Adapting group projects and software development skills training to online teaching: CIV550 Case Example

The move to online delivery meant that the curriculum for CIV550 Water Resources Engineering needed to undergo substantial restructuring. Throughout the course, a Group Floodplain Mapping project served as a teaching tool that linked Lecture materials all term. Students were introduced to numerous GIS webtools, R (a statistical package), OTTHYMO (a hydrologic modelling program) and HEC-RAS (a hydraulic modelling project) through asynchronous modules and applied these analysis tools to evaluate flood risks to an Ontario community. This presentation will discuss the advantages and challenges encountered executing such an ambitious group project and teaching software remotely.