Category Archives: teaching

Measuring actual evapotranspiration with weighing lysimeters

Weighing lysimeters are one of the very best ways of measuring the actual evapotranspiration from a small area of land, because they use mass balance (i.e., changing weight) to give us the combined total of plant transpiration, soil evaporation, and interception losses over time. Continue reading

Categories: by Anne, hydrology, teaching

Measuring precipitation: radar and satellite based measurements

…the vexing problem is figuring out how well that point measurement represents a broader area of interest. So in this post, I want to focus on technologies that look to the sky to provide data on the intensity of precipitation occurring over broader areas. Continue reading

Categories: by Anne, hydrology, teaching

Measuring precipitation: rain gauges and point precipitation data sources

As watershed hydrologists, we care a lot about precipitation, especially when it reaches the land surface (or the vegetation just above it). Precipitation is the dominant input to our water balances and a major driver of streamflow and water table … Continue reading

Categories: by Anne, hydrology, teaching

Simulating radioactive decay

3.8 billion years! 4 billion years! 4.4 billion years! 4.57 billion years! When discussing the age of the Earth in introductory geology, I think it is important for students to know at least the basic principles of where these ages … Continue reading

Categories: deep time, geology, science education, teaching

2017 in Review

Not much may have made it onto the blog, but it’s been a busy year for both Anne and Chris in 2017. Here’s a brief summary of what we’ve been up to – with pretty pictures where appropriate. Continue reading

Categories: academic life, bloggery, by Anne, publication, teaching