1 Introduction

Many scientific organizations and societies sponsor distinguished lecture tours. The types and reasons for lecture tours are varied. Distinguished lecture tours may be designed to arouse interest in a specific research topic, recruit new scientists, do public outreach of important or innovative information, or raise awareness of uncommon scientific fields. Although the literature abounds with published lectures given during such tours, there is no published guidance for how to successfully conduct a lecture tour and maximize and measure the success.

Although university lecturers conduct regular assessment of the success of their activities [1], distinguished lecturers are unlikely to assess the success of a lecture tour with metrics other than numbers of lectures and attendance at lectures. The dimensions of teaching are found to be highly related, among other factors, to teacher stimulation of interest in the subject matter [2]. Some social media metrics can be used to assess the social media impact of a lecture. Rarely are there follow ups or surveys with lecture attendees from a distinguished lecture to determine if the lecture tour achieved objectives such as recruitment of new scientists or raising awareness of important issues.

Groccia [3] identified three levels of student engagement; behavioral, affective, and cognitive levels. Standard distinguished lectures generally do not engage students at any of these levels. Behavioral engagement requires some degree of participation or effort in the learning process. Generally, distinguished lectures are static presentations largely devoid of participation. To have an affective level of engagement requires a level of interest that leads to improved motivation. The cognitive level of engagement displays the ability to cognitively process a learning experience. Because of the static nature of lectures, they are not designed to process learning.

The Geological Society of America (GSA) Foundation through the GSA Hydrogeology Division utilizes two endowed funds to support an international distinguished lecture tour. In the 1970’s, a bequest from the estate of John Birdsall to the Division was used to start the endowment funds, followed by a bequest in the 1990’s from David Freyberg in memory of Shirley Dreiss. Subsequent donations to the Birdsall and Dreiss funds and investment proceeds are used in accordance with standard procedures of the GSA Foundation to support an annual hydrogeology focused lecture tour in North America.

With the endowed funds, the Division manages the annual Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecture tour. The Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecture recognizes exemplary scholarship, significant outreach, and exceptional service to the Society, Division, and profession. The award is a year-long lecture tour for the following year. In 2016, James LaMoreaux established in recognition of his parents, Philip and Bunny LaMoreaux, the LaMoreaux International Lecturer Fund with the GSA Foundation. The fund is designed to be used in parallel with the Birdsall-Dreiss Lecture Series to present lectures outside of North America.

The GSA Foundation funds used to support the lecture tour do not have stipulations or assessment other than to provide at least 20 lectures. The number and location of lectures is determined by the person awarded the lectureship through request from lecture hosts which are typically academic, research, or government institutions. The lecturer provides a summary of the lecture tour at a presentation given during the annual meeting of the GSA.

Except for the COVID-19 year of 2021, the Birdsall-Dreiss Lectureship has been awarded every year since 1978. A list of the lecturers and their lecture titles can be found at the Hydrogeology Division’s website; https://community.geosociety.org/hydrodivision/birdsall/past. In 2022, co-author Springer was selected to be the lecturer. He proposed and coordinated the lecture topics and interactive workshop concept with the division’s Management Board to have the lecturer generate more active student participation. This coordination led to the concept of this manuscript as one of the outcomes and assessment of student participation in the lecture.

Springs ecosystems were selected as the target topic for the lecture and for an interactive field workshop because springs ecosystems occur at the interfaces between surface water and groundwater and between earth, ecological and social systems [4]. Springs are easily accessible places to study aquifers and do not require costly construction of bore holes or other hydrogeological measurement techniques [5]. Springs are abundant, widely distributed, and have played important roles in ecological and socioeconomic systems throughout human history [6, 7]. Widely available tools for inventory, assessment, and data management of springs ecosystems provide straight forward opportunities for learner engagement (https://springstewardshipinstitute.org/).

As geoscience related enrollment and undergraduate degrees continue to decline (from > 32,000 in 2015, to < 20,000 in 2019) [8], new methods are needed to recruit and engage students in these interesting and challenging interdisciplinary fields. Springer hypothesized that an interactive, interdisciplinary workshop included with a standard distinguished lecture would (1) enhance interdisciplinary training and collaboration and (2) improve student engagement. The workshops were designed to enhance the experience of traditional hydrologic field work by encouraging interdisciplinary interactions among hydrologists, geologists, biologists, botanists, and social scientists.

