Education
Educational Outreach and Partnerships
The USGS provides a wide array of educational resources for teachers and students of earth science. The Wyoming-Montana Water Science Center also shares our science knowledge locally through community outreach activities and classroom visits.
For more information, please contact our Communications Specialist, Cheryl Eddy Miller, at 307-775-9167.
From Gage to Page: A Look Into How USGS Helps You Know the Flow
Knowing the streamflow of a river is important for many. For example, irrigators need to know how the water can be allocated to fields, boaters need to know if the river is safe to float, and municipalities need to know how much supply will be at their intakes.
Establishing a Streamgage
Streamgages are structures that house equipment that measures and records stream stage and other parameters before transmitting that data to centralized computers via satellites.
Measuring Streamflow
Accurately measuring streamflow at each visit to the site is critical to streamgaging. The correct equipment for each stream during different seasons ensures the highest quality data are collected each time.
Creating the Rating Curve
The rating curve is a relation between stage (river level) and streamflow (discharge). Each stream channel is different and, because the stage-discharge relation is a function of the streambed material and geometry, each rating curve will be unique to that site and a particular period of time.