C4E Affiliate develops YouTube Following

West Lafayette, November 30, 2021-- Purdue students are no strangers to digital content supplementing in-course materials.  But rarely do professors establish a cult following on YouTube.  The exception to the rule may be found in the channel of Venkatesh Merwade, professor of hydrology in Purdue’s Lyles School of Civil Engineering and affiliate faculty of Purdue’s Center for the Environment.  His videos have been viewed more than 136,000 times and, as of fall 2021, his channel has over 2,000 subscribers. This success complements online tutorials on hydrology modelling which, Merwade notes, are typically downloaded 30-50 times a day from locations around the world.

As the lead instructor of the advanced hydrology class CE 54200, Merwade started his channel, “Hydrology Videos,” in 2017 as a place where students could upload their own creative projects designed to teach a basic hydrology topic. The addition of these video assignments continued until COVID-19 struck in spring 2020, forcing Purdue faculty, like faculty around the country, to make a more dramatic pivot to online instruction.

Almost overnight, the channel became a place where not only students at Purdue, but from across the globe, could tune in to hear Dr. Merwade’s hydrology lectures. Because the channel is on a public platform, it is accessible to anyone who searches YouTube for material relating to hydrology. As of the end of 2021, the channel hosts over 80 videos by both students and Merwade himself.  While most of the videos have garnered around 500 views, many have reached thousands of viewers, with his lecture on Manning’s Equation being viewed almost 13,000 times.

There are many upcoming videos in store for the “Hydrology Videos” channel. Some of these include more lectures on hydrologic and hydraulic modeling with additions to his SWAT modeling playlist. Merwade intends to continue posting educational materials despite the gradual shift back to in-person classes. 

In addition, the videos will soon be associated with an online version of CE 54900, “Computational Watershed Hydrology,” which will be part of Purdue’s new online master’s program in Civil Engineering.  

Other Center for the Environment affiliates involved in this online master’s degree include Antoine Aubeneau, Chip Blatchley, G.S. Govindaraju, Ayman Habib, Cary Troy,  Satish Ukkusuri, Andrew Whelton, and George Zhou.

About Purdue’s Center for the Environment: The Center for the Environment promotes proactive, interdisciplinary research, learning, and engagement that addresses important environmental challenges. The Center connects the faculty and students across departments and disciplines who work on environmental challenges by actively supporting the development and implementation of innovative projects and teams

Writers: Lauren Wetterau, C4E Communication Intern and Lynne Dahmen, Managing Director