"Teaching winter geohydrology at the University of Vermont using frozen

lakes and snowy mountains" by Gran et.al. describes two winter projects

that utilize winter conditions to investigate two unique aspects of

hydrology. First is the using frozen lakes to investigate pond hydrology

and paleohydrology through the use of bathemetry and the extraction of a

sediment core. The second project investigates winter hydrology by

investigating the snow pack on a mountain. From this data many the

students can investigate hypothetical scenarios that could lead to

devastating springtime flooding.

This paper is well written and refined. There are only a few confusing

sentences that are mentioned below. The paper is well organized and

should provide enough information for winter based hydrogeology teachers

to implement a course that utilizes projects similar to these. The

figures are complete, clear, and concise.

I think this paper should be published after addressing the few minor

details listed below.

1) Is this web address the same after the server crash?

2) We have a grad from the Civ. Engineering dept. this year also.

3) Should you just generalize this statement as the web page will continue

to show ponds further and further from Vermont?

4) "situated between hills with relief of 200 to 300 m

5) Paragraph 3 should be up closer to paragraph 1. As you have it now you

go from general topic sentence in p1 to specific topic sentence p2

(Richmond Pond) to general topic sentence again in p3.

6) Scratch this paragraph it just repeats what you will describe in more

detail in the methods section.

7) Do you need a reference here? Might make life easier than having to

explain how to do LOI.

8) We now have a C14 date. How are you going to incorporate this into the

text? Are you going to model accumulation rates? We still cant determine

when the fluctuations occurred though.

9) I think we should mention something about color of layers as it

pertains to inorganic horizons. It may be that obvious but it is still

definitely worth mentioning because the correlation shows up in figure 5

and color is the strongest visual aid. Which reminds me should we mention

something about grain size also? Even though we did not do this, it is

definitely something that could be done in a class setting.

10) Can we think of a better lead in sentence? This one is kind of blah.

Wow it is much easier to criticize than to write.

11) What is the importance of this?

12) Too long of a sentence. If you can make it cutesy but shorten it go

ahead.

13) You have a "(" but not a ")". Just drop the opening parenthesis

14) Put something about hydrology in here too.

Critique of

Gran, S. E., Nichols, K. K., and Bierman, P. R., 1999, Teaching winter

geohydrology at the University of Vermont using frozen lakes and snowy

mountains

The authors present a summary of their teaching philosophy and

methodology for a field trip portion of a geohydrology course taught

during winter in a cold climate. Rather than staying indoors during these

cold months and using a lecture-based format for teaching, the authors

take advantage of the unique learning opportunities offered only during

winter. They focus much of their coursework on two all-day field trips to

examine two specific aspects of winter geohydrology. On the first field

trip they study temperature and conductivity stratification in a lake, and

extract a sediment core for laboratory analysis; on the second field trip,

they hike down a mountain to analyze the changes in snowpack hydrology

with elevation.

The authors clear, concise writing style and uncomplicated subject

matter make this paper easy to read and understand. They efficiently

communicate through the straightforward organization and diagrams their

teaching philosophy and methodology for this geohydrology course, both of

which are sound. Some problems with flow can be addressed without much

difficulty. However, some of the content needs elaboration, or possibly

removal. These suggestions are noted below.

I recommend this paper for publication only after these two

primary concerns are addressed. My other suggestions mostly concern

grammar and punctuation, and are noted on the manuscript. My comments for

any other major revisions or further thought are provided below, and are

referenced by number to their location of concern in the manuscript.

1. The sentiment expressed in the last sentence of the paperthat cold

weather and snow should not be a deterrent to teaching an effective

field-based geohydrology courseneeds to be a more central idea in the

paper. This goal may be accomplished simply by introducing this idea at

the beginning of the paper and revisiting it at the end.

2. I was not convinced of the applicability of sediment core extraction

and laboratory analysis to the field of geohydrology. The discussion of

inferring paleodepositional environments needs considerable elaboration in

order to make the connection with geohydrology and to distance it somewhat

from sedimentology and landscape evolution. Unless this connection can be

made solidly, I suggest removing the description of sediment core

extraction and analysis from this paper.

3. This paragraph should appear earlier in this section, perhaps as the

last couple of sentences in the first paragraph. Its current position is

somewhat jarring.

4. Figure 3 needs a more thorough caption. I do not understand the numbers

on the temperature or conductivity graphs. What are the units? What do the

shaded areas represent?

5. Figure 4 suggests that you used a piston during your coring procedure.

I think you should note somewhere that your short core length could be

attributed at least partially to your inability to use the piston in this

pond due to shallow water depth.

6. Reverse the colors on the graphical log of the core. Black should

suggest more gyttja, while light-colored layers should represent the

lighter-colored minerogenic sediment.

7. I was confused by this figure at first, because the standard convention

for labeling contour intervals is to orient the labels in an uphill

direction. This figure would be more clear if the contour labels were

oriented uphill, even if doing so forces a 180 rotation of the diagram (so

north is pointing downward.

Review of Gran, Nichols, and Bierman

The paper submitted by Gran, Nichols and Bierman is a detailed review of

two field exercises performed in the University of Vermont Geohydrology

class. The first exercise examines pond hydrology using pond bathymetry,

water temperature and conductivity, and the sediment stratigraphy of a pond

core. The second exercise examines snowpack hydrology from water

equivalents, snow layer stratigraphy, crystal metamorphosis, snow

temperature and density, and the probability of avalanching. The two

projects teach students the practical and analytical skills necessary to

collect and interpret data, and strengthens their written communication

skills (since they have to write a scientific report for each).

