Saturday morning’s lecture was prepared by Kansas State’s Dr. Bimal Paul, a Bangladeshi native who accompanied the group. Dr. Paul shared his research on the November 2007 Cyclone Sidr, which concluded that the reduced death toll was due to geographic reasons, such as the short duration of the storm surge, rather than the publicized claim of improved disaster planning. At present, Bangladesh’s cyclone shelters are too few in number and too far from

A lesson by Dawn Brown entitled "Living in a Lungi" focused on the cultural side of things: the colorful and practical dress of men in South Asia. Participants learned to tie and don the lungi, a tube-like garment wrapped around the waist, while a choral reading of "Ode to the Lungi" explained the uses of and discrimination towards the humble cloth. Her later lessons included a slide show of the 1971 war for liberation accompanied by music from "The Concert for Bangladesh," and another which drew parallels between body art—tattoos and piercing—here and in South Asia. 

Microfinance has received much attention since Mohammed Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to lift impoverished people by giving small loans to those unable to obtain traditional loans. Kim Daughetee’s lesson explored the cultural impact of the 16 oaths taken by those seeking small loans. The pros and cons of microfinance were further explored through the extensive research conducted in India by U of I Ph.D candidate Luke Juran. 

As storm forecasts grew more precise, the decision was made to defer to nature and cancel Sunday’s activities. However, Bangladesh GPA participants, in true GAI fashion, rescued the day and truncated their lessons with the group getting a small sampling of every lesson on the schedule

I've come full circle upon arriving at UNI in 2005. While I grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, my parents and all of my extended family are originally Iowans (from the Marshalltown area) who—like too many Midwesterners—moved away to the four corners of America after graduating

from college. Although my grandparents and one set of aunts/uncles never left the state, I'm the first in the whole family to return. Despite a childhood spent in the Rocky Mountains, I feel quite at home here even having never lived in the state previously; it must be "in the blood" from the four Iowa-born generations of my family who preceded me. Part of my full circle is academic as well as personal. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Northern Colorado, one of the Geography professors there was a certain Dr. Kay Weller. Although Kay and my time at UNC only overlapped a year or two and I never had an opportunity to take any courses from her, we did go on a field trip or two together. I'm pleased to work with Kay once again and I appreciate the opportunities she's given me to contribute to the GAI.

I'm an Assistant Professor at UNI where my primary research interest is Urban Geography. In particular, I study the dynamics of Latino population change, immigrant entrepreneurship, and more recently comparative research relating to the differential relationship between ethnic and multinational banking in Vancouver, BC and the San Francisco Bay area. I have other broad interests as well in the realm of Geography Education and GIS/Geospatial Technology. Within Geography Education I am interested in fieldwork as a means of authentic assessment, simulations and role-play activities, and the incorporation of geospatial technologies (e.g. GIS, GPS, satellite imagery) into both undergraduate human geography and the secondary social studies/geography classroom.

I have a very high regard for the work that geography alliances do for educators, students, and the discipline as a whole. My undergraduate degree is in Geography Education and as a student teacher I appreciated the resources provided by Colorado's alliance. As an MA student at the University of Missouri, I had the opportunity to work directly with Kit and Cathy Salter, two trailblazers in National Geographic's foundational efforts in establishing the system of statewide geography alliances. I had the fortune of earning my PhD in Geography at Arizona State University, the home institution of the Arizona Geographic Alliance. The AzGA was well integrated into the Geography department at ASU and as a doctoral student I had opportunities to become involved including leading a group of teachers on a fieldtrip to a newly-established national monument in southern Arizona.

With the GAI I'm pleased to once again be part of a first-rate state alliance especially one that offers so much varied and quality programming. In my short time here I have already had a chance to offer a summer workshop (Geospatial technology for teachers offered in June 2006) and again be on deck for a similar workshop this June 23-24 that is offered for graduate credit through UNI's Continuing Education Program. I also look forward to working with Kay in an effort to continue her outstanding success with the Fulbright-Hays program. I'll soon be writing a grant that--if funded--would provide the resources for a curriculum development trip to Chile in the summer of 2009 (similar to the Nigeria, India, and Bangladesh institutes of past years). I look forward to continued work with the GAI and opportunities to meet and interact with more TCs and pre-service teachers.

While Iowa has seen its fair share of natural disasters, including the flood of 1993 and the relatively recent tornado in 2006, it would be hard to imagine the possible consequences of these storms if the population were 50 times larger.

But every year in Bangladesh - a country slightly smaller than Iowa with a population of 150 million - the country faces massive flooding from high rainfalls and water.

UI geography graduate student Luke Juran spoke about the floods and "Coping with natural disasters in Bangladesh" in front of a crowd of roughly 30 people Monday afternoon. The speech was a part of the UI's International Mondays.

Juran traveled through Bangladesh for a month during the summer of 2007 with students and teachers from around the state. He traveled thanks to a grant from the Geographic Alliance of Iowa in attempts to learn more about the country and spread the word about its hardships and living situations.

"They know about us, and we don't know about them," Juran said.

Bangladesh is prone to flooding because of monsoon rains, rivers entering Bangladesh, cyclones and sea surges, he said. These problems create a vast range of consequences for the country including landslides and mudslides, erosion, polluted water, and overwhelmed infrastructure.

Many Bangladeshis also face waterborne and vector-borne diseases and snake bites.

Besides health and environmental consequences, the natural disasters also take a toll on social issues as well, Juran said. Religious burial rituals in unworkable muddy land, transportation, and housing displacement are just a few of the problems the floods bring up, he added.

In addition, school cancellation is a difficulty because the country already faces very low literacy rates.

