Projects Guidelines
Watershed
Project
Students will work in groups on this project. Groups should be chosen based upon experience
as the project requires work with GIS and creating graphics. You can choose to work on a sub-watershed of
7-Mile Creek watershed or a lake in the
Deadlines and Point Distributions
|
Date |
|
Pts |
|
Sept 14 |
Choose group members and project area |
|
|
Sept 21 |
Outline and data sources |
10 |
|
Oct 5 |
Presentation – 15 minute update with all data in graphical form |
30 |
|
Oct 12 |
Last day rough drafts will be accepted |
|
|
Oct 19 |
Poster Session |
50 |
|
Oct 20 |
Final Papers Due |
60 |
|
|
|
|
The purpose of this project is to gather relevant information about your
chosen watershed and summarize it for a group of local citizens who are
concerned about water quality. The group
of local citizens wants educated, realistic management decisions made
concerning their watershed and are looking to your group to provide the needed
information. There is no length
requirement, but 10 pages of text and at least as many figures would be a
minimum. The required sections of your report are listed below with suggestions
for appropriate information that you could include:
· Executive summary and recommendations – what are concrete action steps that the group of citizens could take, what are the potential benefits/costs of actions you are suggesting to take, what additional information should be collected
· Introduction and background
o maps of the watershed, soils, forests, land use etc (GIS experience may be helpful here as you could create your own maps)
o History – what has changed in your watershed over time, may set the context for discussing reasonable water quality objectives
o Unique projects in your watershed – ground water wells, Red Top Farm, conservation drainage, etc.
· Results and Discussion – in this section you summarize all water quality data, flow data, trends, economic analyses, modeling, data from unique projects, etc. for your watershed
o For 7-Mile Creek water quality data might include – flow, TSS, nitrates, phosphorus, coliforms, any biological data; land use data might include stream miles, tile miles, cropland area, wetland area, modeling of nitrate load reduction due to adding buffer strips, restoring wetlands, etc.
o For a lake the data might include historic data on dissolved oxygen, temp, phosphorus, nitrogen, chl-a, secchi depth, trophic status, fish and biological data
Style
A specific style is not required for the paper, but it must be consistent and be an accepted style. I recommend following the guidelines from the Gustavus library Environmental Studies section. Proper referencing is essential. I prefer the APA style, but will accept others. Rely on the guidelines at the library web site. I highly recommend using a program like EndNote or RefWorks for citing references and creating a bibliography.
Guidelines for giving an effective presentation