A variety of courses related to
hydrogeology and environmental research are offered in the Department of Geology, Geography,
and Schools of Engineering. Students are generally
expected to take courses in physical hydrogeology, contaminant transport, and aqueous geochemistry in
their first year, and then choose from among several elective courses (not necessarily
offered every year) as schedules permit.
The M.S. degree requires a total of 30 credit hours for graduation, of which about 6 hours are expected
to be thesis hours. Students admitted without all the required courses in chemistry (Chem I & II) or
mathematics (Calculus I & II, differential equations), should expect to make these up either before
starting their studies at KU (preferred) or simultaneously as they complete their degrees.
Listed below is a typical course sequence and courses that have been offered recently.
The Professional Science Masters Program (PSM) degree requires a total of 36 credit hours for graduation,
of which about 3 hours are decidated to a capstone project.
A BS in geology is typically expected for admission. However, students without a BS in geology who have
taken some appropriate courses and who have
professional experience may be admitted to the program. Four professional skills courses (project
management, communications, finance, and organizational change). A 5-course Environmental Geology
certificate is also offered.
Listed below is a typical course sequence, featuring courses that have been offered recently.
Typical sequence of courses for graduates in the MS and Ph.D programs.
(Note: order of courses may change depending on faculty availability and
student experience)
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Year of Degree
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Fall and Spring terms
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Summer term
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1
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Physical hydrogeology, Contaminant Transport, Ethics in Science,
elective, Aqueous geochemistry, Groundwater Modeling,
elective, thesis
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Field camp for hydrogeologists, Thesis
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2 and up
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Contaminants in Groundwater,Elective(s),
thesis
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Elective(s), thesis
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Thesis
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M.S. students complete 24 course hours and 6 thesis hours over
2 years of study. Ph.D. students typically complete courses selected to support the research
withing the Geology Department (student specific) as well as completing
Research Skills and Responsible Scholarship courses outside the Geology Department (9 hours)
over 4 years. Electives are not required in terms
following the achievement of the minimum credit hours mentioned above.
Courses for graduates in the PSM program.
(Note: order of courses may vary by student, depending on faculty availability and
student experience)
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Year of Degree
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Fall and Spring terms
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Workshops
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1
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Environmental Regulation and Policy,
Physical Hydrogeology, Chemical and Microbial Hydrogeology,
Site Assessment
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Geological Log Analysis,
Field and Laboratory Methods: Physical Hydrogeology,
Field and Laboratory Methods: Contaminant Transport (online),
Field and Laboratory Methods: Chemical Hydrogeology,
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2 and up
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Interpersonal and Persuasive
Communication Skills for Managers, Writing and Speaking for Decision Makers,
Managing Teams and Leading People, Financial Management,
Project Management
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Field and Laboratory Methods: Geobiology,
Field and Laboratory Methods: Environmental Geophysics,
Advanced Topics in Geology: Direct-push Methods for Site Characterization,
Numerical Methods in Earth Science (online)
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PSM students complete .
Courses available to graduates in the Geology Department
(all courses are electives except those marked with *)
- Physical hydrogeology *
- Contaminant transport *
- Field camp for hydrogeologists *
- Aqueous geochemistry *
- Contaminants in groundwater
- Biogeochemistry
- Geophysics
- Environmental geophysics
- Ground penetrating radar
- Geostatistics
- Introduction to R
- Quantitative geosciences
- Contaminated sites workshop
- Contaminants in Groundwater Field trip
Offered in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Wetlands hydrology
- Biological principles of environmental engineering
Offered in the Department of Geography
- Intermediate geographical information systems (GIS)
- Geographic information science (GISci)
- Microclimatology
- Remote sensing of environment I
- Remote sensing of environment II
Description of Courses
Courses available to graduates in the Geology Department
Physical hydrogeology (with labs and field training)
This 6 credit hour course includes a lab. It assumes students
have taken introductory hydrogeology beforehand. The course covers water resource
evaluation and the physics of groundwater flow in porous media. Assignments consist of
practical exercises geared at developing water supply and other resource assessment skills.
Contaminant transport
This 3 credit hour course. It assumes students
have taken introductory hydrogeology beforehand. The course is an overview of transport processes
and their mathematical descriptions. Assignments consist of a series of spreadsheet modeling
exercises covering numerical, analytical and stochastic methods.
Field camp for hydrogeologists
This 3 credit hour course introduces students to field methods in physical and geochemical hydrogeology.
Hands-on field exercises in slug testing, aquifer testing, water sampling, measuring unstable water parameters,
direct measurement of seepage velocity, and microbiological techniques are covered at the KU Geology
field camp in Colorado.
Aqueous geochemistry
This 3 credit hour course is typically taken by students in the second term of their degree program.
The course covers chemical equilibria of solutions, including speciation, solubility, sorption and
ion exchange, and redox; kinetics of reactions; isotopes; introduction to natural water-rock reactions,
reaction progress indicators, groundwater-"age" dating, the chemistry of groundwater contaminants,
and geochemical speciation modeling.
Contaminants in groundwater
This is an elective 3 credit hour course that introduces students to common and emerging contaminants in
groundwater. Topics include heavy metals, anions, radionuclides, industrial solvents (DNAPLS), petroleum
hydrocarbons (LNAPLs), agro-chemicals and biological contaminants. Nomenclature, physical properties, environmental fate,
transformations, and energetics of organics in aquifers is presented in lectures and reviewed in papers.
The topics are introduced with case study examples.
Biogeochemistry
This elective 3 credit hour course addresses the realization that much, if not most, of the chemistry of the subsurface is controlled
by microorganisms. The course reviews the chemical microbial principles that drive bacteria to catalyze
various reactions and create chemically distinct environments in the subsurface. The global impact of these
organism is explored in a series of lectures and readings.