2 Methods

In 2022, two standard lectures for the Birdsall Dreiss and LaMoreaux lecture tour were provided and the option of an additional 1/2-day interactive field workshop was introduced. The first lecture was titled “The Stories Told by Springs”. The workshop was titled “Springs Ecosystem Inventory and Assessment” and was designed to demonstrate the techniques for collecting the types of data featured in the first lecture topic. The workshops were an extension of the educational setting of the static lecture to an outdoor setting, and as such were exempt from social research regulations.

The workshops were designed to improve student engagement by addressing each of the behavioral, affective, and cognitive levels of student engagement. The workshops provided behavioral engagement by having student volunteers lead the workshops. Students demonstrated affective engagement, which data entry and manuscript co-authorship addressed. Cognitive engagement was provided through the students helping to analyze data and contribute to this manuscript.

To promote interdisciplinarity, each lecture host was encouraged to invite students, faculty, staff, colleagues from a variety of disciplines, along with local expert(s) on the botany, aquatic ecology, cultural geography, environmental history, or other multidisciplinary aspects of the local spring ecosystem. The Springs Stewardship Institute’s Level 2 Springs Inventory Protocol (https://springstewardshipinstitute.org/springs-inventory-protocol) and Springs Ecosystem Assessment Protocol (SEAP, https://springstewardshipinstitute.org/seap) were used to collect as many levels of data as possible from the ecosystem to help develop a monitoring and management plan for the spring. The Level 2 inventory is designed to provide a detailed inventory of the baseline physical, biological, human impacts, and administrative context variables of a springs ecosystem. Standardized inventory field sheets were provided to each attendee to collect data in the field during the workshop. The average sized spring, with an interdisciplinary team, requires 2–3 h to conduct a Level 2 inventory.

When possible, advanced undergraduate or graduate students were recruited to help coordinate the workshop. The student coordinator was used to help invite workshop attendees, recruit and train an interdisciplinary team, organize and prepare equipment for the field inventory, lead the field data collection, finalize all field data sheets, coordinate any laboratory analyses related to field data, and contribute to data entry. Workshop coordinators were encouraged to upload the data to the cloud-based Springs Online database: (https://springsdata.org). No participants of the workshops other than the student co-authors were involved in the manuscript. After the students finished data entry, a summary report of the inventory was created and provided to the workshop hosts to conduct quality assurance and quality control of the data. Assessment of the success of the lecture tour was conducted by the participation rate at each level indicated in this paragraph.

Where local cultural or historic experts were available SEAP was completed at the spring. Most students did not have experience with qualitative assessment protocols, so this activity was novel professional training. SEAP is a qualitative method to assess the condition and the risk from human activities at a spring ecosystem. There are six categories: aquifer and water quality, site geomorphology, habitat and microhabitat array, site biota, human uses and influences, and the administrative context under which the spring is managed. Each category has five to eight subcategories that are ranked on a scale from 0 to 6, with zero being the poorest condition and six being the highest condition. The first five categories are evaluated by the interdisciplinary team in the field or after some laboratory analysis. The sixth category is assessed through a discussion with the land or resource manager of the spring ecosystem. There can be a score for each subcategory or for each category. An assessment takes approximately 30–45 min to complete. Recommendations for improvements to management are valuable to include with the completed assessment.

Filtered water samples were collected at each spring and analyzed for delta18-oxygen and delta 2-hydrogen isotopes at the Arizona Climate and Ecosystems Laboratory at Northern Arizona University. Analyses were done via cavity ring-down spectroscopy using a Picarro L2140-i instrument coupled to the Picarro fully integrated Autosampler (A0325) and Vaporizer (A0211) for simultaneous measurements of 2H/1H and 18O/16O ratios. Data were plotted versus the global meteoric water line [9] and were analyzed to be either locally or regionally sourced [10].

3 Results

Significant time was expended to coordinate not only the lecture tour, but the associated workshops. Interdisciplinary collaboration was facilitated between the hosts of the lecture (typically geologists) with experts in botany, aquatic ecology, cultural history, and land management. Most of the hosts had done some studies of springs, but generally not to the interdisciplinary depth needed to collect ecosystem data for the Level 2 Inventory and the SEAP.

