Design of a rainfall simulator for classroom demonstration and field research

Rainfall is a key abiotic factor of ecosystems that can both provide benefits and contribute to negative environmental impacts. Due spring precipitation levels increasing in the Midwest, there has been increased interest developing evaluating practices mitigate effects heavy rainfall. As this an area for agriculture sciences, demonstrating actions severe rainfall be powerful tool natural sciences classroom as well field. simulators are ideal demonstration they create repeated, uniform events while introducing limited variability between events. Building on previous literature, we constructed cost-effective, easily transportable design utilized classroom, lab, Here, tests were conducted measure flow rate, rain droplet size, uniformity water dispersion cost-effective obtained solid cone-style herbicide nozzle. We found no statistically significant differences among metrics or raindrop analyses. This demonstrates capability constructing type teaching research equipment at little cost producing highly consistent size-relevant artificial