Water, Water, Everywhere

Students learn about floods, discovering that different types of floods occur from different water sources, but primarily from heavy rainfall. While floods occur naturally and have benefits such as creating fertile farmland, students learn that with the increase in human population in flood-prone areas, floods are become increasingly problematic. Both natural and manmade factors contribute to floods. Students learn what makes floods dangerous and what engineers design to predict, control and survive floods. In this lesson, students learn about floods and their natural and man-made connections.

Standards & Objectives

Learning objectives: 

After this lesson, students should be able to:

  • Define flooding as involving heavy rainfall or snowmelt.
  • List three types of flooding.
  • Identify reasons why humans tend to settle in floodplains.
  • Explain that engineers design dams, dikes and levees to control flooding.

Lesson Variations

Blooms taxonomy level: 
Understanding
Extension suggestions: 
  • Have students investigate the floods caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans to find out how natural disasters like hurricanes can be directly related to flooding and the failure of engineering structures such as levees.

References

Contributors: