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River Craft allows students to explore and understand the key areas of the Environment Agency’s work. The main areas that the students will learn are:
River Craft allows students to explore and understand the key areas of the Environment Agency’s work. The main areas that the students will learn are:
1. The different ways to mitigate flood risk through the construction of flood defences in Preston, England.
2. How personal and global choices can reduce the impacts of flooding.
3. About the ecology, wildlife habitats and opportunities to improve personal wellbeing in Preston, England. The Environment Agency is a
non-departmental public body established in 1995 that are responsible for protecting and enhancing the environment in England, United
Kingdom. The Environment Agency make people aware of flooding from rivers and the sea, provide flood warning services and build and
maintain flood defences. They are sponsored by Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).
Click on the map to the left to open it up.
Look at the rivers in and around the city.
Zoom in to get a sense of the size of the city.
Use satellite view to explore the area - look at the architecture of the buildings.
Try and navigate your way along one or more of
the riverbanks.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. Be able to identify those towns, cities and catchments flood from rivers (fluvial), the sea (tidal and coastal), and surface (pluvial) water flooding.
2. Understand there are multiple ways to mitigate flooding including natural and engineered but that flooding can only be mitigated and not prevented entirely.
3. Understand that the Environment Agency works to protect communities from flooding in different ways.
4. Preston is at risk from surface, fluvial and tidal flooding. There are currently flood defence walls and embankments along the Rivers Ribble and Darwen. These were built between 1920 and 1980.
PERFORMANCE EXPECTATIONS:
Students will be expected to identify the different types of flooding and build defences suitable to reduce that type of flooding and catchment. Students should understand what might prevent flood defences being built.
ALL STUDENTS CAN PARTICIPATE IN THIS GAME, SO LET’S GET STARTED!
If you’re new to Minecraft: Education Edition there are many resources to help you get started.
Here are some simple steps you can take to get started with Minecraft: Education Edition
1. Get & Install Minecraft: Education Edition by visiting here – It’s free to download and can be installed on many different types of devices.
2. Login into Minecraft: Education Edition with your Microsoft 365 account. Download and start the world by clicking here.
3. If you are new to Minecraft: Education Edition you can learn how to use the game with Minecraft: Education Edition YouTube Channel. We recommend you start with:
a. Getting Familiar with Minecraft: Education Edition and
b. the Basic Controls Video.
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
Part 1
You will spawn into the Environment Agency offices. Here you can interact with Environment Agency experts who are non-player characters and will provide information and greetings. These are real-life members of the project team and real project management roles. Explore for 5 minutes. At the end of the 5 minutes, select the project expert for ‘Game 1 – Managing Flood Risk’ and click the button to be teleported to the site.
Part 2
You will be teleported to the Preston Sea Cadet’s building on the River Ribble. Explore for 5 minutes and read all the boards that explain various types of flooding. When you are ready, you can begin part 1. You will need to build the first type of flood prevention, a river wall. Using the items in the chest you must build a layer of stone on the build allow blocks, and then a layer of glass on top of it. You can then press the ‘test the barrier wall’ button to see if it worked. If you did it right, no water will get through. If water does get through, you can press the ‘clear the flood’ button to try again.
Part 3
Once you have successfully stopped the area from flooding, you can move to the second task. Here you must replace the concrete blocks with the special grass blocks from the chest, then add some podzol blocks and plant trees on top of them. Once you have replaced all the concrete you can click on the ‘test the natural flood prevention method’. If it has worked, they will still see some flooding, but it will be much less, as the grass absorbs the water. You can also ‘clear the flood’ and try pressing the test button.
Part 4
Build a flood gate (use Google to get some ideas of what it might look like) using a variety of objects made available. Some objects are obviously not ideal to use, such as ice, whereas others are more well suited. Decide what material you think will make the best flood gate. Construct the flood gate in a suitable area.
Part 5
Take a screenshot of all your constructions. Label them and annotate them. Discuss the materials you used.
Efficiency (rate it - 1 = not at all effective, 5 = very effective).
Sustainability (rate it using same scale).
Aesthetic quality (rate using same scale).
Environmentally friendly (rate using same scale).
FURTHER DISCUSSION TOPICS:
Answer these questions in your books.
What types of materials can be used to construct flood defences?
The construction of flood defences requires civil engineers. The majority of civil engineers
are currently male and in 2018 the United Kingdom had the lowest percentage of female
engineers in Europe. Why do you think this is and what barriers do you think exist that
prevent women and girls becoming engineers?
Case study: Lancaster, England flooded catastrophically in 2015. There was multiple
impacts on communities there. Look at the impacts of flooding and the construction of new
flood defences in 2021 and ask students to investigate this flood and what happened in the
city.
Hydraulic modelling: computer modelling is undertaken to determine where flood defences should be placed and at what height. What kind of information might be needed to build these models?
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