A compendium of online teaching material for hydrology and water resources

Abstract:

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us are in the same situation: all of a sudden ‘pivoting’ to online teaching, which is probably better called ‘emergency remote teaching’ since few of us have the background, training, and resources to purposefully develop online courses. Fortunately, this response has also catalyzed the open sharing of educational resources to support fellow instructors and their students in our community. Here I discuss the emerging resource of a compendium of videos, websites, games, and articles for a wide variety of hydrology and water resources classes. The compendium will encourage students to a) get course content from diverse sources, voices, and perspectives; b) relate course content to their lives; and c) practice course content in different, engaging ways. The quality and veracity of content online are hugely variable, but we are striving to only reference ‘quality’ sources (in quotes because we know this is relative and subjective) such as universities and governmental organizations while balancing this with also striving to find content that students can relate to. The compendium started by following the outline of CIVE 340 at the University of Victoria – a required 3rd-year civil engineering course starting and ending with water sustainability, with a core of hydrology. This class will be fully online in the fall, and the online material will be used in both synchronous classes and asynchronous student-led activities. The presentation will discuss the compendium and lessons learned during the first term of its use.