By Amanda Walker, Leslie Shroyer
Information
Water quality is an important topic within climate change. In 2022 the Meadows Center received a grant of approximately $ 2.5 million to study the impact of climate change. Data was gathered from the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at a fou-year college, Texas State University (TXST), from 2013 - 2022. The Center is part of TXST, in an environmentally protected area of the aquifer that flows through our TXST campus. This classroom activity utilizes Rguroo statistical web-based software in a college level introductory statistics course with approximately 40 students, which should take one class period. It can also be used in a high school statistics course. Students will explore the data by uploading an excel file containing water quality measurements from the Colorado Basin, which is composed of 12 surrounding counties, which many of our students are from. Students create histograms of measurements (pH, water temperature, DO, conductivity, and Ecoli) to explore normal vs. non normal distributions. Factoring by flow severity students can compare normal distributions with different means and standard deviations as a method to introduce z-scores and the standard normal distribution. Rather than using a z-table, students will use the probability calculator within Rguroo to make calculations and discuss their meaning.