Awesome Aquifers B

[dholdgreve]

This past Saturday I had the honor of running this event at a local Invitational, and I thought I'd take a few minutes to offer some suggestions to all you underground water mongers!

1) 10 minutes is way more time than is required to demonstrate your creation; take a minute to start and take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and relax!
2) Introduce yourselves tothe judges. It portays an aura of maturity, confidence, and knowledge that us judges love to see!
3) Study not only the list of suggested topics on the groundwater.org, but any other nomenclature, concepts or vocab you can find. Last Saturday, we asked that the words "aquiclude" and "aquitard" be demonstrated. I'm not sure about the other judges table, but no one in our group of 15 competitors scored even one point from those 2 words, yet they can be found by data mining groundwater.org.
4) Speak up and speak clearly! Between all the noise in the hall, the gravel being poured at station 3, and the demo going on at the other judges table,(not to mention that any jusge over the age of 40 is subject to hearing problems!) , it is critical that you SPEAK UP! It shows that you are confident in what you are telling us.
5) Speak slowly! (OK, not THAT slowly!) but slow enough for us judges to comprehend what you are telling us as well as allowing us time to document your well earned scores. 10 minutes is a LONG time... Not one of our groups even came close to using their entire time allotment
6) When your presentation is complete, say so, thank the judges for their attention, then ask if they have any questions... You would be amazed at how much this raised the scores of the teams that asked if we had questions! The rules allow for the judges to ask questions, but only after the presentation is complete and only if there is time left. If I had to draw this info out by asking questions, the most I'd award was 3 out of 5 points, but in many cases it was 3 more than they would have gotten!
7) Stick to the list! At station 3 you are to be given a list of concepts and terms to demonstrate at station 4. If Well siting and contamination are not on this list, don't waste time explaining it...That won't get you any extra points, and it just burns time that could be used in the question and answer period.
8) Don't be nervous. As Judges, the vast majority of us are unpaid volunteers. We are there because we WANT to be there. To assist you guys in your quest for knowledge, not to see who we can DQ today...

[dholdgreve]

duplicate post

[dholdgreve]

When some of the building concepts are porosity and permeablilty, do you have to have two different types of materials to contrast, or can you demonstrate them with just one?

In the case of a confined aquifer, I can see how the same material could be used to demonstrate both... the Permeability by when the water is being poured in, and watching the flow within the aquifer, and the porosity by examining how much water was capable of being stored in it. Remember the the demonstration is actually way more focused on your verbal definition and comprehension of the term, than the material you use to display it. On a similar note, be very careful about using separate containers to show these 2 concepts. When this event was run several years ago, there were a ton of teams DQed for not following the rule which stated that the model aquifer must be built from one container, no greater than 3 liters in size... Many jusges took this to mean that all demonstrations needed to take place within that model.

[samandjason]

does the aquifer need to filter the water and get the contaminants out

[robotman]

It depends on what concepts the judges decide to give you
List Of Concepts

[dholdgreve]

It depends on what concepts the judges decide to give you
List Of Concepts

That link is a good start, but don't assume that list is all-inclusive! It is only a Sample list. Event coordinators may come up with items that are not mentioned on any of those lists, so long as they have something to do with an aquifer.

[samandjason]

thank you everyone especially dholdgreave you were all very helpful

[sciencechic]

What kind of topics are people seeing at Regionals and State tests? Our regional does not even have aquifers!

[TYG]

Er I was looking at the North Carolina State Scioly site and I saw that it said

NC Clarifications:

2. Event Parameters: Event Leaders will NOT provide water. Competitors must bring their own water, to be added during station 4.

3.c. Station 3 will not be offered. Aquifers should be built ahead of time and brought to the competition.

Does anyone know if this is only North Carolina, or if it applies to all states?

[robotman]

I think it only would apply to NC however check you state website and if you are still worried contact the competition director beforhand