Thirty-three lectures were given during the tour and 19 of the lectures were presented “in-person” only. Of the remaining lectures, 14 were hybrid (virtual and in-person) and six were virtual only. Attendance for the tour was 958 (55%) in person and 775 (45%) virtual. The largest attendance at any individual lecture was a virtual presentation for 231 persons at the U.S. Geological Survey. Both Zoom and Microsoft Teams were used for fully virtual and hybrid presentations. The average cost per lecture attendee of the foundation funds for travel was about $6.50, or about $360 per lecture. This cost does not include the time of the lecturer or the costs the local hosts incurred for the lectures or workshops.

Workshops were given at 13 of the locations visited during the lecture tour and each host led a site visit to a spring with students with some limited data collection (Fig. 1). One hundred forty-five people attended the workshops. Attendees included undergraduate and graduate students, university faculty and staff, governmental employees, non-governmental organization members, and engaged community members.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Springs visiting during the 2022 Birdsall-Dreiss and LaMoreaux Distinguished lecture tour

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Students were trained in database entry and were able to partially enter data for eight of the 13 springs in the cloud-based database. Three springs had all or all but one of the data fields entered. Because this was the first time the database was used for data entry by students trained during a lecture tour, improvements were made to the data entry process by the database manager at the Springs Stewardship Institute to set permissions, establish initial geographical information data fields, and conduct quality assurance.

Inventories included six of the 13 geomorphologic spheres of discharge of springs [5, 6]: four limnocrene, four hillslope, three anthropogenic, one rheocrene, one cave, and one mound form (Fig. 2, Table 1). The average area of the springs ecosystems was 226 m2 and they had an average of 3.3 different geomorphic surfaces. Elevations ranged from 191 to 1693 m above sea level.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Examples of each sphere of discharge of springs inventoried from student workshops. a Anthropogenic (Orenda Spring, NY), b Cave (Blowing Spring, AR), c Hillslope (Greenough Spring, MT), d Limnocrene (Blautopf, Germany), e Mound-form (Silver Spring, Canada), f Rheocrene (Cibola Spring, NM)

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Table 1 Sphere of discharge, discharge and field water quality field parameters measured at springs inventoried with student workshops
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Workshop coordinators had the most difficulty finding experts to help inventory invertebrates. Invertebrate collection with identification was only conducted at four springs. The most frequently identified invertebrates were Amphipoda, Diptera, Hemiptera, Isopoda, and Trichoptera. Vertebrates were rarely observed and were recorded from inventories at only five springs. The most common fauna observed were birds, salamanders, and dogs.

Vegetation surveys were conducted by a professional botanist at only one spring, where 20 species of plants were identified. Two springs had vegetation surveys conducted by experienced amateur botanists who identified 10 and 15 species of plants, respectively. At two springs, non-botanist students used smartphone plant identification apps to conduct vegetation surveys and identify up to 14 species.

Despite none of the springs having their discharge fully diverted, anthropogenic activities at the springs significantly influenced the geomorphology and associated ecosystems. Dry Run Spring is a popular road-side spring in West Virginia. Despite the nearly complete obliteration of the hillslope geomorphology of the spring, water leaking around the edges and flowing out of the concrete spring box supported salamanders and 20 plant species. Blautopf Spring in Germany (Fig. 2d) has had human influences for millennia but continues to maintain a healthy aquatic ecosystem at the point where water emerges from an associated cave system.

Field parameters of water chemistry were collected at all but one of the springs. A variety of water-quality monitoring equipment was used with varying resolution and accuracy. Specific conductance values indicated that water chemistry varied from near-meteoric (Dry Run Spring) to highly mineral enriched (Orenda Spring, Table 1). The water samples aligned closely with the GMWL (Fig. 3). The isotope values are generally correlated with the latitude of the spring and the isotopic value of locally recharged precipitation at that latitude [10].

Fig. 3
figure 3

δ18O and δ2H values of spring water samples with plotted relative to the global meteoric water line [9]

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Assessments of the condition and risk of the springs were determined through discussions with the experts and the managers of the springs (Fig. 4). Students were trained in the methods of doing qualitative assessments. All but two springs (Orenda and McConnell Springs) had a natural resource condition score greater than 3 (above average). Orenda Spring was classified as an anthropogenic sphere of discharge [6]. All springs had a risk from human activities score of less than 3.0, indicating that none were experiencing serious risks from human activities. Narratives for recommendations to improve the condition or reduce the risk included fencing, improved access (trails), better outreach information (signage), or removal of unnecessary unmaintained human infrastructure. A few springs were in protected parks or wild areas that improved their condition and lowered their risk from many types of human activities.

