Awesome Aquifers B

[86F3TDNR]

Just a quick question (I hope no one has mentioned this before), what's the difference between drawdown and the cone of depression? Don't they both lower the water table? I can't seem to find anything online...

[aznluvsricemhm]

A draw down is the lowering of the water table....whereas the cone of depression is the.....cone....o.o that forms around the well that is pumping out water (area of influence). Hope that helps. BP

[86F3TDNR]

Thanks... but don't both lower the water table?
And another question... How long does it take you to build your aquifer? I find that it takes me approximately 30 seconds to actually build the aquifer, and I spend the rest of the time with my partner going over the concepts and generally just waiting. My presentations usually turn out pretty well, though. I don't see why other teams need 10 minutes to pile sand, clay, and gravel into their container... Am I doing something wrong or forgetting something?

[havenguy]

Thanks... but don't both lower the water table?
And another question... How long does it take you to build your aquifer? I find that it takes me approximately 30 seconds to actually build the aquifer, and I spend the rest of the time with my partner going over the concepts and generally just waiting. My presentations usually turn out pretty well, though. I don't see why other teams need 10 minutes to pile sand, clay, and gravel into their container... Am I doing something wrong or forgetting something?

Addressing your first question, yes, both do lower the water table. The only difference between the two is that the cone of depression is an initial dip in specifically in the area around the well, but evens out eventually. Drawdown is just lowering the water table. Also, drawdown is the action while the cone of depression is a result of pumping.

Secondly, when it comes to demonstrating regional concepts, I am able to do it in under two minutes because, in my opinion, the concepts are easy. It will be harder to demonstrate at the state and national level, though.

On an unrelated note, does anyone know how to demonstrate remediation? We tried filtering the food coloring out with charcoal, but this doesn't seem to be working.

[mnstrviola]

Thanks... but don't both lower the water table?
And another question... How long does it take you to build your aquifer? I find that it takes me approximately 30 seconds to actually build the aquifer, and I spend the rest of the time with my partner going over the concepts and generally just waiting. My presentations usually turn out pretty well, though. I don't see why other teams need 10 minutes to pile sand, clay, and gravel into their container... Am I doing something wrong or forgetting something?

To be technical, "draw down" is a term that describes the action of the water table going down, it doesn't cause it to lower. "Cone of depression" also does not cause the water table to go down.

Draw down is when the water table lowers.

A cone of depression is an occurrence in which the water table around a well resembles a cone due to that well withdrawing too much.


As for the second part, I'm not sure how you are able to build it in 30 seconds, but it's not a problem if you still do well.

[86F3TDNR]

Thanks... but don't both lower the water table?
And another question... How long does it take you to build your aquifer? I find that it takes me approximately 30 seconds to actually build the aquifer, and I spend the rest of the time with my partner going over the concepts and generally just waiting. My presentations usually turn out pretty well, though. I don't see why other teams need 10 minutes to pile sand, clay, and gravel into their container... Am I doing something wrong or forgetting something?

Addressing your first question, yes, both do lower the water table. The only difference between the two is that the cone of depression is an initial dip in specifically in the area around the well, but evens out eventually. Drawdown is just lowering the water table. Also, drawdown is the action while the cone of depression is a result of pumping.

Secondly, when it comes to demonstrating regional concepts, I am able to do it in under two minutes because, in my opinion, the concepts are easy. It will be harder to demonstrate at the state and national level, though.

On an unrelated note, does anyone know how to demonstrate remediation? We tried filtering the food coloring out with charcoal, but this doesn't seem to be working.

The carbon usually takes quite a while (4-5 mins?) to fully remove the coloring. I recommend either starting with mixing the carbon + colored water, and showing the fully-remediated water at the end of the presentation, or adjusting the carbon-water ratio. You can also use less food coloring (mix the food coloring with the water as normal, then dump half of it out, and add more water. The color should be less concentrated, but you should still see the color)... I find that the water ends clearer when there's less color to begin with.
These are the tips I got from my coach and generally playing around with my aquifer model Hope that helps...

[Skink]

One or two drops of food coloring should be easily remediated via pumping or dumping and putting in fresh/"filtered" water.

[mnstrviola]

How can we discuss wetlands more in depth? Right now I'm just using a sponge and saying something like "This sponge is a wetland. As you can see it's very wet.".

[havenguy]

One or two drops of food coloring should be easily remediated via pumping or dumping and putting in fresh/"filtered" water.

Do you just mean pumping the contaminated water out and inserting fresh water?

How can we discuss wetlands more in depth? Right now I'm just using a sponge and saying something like "This sponge is a wetland. As you can see it's very wet.".

In my opinion, I would try to recreate a wetland environment. For example, saturate the soil, and explain how certain specially adapted plants thrive in a wetland. Then explain how pumping would effect the wetland. In the beginning, 100% of the water that the well uses would come from groundwater, but over time the source of the well's pumping would switch to surface water, and could potentially harm the wetland.

This is a link that I find helpful: http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1186/html/gw_effect.html

On an unrelated note, in the study guide it says "sample presentation concepts". Does this mean they could ask us different ones at the competition? I did this event last year, and I never went to a competition where they gave us concepts that weren't on that list.

[mnstrviola]

One or two drops of food coloring should be easily remediated via pumping or dumping and putting in fresh/"filtered" water.

Do you just mean pumping the contaminated water out and inserting fresh water?

How can we discuss wetlands more in depth? Right now I'm just using a sponge and saying something like "This sponge is a wetland. As you can see it's very wet.".

In my opinion, I would try to recreate a wetland environment. For example, saturate the soil, and explain how certain specially adapted plants thrive in a wetland. Then explain how pumping would effect the wetland. In the beginning, 100% of the water that the well uses would come from groundwater, but over time the source of the well's pumping would switch to surface water, and could potentially harm the wetland.

This is a link that I find helpful: http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1186/html/gw_effect.html

Thanks! I'll take a look at the link.

On an unrelated note, in the study guide it says "sample presentation concepts". Does this mean they could ask us different ones at the competition? I did this event last year, and I never went to a competition where they gave us concepts that weren't on that list.

Event Supervisors don't have to use that list; they could make up their own demonstration concepts. However it's quite common for them to use the sample presentation concepts in the study guide. So yeah, they can ask you other stuff too.