Physical Geography Teaching Facilities

The Hutt Building houses several rooms dedicated to student learning in physical geography courses.  There is one large multi-purpose classroom that is used for tutorial and/or lab group meetings, and is home to our map library.  In the basement there are several spaces that support physical geography teaching.  There are the Sedimentary Transport Lab and the Sedimentary Analysis Lab.  The Sedimentary Transport Lab is used for demonstrations and student projects in several upper level courses.  In the summer, Graduate students use this space to test and calibrate sensors for their field work.  The Sedimentary Analysis Lab is used for sample analysis (e.g. calculating bulk density, sieving, and simple chemical analyses) and is shared with graduate students running experiments and treating their samples throughout the year.

Between the two sediment-geared teaching spaces the following equipment are in regular use:

  • Circulating flume with an acoustic Doppler velocimeter, used to study flow turbulence, sediment transport, and bedform development.
  • Variable speed wind tunnel with various pressure transducers; used to measure and record grain lift-off, shear stress, and sediment transport
  • Demonstration wave tank with a Massa sensor to measure wave height and frequency
  • Smoke-tunnel to demonstrate flow separation around a body
  • Air-fall column to monitor and automatically measure fall velocities
  • Water and oil fall columns for sedimentary process studies
  • Angle of repose demonstration unites
  • Groundwater contamination model
  • Two stream tables, which demonstrate erosion and flow variability due to slope
  • Weighting stations and sieving sets
  • Fume hood

In addition to these resources within the Hutt Building, the department has a number of key field instruments and tools that support Geography students in the field.  These include:

  • Surveying equipment – handheld GPS units, laser range finders, surveying levels, stadia rods, and other relevant tools
  • Hip and chest waders
  • Helley-smith bedload sampler
  • DH-48 suspended sediment sampler
  • HACH water quality test kits
  • Conductivity and water temperature instruments
  • Water level loggers
  • Weather station