Design Challenge · Game-Based Learning · IGW-NET
A contaminated site sits upgradient of a town's drinking-water well. You're the hydrogeologist. Contain the plume before it reaches the well — and beat your classmates doing it.
Capture the contaminant plume so nothing reaches the supply well — using the fewest pumping wells at the lowest total cost.
Hydraulic capture, well interference, and the real cost of over-pumping — the physics is learned through the competition, not memorized before it.
Every valid design that achieves full capture is ranked by efficiency. Over-pumping works but bankrupts you; too little lets the plume slip through.
Score = full capture (pass / fail) → then rank by (number of wells × pumping cost)Every number here is a starting point. Change the site, the budget, the deadline, or the scoring rule to fit your course — then publish your version to the instructor network as a new seed problem for others to adopt and adapt.
New to this? Watch the Wellhead Delineation concept lesson first.