Geophysics
This is an elective 3 credit hour introductory Geophysics course for students with interest in learning the basic
principles of geophysical methods. The course is an introductory study of gravitational, magnetic, seismic, electrical,
and thermal properties of the earth. Measurements, interpretation, and applications to exploration, earth structure,
and the environment.
Environmental Geophysics
This is an elective 3 credit hour introductory Geophysics course for students interested in the application of geophysical
methods to near-surface investigations. Methods include gravity, magnetics, electromagnetics, electrical resistivity,
induced polarization, ground penetrating radar, nuclear magnetic resonance and shallow seismic methods. Methods are
presented in weekly sessions and include classroom lectures and field data collection.
Ground penetrating radar
This is an elective 3 credit hour course introducing students to the theory and application of GPR for environmental
and hydrologic investigations of the subsurface. The course presents basic principles of EM theory as well as GPR data
acquisition, processing and interpretation methods. Topics are presented through class lectures, computer exercises and
field based projects. Introductory knowledge of geophysics is recommended.
Geostatistics
This 3 credit hour course covers a variety of statistical methods applicable to subsurface characterization problems
in hydrogeology and petroleum geoscience, as well as other earth sciences. In addition to geostatistics in the strict sense,
including characterization of spatial autocorrelation, interpolation (kriging), and stochastic simulation techniques,
the course covers exploratory data analysis, classical and contemporary regression and classification techniques,
cluster analysis, time-series analysis, and inverse problems.
Introduction to R
This 2 credit hour course aquaints students with the 'R' platform. This is an open-source
script-based software platform that was designed to perform statistical analyses on scientific data.
Students will be instructed on data management with dataframes, matrix operations, statistical distributions,
outlier tests, basics of programing, and sophisticated graphical presentation of data. Geoscience
examples involving PCA analysis, time-series analysis, seasonality analysis, graphical assessment of
data anomalies, aquifer testing, stream velocity, markov-chain calculations, data contouring, and
spatial analysis involving variograms and kriging are presented.
Quantitative geosciences
This 3 credit hour undergraduate level course that give an historical overview of mathematical developments
in human history as well as practical uses for number theory, series, logarithms, trigonometry, linear algebra,
calculus, and statistics. All topics are illustrated with geological or hydrogeological examples and
calculations are performed with Excel spreadsheets. Although
this course is aimed at familiarizing undergraduates with mathematical techniques and tools, graduates
may benefit from the course as well.
Contaminated sites workshop
This 1 credit hour graduate and undergraduate level course that was born from the desire of our KU
alumni to help provide KU hydro students with some 'real-world' insights. The course is offered one
Saturday during the fall term and consists of a series of lectures, demonstrations, and workshop
problems that acquaint students with the general principles of flow and transport, contaminant hydrogeology,
the procedures of conducting site investigations, including risk analysis, groundwater flow
determination, and statistical treatment of hydrogeological datasets.
Contaminants in groundwater field trip
This 1 credit hour graduate and undergraduate level course is attached to the Contaminants in Groundwater
course but is offered as an independent course as well. The field consists of six stops that are visited
over a three-day trip (Fridays to Sundays, usually) in the fall term. Stops include a former coal mining site, the
Tri-State mining Superfund site, a passive treatment system for removing metals from water, a karst landscape
with a guided hike on the surface and in a cave beneath the same surface, and a passive treatment system
called a permeable reactive barrier for treating chlorinated organic pollutants. Students must attend the
field trip in person and write a report summarizing the material covered.
Offered in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Wetlands hydrology
This elective 3 credit hour course is an introduction of design concepts in creating and restoring wetland systems. Wetland hydrology
and hydraulics are reviewed. Interactions of wetland hydrology, soils, and vegetation providing environmental benefits are
examined in lectures and readings. Consideration is given to project planning, site selection and preparation, construction
operation, and maintenance of artificial wetlands. Use of state and local legal and management tools to protect and
restore wetlands, as well as emerging concepts of mitigation and banking are examined.
Biological principles of environmental engineering
This elective 3 credit hour course is a basic study of the microorganisms of importance in environmental engineering.
Emphasis is placed on the microbiology
of dilute nutrient solutions. Microbial physiology, microbial ecology, and biochemistry will be discussed as they
pertain to environmental engineering and science. Both biodegradation and public health aspects are included.
Offered in the Department of Geography
Intermediate geographical information systems (GIS)
This elective 4 credit hour course teaches intermediate to advanced uses of GIS. Emphasis is placed on the application of
spatial analytical techniques to geographical problem solving. Topics include spatial data structures, interpolation techniques,
terrain analysis, and database management.
Geographic information science (GISci)
This elective 4 credit hour course integrates topics in geographical information science with spatial analytical techniques
to solve spatial problems. Focus is on the most current research in GISci and its relevance to the environmental sciences,
natural resource management, and spatial decision-making.
Microclimatology
This elective 3 credit hour course is a study of climatic environments near the earth-atmosphere interface. Emphasis is on
physical processes in the lower atmosphere, distribution of atmospheric variables, the surface energy budget and water balance.
Remote sensing of environment I
This elective 4 credit hour course is an introduction to study of the environment through air photos and satellite imagery,
including princples of remote sensing, interactions of electromagnetic energy with the atmosphere and earth's surface, aerial
photography, satellite systems, and sensors. Emphasis is on such applications as global monitoring, land cover mapping,
forestry, and agriculture. This course includes a laboratory.
Remote sensing of environment II
This elective 4 credit hour course provides an overview of techniques for computer analysis of digital data from earth
orbiting satellites for environmental applications. Topics include data formats, image enhancements and analysis, classification,
thematic mapping, and environmental change detection. This course includes a laboratory.
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Water's work, field trip stop
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