"My first suggestion for Bangladesh is for everybody to get educated," said Rex Honey, a UI geography professor who also went on the trip. Only 32 percent of females and 54 percent of males are literate.

After Juran spoke, Iowa City resident Mary Gravitt spoke out against people hoping the U.S. government will help with Bangladesh's crises.

"Individual people can contribute individual knowledge but relying on the federal government is the worst thing you can do," she said.

Juran said that after his long trip and studies, his admiration for the way Bangladeshis face their hardships was what he really took back.

"Daily, they are faced with issues outside of their control and they deal with it with a smile," he said.

Grade Level: 7-12 depending upon the depth of the analysis

Content Areas: Geography, Government, Language Arts

Time Required: Can be varied as appropriate; probably would take 4-5 45-minute periods or 3 90-minute blocks.

The students will gain experience in reading and interpreting a special purpose map of a flood plain.

The students will evaluate the risks inherent to living in a flood prone area and make a redevelopment plan for a city dealing with those risks.

The students will present their plan to class and try to convince them that their plan is best.

1. How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective

4. The physical and human characteristics of places

14. How human actions modify the physical environment

15. How physical systems affect human systems

18. How to apply geography to interpret the past and plan for the future

Student copies of handouts (map, map questions, presentation instructions)

Poster board, construction paper, markers, etc. for presentations

Optional: computer access with Microsoft PowerPoint or other presentation software

A. Introduction

1. Begin by asking the students if any of them live in an area prone to flooding. If so, you might ask them how often their property has flooded, whether it has caused repairs to be made, and what hardships or inconveniences it has caused. If you do not have any students who have been in this situation, you might want to have students read an article about a major flood and its effects on people, such as the Floods of 1993 that affected much of Iowa, especially the Mississippi River.

2. Tell the students that in this activity they will be asked to interpret maps to determine flood risks and then use that information to make a plan for dealing with those risks.

B. Map Analysis

1. Distribute maps of Franklin. They show a portion of the community and include information on where the 10-year, 100-year, and 500-year flood plains are. Make sure that students understand that a 500-year flood plain area does not necessarily mean that a flood only occurs there once every 500 years; it actually means that that location has a 1/500 chance of being flooded in a given year. If your students are not well skilled at interpreting maps you might need to spend some extra time on instruction.

2. Have students study the map and answer the questions on the Map Analysis worksheet. This can be assigned as homework for the next class period or given to students to do in class.

3. Discuss the answers to the worksheet in class.

C. Redevelopment Plan

1. Distribute the instructions for the Redevelopment Plan. Inform students that they are to use all that they know about rivers and flood plains when making their development plan. Remind the students that they will be presenting their plans and they will be graded on their quality. Give the students as much time as you feel is necessary to complete. This can be done individually or in groups; it would seem to work best in groups. If you intend for the students to create PowerPoint presentations, you will need to make sure you have access to computers.

2. After the predetermined time to complete the plans, students will present them to the class. For added realism, you could have other faculty members or adults serve as the city council and rate the plans; alternately, you could have some of the class members do this also. At the end of the presentation, either the class or "council" should determine which of the plans is most feasible and why.

3. Debrief the activity by analyzing the feasibility of all the plans and have a general discussion about the necessity of planning around natural hazards. You could expand the discussion to other parts of the world, such as with cyclones and monsoon flooding in Bangladesh, or earthquakes in California.

D. Assessment: 

1. Map Worksheets

2. Development Plan (you might want to develop a rubric to assess)

3. Presentations (if you want to assess their quality; again, a rubric might be good)

 

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"Living in the Shadow of the Flood Plain"
Map Worksheet

1. Shade in the 10-year, 100-year, and 500-year flood plains with colored pencils of your choice. Also color in the South River and Dawson Creek in blue.

 

2. How many houses are all or partially in the 10-year flood plain?

 

3. How many houses are all or partially in the 100-year flood plain (remember to include those houses in the 10-year flood plain also)?

 

4. How many houses are all or partially in the 500-year flood plain (remember to include those houses in the 10- and 100-year flood plains also)?

 

5. What other businesses or other places are in the 10-year and 100-year flood plains? What problems could that create for those entities?

 

6. What sorts of transportation problems would be created by flooding in this location?

 

7. If you were a business owner, is this a location you would consider starting a new business? Why or why not?

 

8. What additional expenses would this city incur as opposed to a similar-sized community without such flooding concerns?

 

"Living in the Shadow of the Flood Plain"
Redevelopment Plan

After many years of flooding and rebuilding, the city of Franklin has decided to redevelop the areas near the South River and Dawson Creek. They are seeking input from various experts in the field. You have been asked to provide a plan for redevelopment. It should include the following information:

A detailed map of the flood plain showing indicating which (if any) houses and businesses will need to be relocated. In addition, if you decide to relocate any roads indicate those also. Finally, indicate on the map what you propose to do with any land which has had its use changed.

A 3-5 page paper which should include:

• A description of the current problems the town of Franklin faces due to repeated flooding.

• A summary of the proposed changes.

• An estimate of costs associated with the relocation. It has been estimated that buying out houses for residents on the flood plain will cost $100,000 per house, and moving a business will likely cost $100,000-$500,000, depending upon the size of the business. The federal government will provide up to $50,000 for residents to relocate, and $100,000 for businesses.

• A summary of the benefits associated with your relocation plan.

You will also prepare a Power Point presentation which you will present to the City Council and other interested citizens (your classmates) for consideration. Your presentation should be persuasive and informational.

 

Franklin – Riverfront Sector	Development Plan
Map Legend