Problem-Based Learning as a Pedagogy for Individual Students -- Quantifying the Long-Term Effects of Land Subsidence and Rising Sea Levels in Coastal Areas for Greater Student Engagement

Course-based class discussions usually are limited to course syllabus and topics of lectures. If a discussion goes beyond course syllabus and the topics, usually there is a time constraint of class/lab periods, keeping educators and students from going deeper. Even without time constraints of class/lab settings, some students get engaged in the overall learning process more when they are challenged or tasked to solve a problem. This paper focuses on the pedagogical aspect of problem-based learning and its application for greater engagement of these students in quantifying the long term effects of land subsidence and rising sea levels in coastal or littoral areas. The effects of rising in sea levels get complicated over time when land subsidence is also considered. This is especially true when students are tasked to project the effect of combined effects over a long duration in future and create spatial layers of water inundation marking areas that will be under water in next couple of decades. The task was made even more challenging because it needed real data from government websites and it needed to be downloaded, processed, transformed and interpolated before it was used in a way that would result in a meaningful projection of seawater inundation over coastal land. It is hard to recruit students for this kind of learning unless it is a class or term project. Not many students usually take on for this kind of challenge to gain a better understanding of the concept and learn needed skills. However, if a spark of curiosity is provided, the task of recruiting gets easier this kind of non-course based but relevant learning. This kind of learning gets even more challenging when the student is a non-traditional undergraduate student. Cross (1980) defined the nontraditional student as an adult who returns to school full- or part-time while maintaining responsibilities such as employment, family, and other responsibilities of adult life. These students also may be referred to as adult students, re-entry students, returning students, and adult learners. This paper outlines the author’s experience in challenging a non-traditional student for problem-based learning. It also provides a detailed methodology that was followed by the student under author’s supervision and guidance for quantifying the long term effects of land subsidence and rising sea levels in coastal areas using data available at various government websites and Geographic Information System as a tool

Utility of Reading Assignments in Environmental Engineering Education for Effective Learning and Greater Student Engagement in an Era of Innovative Pedagogy and Emerging Technologies

Making teaching more effective has been a never-ending pursuit since the dawn of education. Engineering education is no exception to this. There have been numerous pedagogical advances making engineering education more effective. Most engineering majors, some more than others, have dedicated laboratories for hands-on learning of specific concepts and techniques. However, a major portion of teaching still takes places in classroom settings. Educators adopt various pedagogical practices, teaching-aids, and technologies to engage students in the controlled environment of classrooms. In ideal class settings, an instructor should be able to reach out to all students regardless of their learning styles. Introductory environmental engineering usually requires extra text-reading than other courses. The availability and quality of supplementary material have improved with time but the material is not comprehensive and still lack variety. Reading, especially long texts, usually is not the top priority for a typical engineering student for various reasons. Textbooks are a source of significant information and an engineering student must be able to read texts with an intent to learn, to locate specific information, to understand difficult ideas and to gain an overview of the concept. Moreover, environmental engineering students should prepare themselves for reading technical reports and papers once they enter their profession of environmental engineering. While there is a lot of information available about the importance of reading assignments in general, there is a significant lack of similar information in the context of engineering students, especially environmental engineering students. This paper tries to fill in this gap with a small group of students enrolled in an introductory environmental engineering class. The study focuses on students\u27 performance in the class with and without reading the assignments. It also summarizes and analyzes their experiences and responses to reading assignments which fall in one of the many categories such as too short, too long, too theoretical or too close to real-life situations. The class was a mix of traditional as well as non-traditional students. Students were also surveyed about self-reading versus assigned reading, and search-yourself versus given/pointed material. Lessons learned from this study and understanding students\u27 perspective on reading assignments has helped the author in implementing the reading assignments in other courses in a far better manner. However, the small sample size of the studied students was an issue in this study. The author plans to expand this study over multiple semesters and involve other courses of civil engineering and other engineering majors taught by fellow faculty. It is hoped that a larger sample size composed of students with varied background and majors would provide a better understanding

Studies on Use of Carbon Slurry, A Waste from Fertilizer Plant, in Treatment of Waste Water

