Faculty Dataset for Nitrogen biogeochemistry of headwater catchments underlain by discontinuous permafrost lesson plan

Students work with a large dataset describing nitrogendynamics in the Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watersheds,small watersheds in the boreal forest that are underlain withvarious extents of permafrost cover. Students use spreadsheetand graphics software to investigate responses of N cycling topermafrost, seasonal patterns, and inter-annual variation by 1)making observations concerning long (inter-annual) and short-term (seasonal) patterns in nutrient concentrations in streams, 2) hypothesizing about physical and biological conditions influencing nitrogen chemistry, and 3) testing predictions using graphical analyses. The first activity provides a guided approach to addressing a research question with the available data. Supplemental activities are inquiry-based and instructors can either specify analyses to perform or choose to allow students to gain experience with exploratory data analysis in more advanced courses.