CHARACTERIZATION AND TRAINING OF SPATIAL SKILLS IN HYDROGEOLOGY TO IMPROVE THE PREPARATION OF HYDROGEOLOGISTS RESPONDING TO CHANGING WATER RESOURCES

Public demand for clean and sustainable water sources drives the need for skilled hydrogeologist who specialize in surface and subsurface water flow. Hydrogeologists must integrate three-dimensional data from maps, wells, field sites, and geologic models to predict the movement of water through the subsurface. Research in other STEM disciplines has shown that targeted training of relevant spatial thinking skills can improve student persistence and retention, especially among women and students of color. Because the specific spatial thinking skills relevant to practicing hydrogeology have not yet been documented, best practices to inform hydrogeology curricula are lacking. This situation hampers efforts to train students for careers in hydrogeology and our response to the need for clean and sustainable water. Our project seeks to identify and characterize the specific spatial thinking skills and knowledge that hydrogeologists use when solving water and contaminant flow problems, and to understand how students use (or do not use) these skills when learning hydrogeology in the classroom. Characterizing these skills is a critical first step toward creating curricular materials that will improve the preparation of diverse and capable hydrogeologists ready to respond to the challenges of a changing world. This presentation will present our work and findings from the first year of our project and focus on characterization of spatial thinking skills relevant to practicing hydrogeology using data collected from expert hydrogeologists from government, consulting, industry, and academia.