Non biodegradable materials like heavy metals, refractory organics are not removed during the conventional treatment process. In order to meet the regulatory standards and for safe disposal, it is necessary to go for tertiary treatment. Various tertiary treatment methods include adsorption, membrane separation process, ultra filtration, reverse osmosis etc. Adsorption has been found to be efficient for the removal of most of heavy metals in waste water at lower concentrations. Activated carbon is commonly used adsorbents, however, due to its high cost and loss in regeneration, various low cost adsorbents have been investigated during recent years. The aim of the present work is to explore the possibility of utilizing carbon slurry, which is produced during partial oxidation of hydrocarbons, for the treatment of industrial waste water. In the present work carbon slurry has been used for the treatment of heavy metals like Cr(vi), Ni(ii), Zn(ii) which are present in fertilizer plant waste water. Carbon slurry has also been used for treatment of three industrial waste effluents from phenol formaldehyde resin, polyester plant and sugar industry. Proximate analysis, chemical analysis, particle size analysis, surface area determination, XRD and SEM studies were conducted for characterizing the carbon slurry. Batch studies were conducted to see the effect of contact time, adsorbent dose and initial concentration on removal of Cr(vi),Ni(ii) and Zn(ii). Equilibrium data were fitted in Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. Removal to the extent of 90% was achieved for Cr(VI), and 85% for Ni(II) and Zn(II) using carbon slurry as adsorbent. Hence carbon slurry has good adsorptive capacity for Cr(vi), Ni(ii) and Zn(ii). Kinetics of removal has also been presented, which shows that removal follows first order kinetics. Weber and Morris plot show that intra particle diffusion is the rate controlling step. Some studies on the competitive adsorption of heavy metals (Cr(vi),Ni(II) and Zn(II)) in multi cationic solutions have been carried out.lt is found that chromium is readily adsorbed in comparison to nickel and zinc in a waste water containing all three. Experiments were carried out for the removal of COD of waste water from polyester industry waste, phenol formaldehyde resin plant and sugar mill effluent and results show that carbon slurry is suitable substitute for activated carbon. Adsorption of Cr, Ni, Zn was found in the order Cr \u3e Zn \u3e Ni --Abstract, pages iii-iv

Spatial Delineation of Corrosion Zones for Metal Culverts Based on Coastal Louisiana Soil Characteristics

Corrosion of metal pipes used as culverts is a problem that affect many agencies directly involved in designing and maintaining these culverts. The corrosive environment of soil types found in a region could vary in a significant way (mildly corrosive to extremely corrosive) based on soil characteristics. Environmental conditions such as high water table, acidity and presence of various salts could make a soil corrosive to metal pipes. In this article, authors have applied a methodology of processing readily available soil data such as spatial distribution of soil types and soil characteristics (e.g. pH and conductivity) in delineating spatial corrosion zones in Coastal Louisiana. A combination of data, obtained from field surveys provided by the Louisiana Department of Transportation & Development and the Web Soil Survey Data provided by Natural Resources Conservation Service, were used to create an interpolated surface representing zones corrosive to metal culverts. The corrosion zones are classified based on expected service life spans of these culverts. The soil characteristics were incorporated in to previously established corrosion models to assess expected service life of metal culverts. Results suggest that about 80% area of the Coastal Louisiana is either highly corrosive or extremely corrosive resulting in expected service life of metal culverts 40 years or less

Regeneration of Exhausted Carbon Nano-Foam used in Desalination of Brackish Water

Carbon Nano-Foam (CNF) has been used electrochemically for water desalination. CNF electrodes attract oppositely charged ions flowing in between them and this process is known as Capacitive De-Ionization (CDI). Once saturated these electrodes lose electrochemical adsorption and need to be replaced, this increases the cost of the treatment process as CNF is expensive. The goal of this study is to obtain optimal regeneration and predictive capability by examining CNF electrodes during regeneration and developing a model to describe desorption behavior. Various experiments were conducted to explore the effect of shorting, changing polarity of electrodes, flow velocity of water over CNF electrodes and use of hot water on regeneration of CNF. Data collected during these tests was used for modeling regeneration behavior of CNF. HSDM model for kinetics of removal of ions and regeneration of CNF and Langmuir model for describing the equilibrium was seen best fit