Additionally, both exercises are examples of the types of activities that

educators can use to conduct a field-intensive hydrology class during the

winter months.

I felt that the paper is well-organized and clearly written. It sets up a

basic understanding of the premise and importance of the two exercises

before diving into the details of each project. I like the way the authors

guide us through the purpose, methods, and results of each experiment

individually. I think that approach makes the paper easy to read, and

would allow other geology instructors to easily pick out one of the

projects for use in their own class. For instance, someone interested in

using the Pond Hydrology exercise could easily pick out the purpose and

methods from this paper and use it on a handout to their own class (with

proper referencing, of course!). The figures are a great addition to the

written explanations, since they show the type of output that students can

produce from these projects. However, there could be a better integration

of the resultant data and the calculations used to get those results in the

text of the paper. In the paper's current form, results seems a bit

rushed, and numbers are only briefly mentioned. A more thorough

explanation of what the numbers mean and how they were derived would aid

other geology instructors in guiding their students through the

calculations and anticipating their students' results and conclusions.

Other areas of the paper would also benefit from further discussion (as

noted in the manuscript). For example, an explanation of the hillslope

processes that affect the pond study would contribute to the conclusions

drawn from sediment core observations. The text does read a bit choppy in

places, and I think that additional discussion of the things noted in the

manuscript would help the paper to flow better. Also, a discussion of the

types of final conclusions the students should be getting from their data

would be useful to other instructors wishing to use these projects in their

classes, and could be easily integrated into the two Results sections. In

general, however, the paper is well written and the content is clear and

easy to follow. I had very few grammatical edits.

I recommend this paper for acceptance to the Journal of Geoscience

Education with moderate revisions. With the increasing demand of

geologists in the environmental field, and the high number of geology

departments teaching environmentally focused classes such as Geohydrology,

this paper is a useful tool for geology departments wishing to enhance

their curricula for the environmental science market. The projects

suggested by Gran, Nichols and Bierman also provide an innovative way to

continue the fieldwork through the winter months. The focus of their

projects on fieldwork and using real data will maintain student interest,

as well as teach practical skills for the working world. It is important

to share Gran, Nichols and Bierman's techniques with other geology

educators who may be interested in developing a field-based hydrology

course but are also confronted with the winter problem. However, this

paper would benefit from further explanation of its main concepts and

general editing before publication.

Manuscript notes

1. How have past students tailored these projects to meet their own

interests, and how has the diversity of student backgrounds contributed to

the course content? Are these projects useful to people from many

backgrounds? If so, how?

2. It would be nice to have this number in km2 so that it can be easily

compared to the total drainage basin area.

3. It would be useful to show the location of the fan-deltas and the pond

outflow on figure 2.

4. How does the history of Richmond Pond make it a good pond for the class

study? Might want to mention the input of sand from erosion of adjacent

hillslopes.

5. How do they locate the groundwater inputs - from spots of soft ice near

the fan-deltas? Is there any groundwater input from under the pond surface?

How do you locate those?

6. What instruments do you use to measure temperature and conductivity?

7. On Figure 3. - What are your units for temperature (degrees C or F?)

and conductivity?

8. Maybe you could mention where to buy such a coring device, or how to

build one and how much it would cost.

9. What is the yearly precip. for this area, and what final values for R

did the students get?

10. Explain why the sandy beds are from storm events - i.e storms causes

higher sediment yield from adjacent hillslopes.

11. Somewhere you should mention that the mineral-rich sediment is the

sandy layers.

12. Explain how the data led you (or your students) to these conclusions.

13. Explain how this procedure leads the students to get the water

equivalent. What calculations are they making, exactly?

14. Is there such a things as a soil knife? Isn't it just a regular knife

that you have been using to stick soil layers with? Unless you mean a

gardening trowel....

Review of Gran et al., "Teaching winter geohydrology at UVM"

Gran et al., have prepared a paper that seeks to introduce and explain two day-long field laboratories used for an upper-level Geohydrology course that occurs during the winter (and hence cold and snowy) season. One project focuses on pond hydrology and the other on snow pack hydrology. Both projects used hands-on, interactive methods of data collection where the students are as much involved in the learning process as the instructors are.

The style of the paper is not so much a presentation of experimental data and conclusions, therefore it is not structured like a traditional science paper. Since this paper is essentially an instruction manual, it is very important that the projects are well described from start to finish. Gran's writing and figures are clear, very descriptive and do a good job of outlining the projects goals, methods, results, and some implications of the results. As much as this paper is an instruction manual, it is also an 'interest grabber' that is trying to get instructors interested in leading outdoor labs in the cold, snowy winter season. I believe Gran does a good job of writing a paper that flows and makes the projects sound as fun and interesting as they were (even though we were out in freezing cold weather!)

This paper should be accepted for publication with minor changes to a few confusing parts suggestions are listed below.

Specific Comments:

1) We studied the hydrology of a small Vermont valley/drainage basin enclosing a pond. This might sound better for the "big picture", since more than the pond's hydrology was studied.

2) The lake trip does not necessarily 'specifically address' winter hydrology it just relies on the fact that the lake is frozen.

3) Rephrase sentence: ex. Richmond Pond is located in a small basin with topography ranging from 200 to 300 meters.

4) Gets confusing here, your going from past tense to present. Is there a better word than current.

5) The importance of surveying was to delineate the shoreline and then locate the auger holes (so bathymetric data and temp/cond could be properly mapped) and core location. Here it sounds like the core location was most important.