Flash Floods - Preventable Wrath of Water

<p>For sustainable future I plan various activities, workshops, local IIT visit, Planetarium and Science center visits, arrange film screening, simulation exercises, Virtual trips, quizzes on various topics and map work, independent research for better understanding, conducting observations and finding out answers/reasons for their findings. The very purpose is to broaden their horizons and make them global citizens. According to me a class can be how the teacher wants it. If you have compassion and if you are passionate about your work then most of the work is done. While teaching Science, I always try to correlate things with day-to-day life and make students reaffirm their accumulated knowledge through nature’s very own perspective.</p><p> </p><p>One of my favorite topics is Water in our ecosystem. Today, as we all are aware of, sea levels are rising across the world due to global warming and glacial melting as a result thereof. Yet another catastrophic form of the wrath expressed by nature is in form of Flash Floods. It is a rapid flooding and an almost sudden surge in water levels within a few hours or, at times, minutes of the rainfall that causes a catastrophic loss of life and material wealth. Instances of these flash floods are increasing in number and intensity, not only in India but every elsewhere of the world. The question here is, that was it inevitable or could we have done something to prevent these. However, since the times can’t be averted, there is no use of crying over the milk that we have spilt ourselves. The spotlight today should be on ways of preventing these self-invented calamities. Since there is no ‘Undo’ button in life, it calls for some out of the box thinking and putting self-restraints on some deep-rooted human habits, to be able to set aside these ill effects our past misdeeds.</p><p> </p><p>The vast amount of water, which comprises our oceans, plays a crucial role in stabilizing the climate, making our earth’s atmosphere hospitable for human life. Land which is closer to the ocean is subject to more frequent shifts in weather, however, water acts as an environmental shock absorber.</p><p> </p><p>Teaching Earth Sciences at middle school level is an opportunity to make projects on Flash floods and carry it out by complex analysis of the rain gauge, geological, geophysical, predictive, diagnostic, descriptive and geodetic information available.</p><p> </p><p>Students work in small groups of 4-5 and find out information about local weather and climatic conditions, together with the river basin geography and geology as part of computer-generated models to simulate combinations of conditions to see the impact on water level. What they learn is applied to the design of data structures to control flood waters. They also find out about disastrous flash floods, lists and map them out, by year or by location. It’s involves a multidisciplinary approach as they write a report on it in their language subjects (Hindi and English), find the ways to control it (Science), location, mapping and affected area (Geography).</p>