The workshop deals with education and learning of Hydrogeology. Groundwater education requires a high degree of abstraction and a large variety of competencies, ranging from applied field and laboratory methods to quantitative analysis involving advanced mathematical and physical concepts. Accordingly, the workshop aims to deliver applied knowledge and experiences of innovative teaching methods and materials for hydrogeology, such as interactive documents, various types of assessments, and collections of books and videos. The workshop not only aims to share experiences but also intends to discuss ways of future cooperation to form larger pools of educational materials.
In the second part, the workshop will engage attendees and remote participants in an open discussion of ways forward in defining a community-wide core curriculum, delivering this curriculum, and using this common definition to better promote hydrogeology to potential students. Additionally, we intend to provide an online option to join the second part remotely.

The workshop is intended for people who have an interest in teaching and knowledge transfer in Hydrogeology. This includes all groups from student assistants to faculty. There is no specific knowledge required to attend the workshop.

Groundwater education requires a high degree of abstraction and a large variety of competencies, ranging from applied field and laboratory methods to quantitative analysis involving advanced mathematical and physical concepts. Worldwide, we are facing a problem with stagnant or declining enrollments and shrinking or disappearing programs. We see some related needs to address this problem. First, we need to come together as a community to define the core content of an MS curriculum – what should every MS graduate know? Then, we need to follow a wide range of approaches to deliver this content, ranging from traditional in-person programs to online education and everything in between to provide primary education and continuing education to serve the all student needs.
With a general tendency towards digitalization and media-enriched learning, groundwater education is rapidly evolving a large pool of innovative methods and didactics, such as interactive documents, videos, and electronic questions for various assessments. Combined with a philosophy of openness and accessibility, the quality and outreach of groundwater education can be enhanced. Despite wide acceptance of the promise of new ways of delivering content, our field needs leadership in developing open, collaborative, workable approaches to use these tools effectively in the service of a standard core curriculum.
The first part of the workshop will share applied knowledge about recent and innovative advances in groundwater education. We will introduce methods and workflows in a practical way so that attendees can easily incorporate them into their own teaching. The methods and materials that the workshop will cover comprise, for example, (1) interactive documents based on Jupyter Notebook, (2) electronic assessments with different platforms for classroom- and individual use, (3) instructional videos ranging from screencasts to laboratory and field demonstrations, (4) implementation of measured real-world field data for applied education, and more.
The second part of the workshop will engage attendees and remote participants in an open discussion of ways forward in defining a community-wide core curriculum, in delivering this curriculum, and in using this common definition to better promote hydrogeology to potential students. One concrete outcome of the workshop will be an electronic survey that will be open throughout the IAH conference to begin to gather information to form a common curriculum and to strategize approaches to deliver and promote it.

Attendees are not required to bring specific materials. However, a smartphone or tablet would be useful to experience the teaching materials in an applied way.

We will provide access to notes, teaching materials (open source), and further useful resources.