Are floods an act of God? Lesson 4

Is flooding set to continue?
Students will learn:

• to reflect on what they have learnt and communicate their findings;
• to justify their personal opinions;
• about the concept of sustainability;
• how thinking about the future can guide decision-making;
• to develop a belief that things can get be better and that individuals can make a difference.

Starter
Students open the envelope from the first lesson and to consider their responses to the question Are floods an act of God? In groups students need to spend 5 minutes discussing how their views may or may not have altered over the last few lessons. This is an important stepping stone into the main activity.

Boscastle tearooms, photo BBC website Main activity
Working in small groups students are to prepare a short presentation entitled Possible Futures. They need to consider the flood scenario that the teacher has drawn upon in the previous lessons, and use the knowledge and understanding they have developed during the unit to imagine how the issue of floods, aligned to a specific area or nationally or globally, will develop over the next 10-20 years.

• Will severe floods become more common?
• Will people continue to put themselves at risk from floods?
• Will humans continue to battle against nature?
• Will there be a more sustainable future?

Teachers may want to provide students with outline maps of particular river basins, these could be annotated to identify and locate the events of students' Possible Futures.

When completed a spokesperson from each group needs to display and present their Possible Futures to the rest of the class.

Plenary
This needs to be a summary and evaluation of the unit and ought to focus around the following questions:

• Why is flooding society's responsibility?
• Can the conflicting views of different people/groups of people be resolved?
• Is there one best solution to flooding?
• What limits society's ability to make the right decisions about flood management?

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Downloads

Floods lesson 4 (, 32 KB)