Use of Living Systems to Teach Basic Engineering Concepts - Web-Based Engineering Education: Critical Design and Effective Tools - page 103

also have the opportunity to look up historic
data under the ARCHIVES option. This option
provides daily, monthly and annual water qual-
ity data in a tabular form or in the form of an
EXCEL spreadsheet. Plots can also be obtained
for the water quality parameters for a select time
period. Educators can also show and teach simple
statistics such as average, MIN, MAX, standard
deviation and median values using this data. A
sample plot is presented in Figure 5 for weekly
temperature data. The plot options are available
for all water quality parameters from the sensors
in the instrumented aquarium.
The Meet the Fish option allows children to
learn about various types of fish species in the
marine aquarium while the Fish Tank Science op-
tion allows visitors to learn about aquarium care.
The Virtual Fish Tank option allows children to
play with an animated aquarium and learn about
engineering and maintenance of an aquarium.
Children can click on various options to learn
about different fish and their needed water quality
environment. Images for this option are provided
in Figure 6.
The ACTIVITIES section provides experimen-
tal handouts for K-12 and college educators and

students. Activities have been divided according to
school standards. An example laboratory handout
for the Gas Transfer is provided below.

Gas Transfer

Objective: This experiment will allow students to
visualize how oxygen is transferred from the gas
phase (air) to a liquid phase (water).

Applications to an Aquarium

Fish need a certain level of oxygen for survival.
As such oxygen gas needs to be transferred to
water efficiently.

Other Engineering Applications

Gas transfer is a vital unit operation in many
environmental engineering processes. It involves
either desorption or adsorption of gas. The trans-
fer of oxygen to liquid systems is particularly
important in oxidation of iron and manganese in
water treatment and in the biological treatment
of wastewaters.

Figure 5. Weekly sample plot of temperate from the ARCHIVE DATA section