Illinois State Water Survey: Day 1
Groundwater & Meteorology
Champaign, IL
UMS WaterWorks students visited the Illinois State Water Survey in a multi day field in September 2005. In day 1 of the two day trip, students learned about groundwater from groundwater hydrologist Ken Hlinka. They learned about how an aquifer is formed, what the characteristics of a "good" aquifer are, how to withdraw water from an aquifer, how groundwater moves, and how it is contaminated. Students then had a chance to sample from monitoring wells on the ISWS property using special devices used to measure water levels and withdraw samples for testing.
Students were also exposed to the array of metrological instruments used by the ISWS to collect climatological data for our region. State Climatologist Jim Angel taught the students about rain gauges, official high and low thermometers, solar radiation meters, hail detectors, pan evaporation ponds, and wind anemometers. The students now know where the "official" high and low temperatures are recorded for Champaign-Urbana.
(Left) UMS WaterWorks visits the ISWS (Mary LaFaivre shown with the class); (Right) Groundwater hydrologist Ken Hlinka teaches the students about aquifers
(Left) Students learn about monitoring wells and automatic data recorders; (Right) Strip chart recorder plotting the water level in the monitoring well
(Left) Students practice measuring the water level in a test well; (Right) Students take samples of well water for quality sampling
(Left) Emptying the sampling device into a container; (Right) State Climatologist Jim Angel teaches the students about measuring evaporation
(Left) Learning about data logging rain gauges; (Right) The low-tech hail detector (styrofoam covered with aluminum foil)
(Left) Learning about the "old" official high and low thermometers for Champaign; (Right) Examining the new thermistors for measuring the official temperatures in Champaign