Continuing the exploration of soil water, this week you’ll be looking at Darcy’s

Continuing the exploration of soil water, this week you’ll be looking at Darcy’s Law and capillary rise. Note that although you do have to use the included spreadsheets, you do not have to turn them in – just copy the graphs & data into your lab document
Lab Outline
In the sixth lab, you’ll be measuring both capillary rise and saturated hydraulic conductivity (ksat – with Darcy’s Law). These measurements are accomplished through the use of glass plates (capillary rise) and felt (ksat)…and a lot of water! Although you won’t be outside this week, think of the lab as a continuation and further exploration of the infiltration rate experiment from Week 5. New for this week, you’ll be using Excel spreadsheets to graph the data you collect. Don’t worry, the spreadsheets are premade and all you have to do is fill in your data, and talk (intelligently!) about the result.
Lab Activity Completion Time
The capillary rise experiment will take approximately 1 hour from start to finish. The Darcy’s Law/ksat part of the lab is a little more involved and will likely take about two hours to complete.
If the lab is taking you longer than the time described above, that is a sign that you should reach out to us for help. Sign on to office hours, or post a question on the discussion board, or shoot us an email to ask your question or set up an appointment. We’re here to help if you reach out!