Identifying Corrosion Zones in Coastal Regions for Metal Pipes -- A GIS Approach

Transportation agencies often allow metal pipes as an option for cross drains under/along roads and highways. Metal culverts can corrode over time at various rates based on their environmental conditions (e.g., corrosive nature of coastal soils, high water table and saltwater intrusion). This paper focuses on applying readily available soil data such as spatial distribution of soil types and soil characteristics (e.g., pH and conductivity) towards creating a geospatial information system (GIS) based approach to identifying corrosion zones in the coastal regions. A combination of data, obtained from field surveys provided by the Louisiana Transportation Research Center and Web Soil Survey Data provided by Natural Resources Conservation Service, were used to create an interpolated surface representing zones corrosive to metal culverts. The role of the soil characteristics was incorporated in to the previously established corrosion models in identifying zones that will cause corrosion causing conditions for metal pipes

Identification of Transportation Infrastructure at Risk Due to Sea Level Rise and Subsidence of Land in Coastal Louisiana

The coast of Louisiana is under threat because of sea level rise and land subsidence. Sea water is encroaching deeper inland and as a result Louisiana is losing at an alarming rate. The combined effect of sea level rise and land subsidence is variable spatially. This paper focuses on this combined effect in identifying the transportation infrastructure that is at risk of getting affected by the sea-water inundation of the land. This paper is an attempt of taking account of land elevation data monitored continuously at various locations along the coast of Louisiana and combining it with local sea level rise to arrive at the extent of land that will be lost because of rising sea water. GIS was used to process the collected data, put it in spatial format and identify the transportation infrastructure that is at risk for next 100 years, with 10-year increments starting from 2014. Open source data made available by federal agencies was processed using ArcGIS to develop spatial surfaces and intersect those surfaces with transportation data. The results suggest that land subsidence is having greater impact on transportation infrastructure than sea level rise. It is projected that by year of 3014, about 2,945 miles or 21% of the existing transportation infrastructure will be impacted because of the combined effect of land subsidence and rising sea level. This estimate does not take account of effectiveness of extensive levee system present in parts of coastal Louisiana

Performance of Carbon Aerogel/Fiber Paper as Capacitive Deionization Electrodes under Variable Operating Conditions

The capacitive deionization has garnered renewed interested with recent modifications resulting in efficient (energy and cost) alternatives to desalinate brackish water (salt concentration less than 10 g/L). Recent research efforts, to improve the technology, have been focused mainly on electrode material development and modifications of operational parameters for optimized performance. This research is focused on performance evaluation of carbon aerogel/fiber paper as capacitive deionization electrodes under variable operating conditions. The main operational parameters that were varied are applied voltage, influent temperature and initial concentration. The highest adsorption capacity achieved in this on-going study is 4.61 mg/g at 33.5 oC with NaCl solution of 300 mg/L initial concentration, at a rate of 12 mL/min flow rate and 1 V of applied DC voltage. The results obtained by varying operating conditions in this study will provide greater understanding on suitability of these electrodes in capacitive deionization based full-scale capacitive desalination plants

Electro-Kinetic Remediation Processes -- A Brief Overview and Selected Applications

In this growing world the need for in-situ remediation has grown importance for various reasons. In-situ remediation is the application of remediation in the subsurface – as compared to ex-situ remediation, which applies to media readily accessible above ground and many times involves excavation and disruption of the soil. In-situ remediation may be applied in the unsaturated/vadoze zone or in saturated soils and groundwater. Anthropogenic activities (municipal and industrial) have resulted in contamination in subsurface soil/water environment. There are several in-situ remediation methods for example bio-remediation, thermal desorption, soil vapor extraction, and soil flushing just to name a few. The situation where minimal disruption is required or preferred electro-kinetic remediation processes offer a unique solution for organic as well as inorganic pollutants. Electro-kinetic remediation is defined as a technique which uses electric current (DC) to remove pollutants from a medium. It has been effective in removing organic and inorganic contaminants from the soils

SPORT PRACTICES IN BIHAR AND UTTAR PRADESH: MAKING OF “SPORTS SOCIOLOGY” IN INDIA

States of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the focus of this investigation, is a geographical term used to describe the area of the India. This research is premised on the argument that the wealth and power exposure currently associated with sports in India, coupled with its status as one of the most coalescing features of Indian culture and society, presents it as a potentially powerful tool for development. As such, the broad aim is to explore trends and debates from the emerging ‘development through sport’ literature, as well as those from wider development theory, in the context of sports in India. This is challenging, as sports sociological studies here have yet to make a way