|
Cover Story: Blown Away in the Big Easy Katrina in the Classroom
The Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences has developed a poster about Hurricane Katrina. Titled "Formula for Disaster," the content and graphic-rich poster is intended as a teaching tool for high school science classrooms. Combining their expertise in areas of meteorology, hydrology, geology and land management, the earth and environmental science faculty developed a comprehensive look at what factors contributed to the catastrophe. Assistant Professor Katherine Straub spearheaded the project on behalf of the department. The poster explains the impacts of everything from the above-average temperature in the Gulf of Mexico just prior to Hurricane Katrina's landfall to the redirection of the Mississippi River by extensive levee systems. It describes how the channeled Mississippi has depleted the sediment buildup along the river delta on which New Orleans sits, resulting in sediment compression, subsidence and, ultimately, sinking. The poster further explains how wetlands are natural buffers in flood events, but Louisiana loses 40 square miles of wetlands every year. These underlying factors are well-known to science majors who have taken Assistant Professor Andrew Kozlowski's water resource class. For years, he has been using New Orleans as an example of natural resource management gone awry and warning students of the potential for disaster in the city. Erin Markel '07, an earth and environmental science major who took the class last year, said that when she heard a large-scale hurricane was bearing down on New Orleans she was skeptical about the city's chances of averting widespread destruction. "I knew that New Orleans was in a vulnerable situation: below sea level, with levee-contained water surrounding it, in many places higher than the actual city. I also knew about the destructiveness of a hurricane's storm surge." Markel said. Her roommate, Kristin Simpers '07, took the class in the fall as the tragic events of the storm unfolded. "It was intriguing to have a class that shadowed current events, enabling us to understand what was happening in New Orleans in a scientific and educated way," Simpers said. Earth and environmental science is just one of the disciplines in which faculty and students are exploring the academic applications of Katrina. Another example is the research elementary education major Lauren Bush '06 is doing for her senior research project. The project examines the role of education systems in disaster situations. She is also focusing her senior honors capstone work on the disaster by creating a fund drive to replenish teaching supplies for a severely damaged school in St. Tammany Parish. Educators: |
