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Water is critical to sustain human existence. Water literacy involves understanding the interactions within and between natural and human dimensions of water systems to support informed decision-making, an important outcome for learners of all ages. It is therefore critical to foster water literacy in today’s global citizens, particularly through formal education. The purpose of this study, in tandem with a parallel study focusing on natural dimensions of water systems (Mostacedo-Marasovic et al., in press), is to examine water-related K-12 standards for teaching and learning about human dimensions of water systems to develop a comprehensive and transdisciplinary perspective on water education. Our overarching question is, “What do disciplinary standards specify as outcomes for students’ learning about water and humans?”. Our research questions are: i) “To what extent do these water-related standards address recognized domains of learning?” and ii) “What thematic outcomes for students’ learning are apparent across grades in these water-related standards?”. We use chi-square statistics and a conventional qualitative content analysis method complemented by processes from grounded theory to analyze water-related education standards (N = 341) from 12 education-oriented, governmental and non-governmental organizations based in the United States. Our results indicate that first, water-related standards emphasize the cognitive domain, including declarative and procedural knowledge. The affective domain and its social and emotional components are much less prevalent. Second, the water-related standards illustrate five categories which encompass human dimensions of water spanning K-12 grade bands, including human settlements; the nexus between water, food, and energy; public health; impacts of human activities on water quality and quantity; and water resources management. Overall, the study contributes to a more holistic and comprehensive perspective of water and human systems that can help inform teaching and learning to cultivate water literacy, including curriculum development and classroom pedagogy.

To prepare students to address water-related challenges, undergraduate STEM education must provide them with opportunities to learn and reason about water issues. Water in Society is an introductory-level, innovative, and interdisciplinary undergraduate course offered annually at a large midwestern university. The course focuses on both disciplinary concepts and civic engagement, and is designed around a variety of interactive, research-based practices to support students’ learning, engagement with authentic data, scientific models and modeling, and collaboration and learning among peers. This study aims to evaluate, “how have student outcomes and perceptions changed over five years of the course?”. The results are based on data from students (n = 326) in five consecutive years of the course, during which time the course transitioned from a face-to-face model to fully asynchronous online model due, in part, to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The particularly rapid and abrupt transition between 2020 and 2021 in response to COVID-19 led to many course changes, including modes of communication between instructors and students and opportunities for collaboration. Here, multiple measures are used to evaluate students’ learning about water concepts, model-based reasoning about socio-hydrologic systems, and perceptions of the course across all five years. By the end of each iteration of the course, students improved their knowledge of hydrologic concepts, independent of the course format or other student-level variables. However, results also show that students’ performance on complex socio-hydrologic systems modeling tasks, as well as their overall satisfaction with the course, decreased in Year 5 when the course was fully online. Results provide insight into efforts to move undergraduate STEM courses online and specific evidence of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts on undergraduate STEM teaching and learning about water.

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