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!

本资源旨在通过主动学习的方式，向初学者介绍水文或地球科学课程中的水均衡概念。其中包含一份简短的PPT演示文稿、一个交互式网络应用程序的链接以及一系列使用该网络应用程序的示例活动。该网络应用程序能够在智能手机或桌面电脑上良好运行，对美国数千个地点在两个NOAA气候正常期中的任意一个进行每月的Thornthwaite型水均衡计算，并以一系列图表的形式展示结果。一旦选择了地点和时期，用户便可以对该地点的数据进行多种修改以运行模拟。例如，用户可以更改可用土壤水分容量、纬度、降水量和/或温度数据。此外，用户还可以将应用程序的原始数据输出，用于外部程序进行进一步分析或在更高级课程中进行绘图。活动文档中包含了三个探讨使用该应用程序进行水均衡的案例，这些案例可直接用于课堂，作为选择问题的集合，或作为设计新活动的灵感来源。如若您创建了使用该应用程序的额外活动，请通知作者。