Learning about water resources

To learn about groundwater systems, an understanding of the relationships between ground water and surface water environments is essential. Study of groundwater systems involves study of the physical environment, as well as economics, law and policy. An integrated understanding of groundwater is essential for the future of Australian environment, our urban and rural communities, and for agricultural and mining activity. 

This section for high school students and teachers has been developed by UNSW personnel. Information on groundwater issues in Australia, especially our state of NSW, is available for the following topics:

Please contact us at UNSW Connected Waters Initiative if you have any questions or suggestions regarding this content.

More Information for Students and Teachers

The Australian Geoscience Pathways Website is for both students and teachers to use. This is an innovative way of sharing resources and will help in the teaching of geoscience subjects in all year levels across Australia. Go to the “Round and round with rocks” section of this website for the latest downloads. 

The Australian Teacher Earth Science Education Programme (TESEP) is designed to help upper Primary and lower Secondary teachers make better use of their time teaching Earth Science in their classrooms. Their new Wet Rocks workshops, about the groundwater story, are being held across Australia in 2009 and 2010. 

The Exploring Earth groundwater webpage has lots of teaching resources including investigation of how many people an aquifer can support and animations of how caves forms and geysers erupt. These resources were developed with the US National Science Foundation. 

Earth and Environmental Science is an HSC subject in NSW, Australia. Water issues, including mention of groundwater resources are outlined in Section 8.4 of the syllabus. A new Australian curriculum for Kindergarten to Year 12 is being developed in 2010 with subjects to be progressively implemented beginning in 2013.

For more links to educational web sites, movies and information click here.