Overview of Lesson		Materials
Connection to the Curriculum,Standards and Skills		Body of Lesson - Procedure & Assessment
Grade Level		Activity One and Student Assessment
Purpose of Lesson		Activity Two and Student Assessment
Primary Geographic Question		References
Secondary Questions

Overview of the Lesson

Humans continue to explore ways of adapting river systems to meet identified needs or desires. These adaptations often result in long term impacts on the environment and require humans to modify their behavior in response to such changes. This cause and effect relationship is especially observable in many of the world's major river systems.

Geography Standards

Standard 15: Understand how physical systems affect human systems

Standard 18: How to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future

Alabama Course of Study:  Social Studies Content Standards (Grade 7)

Standard 3: Analyze the distribution of major physical and human features on Earth's surface using different scales

Standard 7: Evaluate the impact of human activity on landscapes over time using maps, graphs, and satellite produced images

Geographic Skills

Asking Geographic Questions: Students will generate questions concerning human and environmental relationships as a result of human intervention of river flow.

Acquiring Geographic Information: Students will search for information concerning several major rivers of the world to identify long-term impacts on human-environment relationships.

Analyzing Geographic Information: Using maps of altered river systems, students will infer kinds of human intervention that have occurred and identify possible impacts of such intervention.

Answering Geographic Questions: Students will develop oral and written reports on motivation for intervention, environmental impacts, and changes in human behavior in response to altered environments.

Grade 7

Students will explore motivations behind human intervention in the stream flow of selected rivers. They will infer kinds of intervention and their results before completing a literature search for detailed information. After collecting data, students will evaluate the level of success of such interventions of stream flow as well as environmental impacts. Students will recognize that some long-term impacts on the environment require adaptation of human behavior to accommodate extreme changes.

What are some effects of human intervention of natural river flow or stream dynamics?

What are motivations for human intervention of stream flow?

How does intervention affect the environment and how is human behavior changed because of these interventions?

Where have major impacts on the environment and human behavior occurred?

• references
• map of Mississippi and Atchafalaya region
• poster board (optional)
• Brief History Card
• Graphic-Human Impacts on Major Rivers
• world map
• references
• map pins

Activity One

Each group should have a copy of the map, poster board, and Brief History Card. The whole group will share references.

• Brief History Card: Until the 1830s the Atchafalaya River was a trickle flowing out of the Mississippi cutting a shorter, steeper route across Louisiana to the Gulf of Mexico. In 1839, the state cleared the Atchafalaya of an ancient logjam, allowing the Mississippi to scour a deeper, wider channel in the streambed. This action resulted in the former stream developing the tendency to capture the Mississippi and send it rushing through the shorter channel to the sea.The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers developed and implemented a plan to control the amount of flow from the Mississippi into the Atchafalaya.
• Map of the Mississippi-Atchafalaya Rivers
• The U.S Army Corps of Engineers monitors the meanders and water volume of the Mississippi very closely, especially the area where the Mississippi and Atchafalaya flow near each other. In fact, the Corps uses the Atchafalaya as a distributary to let some of the water out of the Mississippi. Using the map, develop and record geographic questions you have about the region. Predict what would happen if meandering and flooding occurred without some intervention. Identify as many effects as possible.
• In cooperative groups, students will generate geographic questions related to this region and record these on poster board. Questions will be shared with the whole group and posters will be displayed. Also, students will record predictions of impacts on the environment and human behavior prior to searching for information about the development, history and effects of the intervention of the Mississippi's flow into the Atchafalaya, changes in locations of deltas over time, and potential impacts if the Mississippi changes its course.

Assessing Student Learning: Activity One

Upon completion of research, cooperative groups will share orally their predictions and how research may have affirmed their thinking. As a whole group, students will develop a concept web illustrating learned information. They will prepare individually written reports addressing primary and secondary geographic questions. Oral comments and written reports should include defense of answers.

Activity Two

• Students will need the Human Impacts on Major Rivers graphic, world map, references, and map pins for this activity.
• In cooperative groups students will use the graphic to infer what intervention may have occurred, if any, why intervention was thought to be necessary, what environmental impact it may have, and how environmental changes are affecting or may affect humans.
• They will record inferences.
• Students will research major rivers of the world to identify examples of the events depicted by the graphic. (Answers will vary, but will probably include: Aral Sea, Three Gorges Dam, Aswan Dam, Colorado River, Bonneville Salt Flatsłnature induced) They will locate and identify the rivers on a world map.
• After research is complete, students will discuss in a whole group the information found and their reaction to it. They should identify local water projects and potential impacts on the community.
• Human Impacts on Major Rivers Graphic
Throughout time humans have been involved in changing courses and behaviors of rivers. The illustrations below represent the effects of human activity on some major rivers. Note the changes in the volume of water as the river flows downstream. What do you think is happening and why? What are short and long term impacts on the environment and humans? Record your ideas. Identify rivers of the world that are examples of these illustrations. Locate them on a world map.

Assessing Student Learning: Activity Two

Student learning will be assessed through contributions made to cooperative groups and whole class discussions. Students will select one river system discussed by the class and individually develop a written report addressing the primary and secondary geographic questions in this lesson.

Carrier, Jim. The Colorado A River Drained Dry. 1991 National Geographic Magazine
179: 4-35.

Christopherson, Robert W. 1997. Geosystems An Introduction to Physical Geography. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Dunn, Margery G. et al. Eds. Exploring Your World: The Adventure of Geography. 1995.The National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.

Ellis, William S. The Aral Sea: A Soviet Sea Lies Dying. 1990. National Geographic Magazine. 177: 73-93.

Lauber, Patricia. Flood Wrestling with the Mississippi. 1990. The National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.

Lee, Douglas. Mississippi Delta The Land of the River. 1983. National Geographic Magazine 164: 226-253.

Mairson, Alan. The Everglades: Dying for Help. 1994. National Geographic Magazine 185: 2-35.

Parfit. Michael. Sharing the Wealth of Water. 1993. National Geographic MagazineSpecial Edition: Water 20-37.

Rudloe, Jack and Ann Rudloe. Louisiana's Atachafalaya Trouble in Bayou Country. 1979. National Geographic Magazine 156: 377-397.

Theroux, Peter. The Imperiled Nile Delta. 1997. National Geographic Magazine 191:2-35.

Zich, Arthur. China's Three Gorges Dam. 1997. National Geographic Magazine 192: 2-33.

NASA

Atchafalaya Swamp Donated as Natural Area Corps designates 4,000 acres in floodway as natural area  (Press release)

Harvard University

HoloGlobe Exhibit

http://www.lacoast.gov/Programs/Cwppra/Projects/Atchafalya/atch_basdyn.html

University of Michigan
 

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