in an introductory geology course at one Midwest and one Canadian university. Course instructors presented a set of six diagram-based questions where students were asked to make a prediction. Students were shown plan view river channel diagrams (straight and curved channels) and a cross-sectional diagram of the subsurface and landscape with a house and septic tank (source of pollution). They answered by clicking on the diagram in response to a prompt. When shown the river channel diagrams, students were asked to predict the location of the greatest erosion and fastest water speed. When shown the cross-sectional landscape diagram, students were asked where the pollution from the septic tank would end up after either 1 month or several months. Results of the study showed robust misconceptions related to water velocity and erosion, especially for curved river channels. Approximately 40% of students misidentified the inside of a river bend as having the highest level of erosion. Misconceptions were found related to pollution transport as well, with approximately one-third of students correctly selecting a location within a plume which accounted for both gravity and topography (i.e. local groundwater flow). This study demonstrates that a substantial portion of incoming undergraduate students do not reason about surface and groundwater flow using accurate physical principles. Future work will further investigate the sources of errors or alternative reasoning behind student’s answers to the questions in this study.