Fig. 4
figure 4

Natural resource condition score versus human impact risk score for springs assessed during the workshops. Zero is the lowest condition and six is the highest condition assessment score

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4 Discussion

Because the lecture tour was sponsored by a professional geoscience society and was generally hosted by earth-science academic units or organizations, geologists and geology students were the primary audience of the lecture tour and workshops. To promote interdisciplinary collaboration the workshops were designed to introduce the geoscience audience to scientists from other disciplines, including the life and social sciences. Springs ecosystems are tremendous laboratories for interdisciplinary learning opportunities. Conventional geochemistry and isotope data were collected and applied to interpreting and understanding how they influenced the ecosystem. Because of the long human history at many springs (e.g. some springs are considered important sources of permanent water to contribute to the evolution of humans [11]), it is important to include colleague(s) with knowledge of environmental history, land management, or oral stories about springs. In this small sample of springs, all but one had at least one significant human historical or cultural component that influenced the inventory and assessments of the spring.

The geology-focused hosts of the lectures were challenged by finding experienced colleagues to help conduct the inventory and assessment of flora and fauna. Most of the lecture hosts and student volunteers worked to identify and invite new colleagues to do the flora and fauna inventories. Only one university had an existing professional collaboration to conduct flora inventories. When expert or amateur botanists were unavailable, some students used phone applications, such as iNaturalist (https://www.inaturalist.org/) or PlantNet (https://plantnet.org/en/) to identify vegetation. Identification of invertebrate fauna is time-consuming and challenging. At two workshops, local governmental or non-governmental water quality organizations provided aquatic invertebrate surveys. This approach was very helpful as these groups are accustomed to doing inventories while educating and informing the public.

The broad geographical scope of the lecture tour presented challenges for entry of the data into the Springs Online database (https://springsdata.org). The database and permissions system are organized in relation to land ownership categories. The geopolitical complexity of land unit designation by state (U.S.), province (Canada), and region (Germany) required uploading of all land ownership categories in each country before entry of new springs into the database. To accommodate this land-unit nomenclature differences the database manager provided temporary place holders for some land ownership entries. When sufficient support becomes available, the database host organization will be able to more fully populate the land unit coverages of the nations visited during the lecture tour.

Even though many of the springs ecosystems included in the workshops were either on a university campus or near it, they generally had not been previously visited or received an interdisciplinary inventory as part of a class field trip. By bringing attention to the interdisciplinary, outdoor learning environment available close to campus and the wide variety of analyses and interpretations that can be made from continuous monitoring of springs, it is hoped that springs will become a regular part of learning environments of hydrogeologists, such as boreholes, geophysics, and streams are now. The training in inventory protocols and database entry enabled the students to lead similar activities at other springs.

The skills students obtained from learning springs ecosystem inventory and assessment techniques, how to enter complex interdisciplinary data into a cloud-sourced database, and how to analyze and present the results of the work in a manuscript were valuable professional development. Most federal land management agencies in the U.S. have adopted the Level 2 Inventory approach of the Springs Stewardship Institute for inventorying springs ecosystems and use the Springs Online database for the enterprise repository of the data. Subsequently, the training provided by the workshop helped prepare students for careers with these agencies and organizations.

Unfortunately, there are no examples in the literature of other distinguished lecture tours with interactive workshops to compare assessment of learner engagement. This lecture tour was able to engage students in data collection and co-authorship on a manuscript from eight of the 13 workshops (62%).

5 Conclusions

Learner-engaged workshops involving springs ecosystems show great promise as natural laboratories to recruit and train a new generation of interdisciplinary scientists and resource managers. Lessons learned from the workshops conducted as part of the Birdsall-Dreiss and LaMoreaux Distinguished Lecture tour demonstrated some of the successes and challenges of this learning approach. Because geologists partially pursue the scientific discipline for the opportunities for activities in the field, the outdoor workshops generated great enthusiasm for the attendees, more so than a static one-hour lecture on the topic inside a building. In the field, students could touch the water, see the various forms of plant and animal life in their natural setting, and live the stories behind the history. With the great resources invested in the lecture tours, the field-based, student-led workshops provided a more active and engaged learning environment through behavioral and affective levels of learning. Future lectures that implement this approach would be encouraged to develop metrics for assessing success. One metric developed as part of this lecture tour was the student co-authorship on this manuscript; 62% of the workshops resulted in a student co-author. Future distinguished lecturers are encouraged to make their tours more student-engaged by incorporating activities beyond a standard lecture in their tour.