Water Balance web-app, slides, and activities

This resource includes materials to introduce students in an introductory hydrology or earth science class to the concept of a water balance using active learning. Included are a short powerpoint presentation, a link to an interactive web app, and a set of example activities that use the web app. The web app, which runs well on a smartphone or desktop, runs a monthly Thornthwaite-type water balance for any of thousands of sites across the United States for either of two NOAA climate normals periods and presents the results in a series of plots. Once a site and period are chosen, users can make a variety of changes to the site data to run simulations. For example, users can change the available soil water capacity, latitude, precipitation, and/or temperature data for the site. Additionally, users can output the raw data from the app to use in external programs for additional analysis or plotting in more advanced courses. Three activities that explore the water balance using the app are included in the activities document. These are provided for direct use in classrooms, as sets of questions to chose from, or as inspiration for new activities. If you create additional activities that use the app, please let the authors know!