Are levees along the Mississippi River part of the problem or the solution?
Eli Chen of St. Louis Public Radio talks about the conflict between engineers and environmentalists working with flooding along the Mississippi River.
Vocabulary: flood, levees, floodplain, tributary, stakeholder, engineer, environmentalist
Next Generation Science Standards: SEP2- Developing and Using Models, and CCC2: Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation. Can be used to address MS-ESS3–3, MS-ETS1–1, MS-ETS1–4, HS-ESS3–1, HS-ESS3–6.
Common Core State Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9–10.1, CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11–12.1
As we’ve seen from Harvey, coastal flooding may become the new normal. But it’s not only cities on the seaboard that need a flood plan. Places like St. Louis, along the Mississippi River, are also seeing more floods. Levees are a central part of their flood plan. But how to build them? Well, that’s not a straightforward answer. And it’s created a levee war in the area. Eli Chen, science and environment reporter at St. Louis Public Radio joins Ira to talk more about levee use to mitigate flood damage.
Print this segment transcript.
This segment is part of The State of Science, a series featuring science stories from public radio stations across the United States. This story originally appeared on St. Louis Public Radio.
Questions
- Farmers along the Mississippi River were used to one flood every fifteen years before 2008. What is the new rate of flooding?
- Why build a levee? What is their purpose?
- Nicholas Pinter explains the problem of levees using the analogy below. Critique this analogy. How does it accurately explain what is happening? Where does the analogy fall short?
“It’s like an eight-lane highway, and you’re constricting the water to a single lane. So it’s inevitable that things get clogged up.”
- The levees solve issues at a local or individual property level, but cause problems that ripple down the Mississippi floodplain. How do you think affected communities can resolve this issue? Individual properties still need to be protected, but what about issues at a larger scale (e.g. neighborhood, city, state)?
Activity Suggestions
- After learning more about floodplains, have students explore floodplain terrain by building models using modeling clay and aluminum baking pans. Have them predict the effect that the addition of levees in a variety of configurations will have on their “floodplain.”
- Have students design and build their own model levees. After testing certain designs, have students add these designs to their models of the Mississippi floodplain and assess their impact on the system. What regulations should be in place to ensure the safety of other communities in the path of the floodplain.
- Engage in a stakeholder role play to demonstrate how conflicts connected to the environment get resolved. After using this introductory activity to orient them to the decision-making process, have students design an activity using stakeholders and information from the Mississippi River floodplain area.
