Many of the instructional units will be quantitatively demanding, and require manipulation of large amounts of data. For the surface-water exercises, most of the calculations will be conducted using spreadsheets. Specific skills to be practiced are described below. Users may choose to access the data repository directly or work with instructional problem sets. Problems will also require access to the data repository.
Elevation is represented by color shading, streams by blue lines, and drill holes by red dots.
Much more data will be available through the ITD that will be utilized directly by the problem sets, as the ITD is intended to be both a repository of data and an educational device. Specific subsets of data will be used in the provided problem sets, but instructors will be able to build their own lessons using the entirety of the Mirror Lake watershed data. Detailed hydrologic budget data will be available only for the Mirror Lake watershed, but broader hydrologic information for the entire Hubbard Brook Valley will also be available, so that the student will get a sense of the how the calculated results fit into the hydrology of the Hubbard Brook Valley, and ultimately the local ecology. This approach is intended to prepare the student for a scientific career, in which a successful scientist must develop a detailed knowledge of a specific area while maintaining a general working knowledge of many related areas of expertise. Because the much more data will be available than is used in the exercises, instructors will be free to expand upon the exercises provided in the ITD to fit their specific pedagogical needs.