SCILLA: A SCIENTIFIC/LEARNING LAGRANGIAN MODEL FOR TEACHING TRANSPORT-DISPERSION PROCESSES IN MARINE SCIENCES, OCEANOGRAPHY, AND COASTAL MANAGEMENT DEGREES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CADIZ (SPAIN)

SciLLa is a single two-dimensional, Lagrangian, transport-dispersion, particle-tracking model, developed by the Research Group “Physical Oceanography: Dynamics” (GOFICA) of the Department of Applied Physics of the University of Cadiz (Spain). It was conceived as an innovative teaching/learning tool used by students to simulate processes of transport of substances and pollutants in marine and coastal environments, in the framework of different Degrees related to Marine and Environmental Sciences, Oceanography, and Coastal Management, taught at the Faculty of Marine and Environmental Sciences of the University of Cadiz. Concretely, it is applied in practice lessons about water contamination to predict and evaluate risks and damages caused by spills of pollutants, such as bacterial contamination related to urban/industrial wastewaters, and accidental oil-spills. The input marine currents fields are provided by two- and three-dimensional hydrodynamic models developed by GOFICA, although other 2-D fields from any model or climatology could be used as well, once assured certain grid characteristics and data files format. The output results are written as Keyhole Markup Language (KML) files, containing the geographical position of the particles (spillets) at all time-steps of the selected interval, which can be easily visualized and animated by the students in Google Earth and other Geographical Information Systems (GIS) environments. Experiences with students of different Graduate Degrees (MSc on Oceanography, MSc on Coastal Management) during the Courses 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 showed a high level of acceptance and interest for the use of this software by the students, as well as their general impression in considering it a valuable tool for the learning and comprehension of the physical processes involved.