Students are presented with the problem of determining the best solution to control the flooding problem of the Red. The class use a stream table with clay to develop a model of a river with a flood plain and experiment with varying amounts of flow through the system. Students brainstorm factors that affect the flow of water in a river past a city. They use these factors to develop simple Stella models of river flow. They add factors to their model and add concepts such as carrying capacity and graphed inputs.
Students perform Internet research to gather data , images and text concerning the Red River flood.
They calculate the volume of water that would be produced from varying amounts of rainfall and snow melt. Students use data of stream heights at locations along the Red River at different dates to prepare spread sheet graphs of the flooding event. Students use topographic maps of the Red River Valley to develop an NIH Image surface plot and use density slicing to determine the spread of water at varying heights of the river. Students improve their Stella models to incorporate interactions with floodplains and other factors. Students use a developed Stella model for the Red River to model the flooding event of 1997.