Lesson 5 - How This Course is Organized

This Course is organized into twelve Units (including this introductory Unit).

• Unit 2 - Using Arrays in GoldSim. This Unit is actually not specific to the Contaminant Transport Module.  It is a feature of the basic GoldSim framework.  However, even if you are familiar with the basic GoldSim framework, it is possible that you are not familiar with this feature (e.g., the feature is not discussed in any detail in the Basic GoldSim Course). However, the Contaminant Transport Module utilizes this feature extensively, and therefore it is discussed here as a good understanding of the feature is required in order to use the Contaminant Transport Module.
• Unit 3 - Introduction to Contaminant Transport Modeling Using GoldSim. This Unit provides a review of the basic contaminant transport processes modeled by GoldSim, describes in general terms how these processes are represented mathematically, and then provides an overview of the overall philosophy and approach to environmental modeling embodied in the software.  This Unit will discuss some basic concepts (that you likely are already at least somewhat familiar with).  Nevertheless, it is highly recommended that you carefully read the entire Unit as it provides the fundamental underpinnings for the remaining Units.

The next six Units ( 4 through 9) then describe the fundamental components of the Contaminant Transport Module in detail using a series of simple Examples and Exercises:

• Unit 4 - Exploring and Running a Simple Contaminant Transport Model
• Unit 5 - Building a Simple Model of a Well-Mixed Environmental Compartment
• Unit 6 - Modeling Advective Transport Between Environmental Compartments
• Unit 7 - Modeling Complex Transport Processes in Environmental Compartments
• Unit 8 - Modeling Spatially Continuous Processes: Diffusive Transport
• Unit 9 - Modeling Spatially Continuous Processes: Advectively Dominated Transport with Dispersion

Units 10 and 11 discuss features specific to the Radionuclide Transport (RT) Module.  If you are not using this Module, you can skip these Units.

• Unit 10 - Using Features of the Radionuclide Transport (RT) Module: Modeling Decay Chains, Isotopes and Doses
• Unit 11 - Using Features of the Radionuclide Transport (RT) Module: Modeling Complex Source Terms

The final Unit builds upon the various concepts discussed in previous Units and discusses how the simple components described previously can be combined and linked together to represent complex systems.  It also discusses a number of advanced topics, and provides some suggestions for becoming more proficient with the Contaminant Transport Module.

• Unit 12 - Pulling it All Together: Building Complex Contaminant Transport Models

A typical Unit will typically take from 1 hour to as long as 4  or 5 hours to complete, depending on your experience, how methodical and carefully you tend to work, and the material being covered (some of the Units are much more complex than others).

Each Unit is divided into a number of “Lessons”. Within the Lessons, we will sometimes refer to an “Example” model that you will be instructed to open and look at.  In other Lessons, you will be assigned an “Exercise” – a simple model that you will build in order to learn a particular concept.  The completed Exercises are available for you to download, but of course you will learn much more by first attempting each Exercise yourself.

Each Unit concludes with a summary of the key concepts and features that were covered.