Fermilab LInC Online

Welcome To Flooding River

Invitation to participate in a project to help investigate problems of the West Branch of the North Branch of the Rouge River (the river that flows through Cranbrook).

Below is a copy of the letter sent to your school requesting your help.

This letter is also in the hands of Lawton Elementary School so they can help us and serve as a control for experiments.

Dear Student:

During the spring and fall, the branches of the Rouge River that flows through the Bloomfield Hills community often floods causing property damage. Cranbrook Schools has experienced this often in the last decade. In Ann Arbor, flooding occurs along the Huron River that flow through several communities resulting in similar property damage. Flooding has not always been a problem for these communities.

In cooperation with a hydrology study of the Rouge River to help relieve these problems of flooding at Cranbrook, I am asking for help from your two schools to gather data that might help us understand and solve this problem of increasing property damage. Perhaps lessons learned from this study can help Ann Arbor communities find solutions before the problems of flooding become severe.

Both classes will need to work independently to generate reliable data using sound research that can be compared throughout the project. We are very interested in unique, feasible solutions to the current problems including what is happening, why it is happening now, and what can be done to prevent the flooding from occurring in the future. Local agencies will also be involved with this effort and can be asked for help. Any sound conclusions you can reach from your work should be collected in a final report which can be delivered to my office or reported in an oral presentation to a group of agencies working on this problem.

The communities of Bloomfield Hills and Ann Arbor wish you the best in completing this activity. Your project is one part of the solution and with your help we may be able to solve the current flooding problems.

Sincerely,

Ed Thompson

Cranbrook Grounds

Well Kids, there it is! A request to do some real science, science that counts for something more than just a grade. There are people counting on you so we know you will take this project seriously. We need to have a class meeting to discuss what this means and what our project should look like when it is done. As you will see from the links below, we have some ideas to get us started and ideas about what we should end up with. You have some ideas that might add to these ideas. This is your project, your chance to make a difference.

Two schools will be participating in this study. One is Kingswood and the other is Lawton school in Ann Arbor. Lawton is on another water shed with a similar river system and the same climate so we can make some comparisons. You will need to collaborate with them on this project.

What To Do Next
Table of Content Project Summary
Rubric for Grading

Back to the top

Frequently Asked Questions Answered


Created for the Fermilab LInC program sponsored by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Education Office and Friends of Fermilab, and funded by United States Department of Energy, Illinois State Board of Education, North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium which is operated by North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL), and the National Science Foundation.

Author(s): Miles Robinson (mrobinson@cranbrook.edu), Brian Schad (schad@aaps.k12.mi.us )
Cranbrook Schools, Kingswood Girl's Middle School, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Lawton Elementary Ann Arbor, Michigan
Created: February 15, 2001 - Updated: April 18, 2001
URL: /lincon/w01/projects/yourfoldername/student.html