Designing Solutions

This is an icon of marsh grasses This is Part 2 of Lesson 4 of Project Resilience curriculum. 

Students present their claims about which environmental problem is a priority to address and their ideas about solutions to the problem.

Learning Objectives

  • Students learn about different priority problems and consider proposed solutions to these problems.
  • Students are introduced to the concepts of resilience and adaptation and the differences between these two important strategies.

Materials

Preparation

  • Print copies of the Lesson 4: CER & Presentation Rubric to use when scoring the group presentations.

Directions

Proposing solutions (15 min)

  • Students continue working with their groups to create their CER and solutions poster.

Stay-Stray Presentations (15 min)

  1. Hang the claim posters around the room and have a modified gallery walk. Tell each group that goal is to give and receive feedback to each other so that we can revise and strengthen our claims and proposed solutions.
    • 1-2 group members remain with their group’s poster to explain and answer questions (this is the “stay” portion).
    • The other group members walk around and visit the other posters (the “stray” portion).
    • Encourage questions and answers about the CERs and the proposed solutions.
  2. Use the Lesson 4: CER & Presentation Rubric to assess during the stay-stray presentations.
  3. Have students return to their groups to share any new ideas and suggestions that arose during the stay-stray presentations.
  4. Individually, have students revise their group’s argument, based on the new ideas and suggestions from the stay-stray presentations, and on any new ideas they might have. Give each student a copy of the Turning Problems into Solutions: CER Student Sheet and have them fill in the revised argument here.
    • This should be completed as homework and can be used as an individual assessment.

Introducing Resilience Planning and Returning to our Driving Question Board (20 min)

  1. Transition to this final section. Each group created a solution for just one problem, but the reality is that communities are dealing with many challenges simultaneously. Many factors determine how well a community is able to respond to these challenges.
  2. Introduce the ideas of resilience and adaptation.
    • Share the definitions (slide 56):
      • Resilience is the ability to recover from or adapt to difficulty, while adaptation is an action taken to become better suited to our environment.
      • Resilience is a characteristic, while adaptation is an action taken.
      • Point out the connection between the two concepts; adapting can make a community more resilient.
  3. Provide an example of community resilience and adaptation that your students will connect to. For example, Terrebonne Parish adopting a multi-year plan to respond to flooding in the community is an example of being resilient. People who live down the bayou elevating their homes because flooding is common is an example of adapting.
  4. Have students come up with an example of both resilience and adaptation with a partner. It does not need to be an example related to environmental challenges. Rather, it can be any example to demonstrate that students understand the difference between the two terms. Invite students to share their examples with the class if they would like.
  5. Share that complex problems almost never have simple solutions. In the case of the environmental problems affecting the Louisiana coast, communities must discover multiple ways to be resilient, and adapting is one way to become more resilient.
  6. Return to the Driving Question Board. Tell students that we have wrapped up our exploration of the problems facing coastal Louisiana and that we will now spend some time learning what we can do about them. Introduce a new focus for our Driving Question Board (slide 52):

    How do communities become resilient to a changing environment?
  7. Write the new question on the driving question board. Just as in Lesson 1, pass out sticky notes to each student and ask them to generate questions about resilience. As an option, students can generate questions in small groups instead of individually.
  8. Have students come together to share the questions they have generated. Consider having everyone stand and gather around the Driving Question Board, bringing their sticky notes with them. Have students take turns reading their questions aloud and then post their sticky notes on the Driving Question Board. Move the sticky notes around to sort them into groups.
  9. Find a way to connect the Driving Question Board to the next investigation, which focuses on risk and vulnerability. For example, if students wrote questions about figuring out what problems to address first, or how to determine which problems affect the most people, tell them that we will focus on answering these questions in Lesson 5.

Assign journal prompt #10.

  • Prompt #10: Describe a time when you have been resilient. What skills did you need in this situation? What was the most challenging? How could the lessons you learned from your own resilience be applied to the larger idea of a resilient community? Explain your thinking.

Background

Resources for using Claim-Evidence-Reasoning with students:

Adaptation and resilience:

Given the complexities of the environmental threats facing the gulf coastal communities, both adaptation and resilience must be considered when we begin to discuss solutions. Adaptation in this context means taking action to cope with the effects of environmental change. For example, the fishing industries will likely need to alter their fishing practices to adapt to shrimp occupying different areas in the ocean. Sediment diversion projects can help re-establish land forming processes in the delta. These are both examples of adaptation, but it is important to note that not all communities can, or need to, adapt in the same manner. Resilience defines a community’s ability to respond and bounce back from threats, but risk and vulnerability play a large role in determining this. Not all places/people/things are able to be resilient due to variations in their local conditions. Thus, a variety of solutions are needed and a ranging scale of implementation of these solutions.

For students to consider which problem is the most important to address, given the reality of limited resources, they will need to expand their thinking to include the unique impacts of environmental threats on a range of scales. Suggest that students consider their chosen environmental threat from the perspective of various stakeholders and begin to think about trade-offs and how multiple solutions are likely needed. The overarching challenge of living with more water is at the crux of every scenario. Creative solutions are needed not only in coastal Louisiana but in coastal communities around the world.

Examples of Resilience & Adaptation organizations in Louisiana:

  • LA SAFE (Louisiana’s Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments) was created to help Louisiana’s communities and economies adapt to coastal challenges and take advantage of emerging opportunities by discussing adaptation alongside restoration. By demonstrating the power of citizen-led planning informed by science and fueled by the vision of residents, LA SAFE is developing a suite of adaptation projects that can be used as we become a stronger, safer, more resilient Louisiana.
  • The Water Institute of the Gulf’s Resilience Lab undertakes research, outreach, capacity building, development of best practices, and knowledge exchange focusing on developing innovative solutions to the challenges confronting river and coastal communities.

Other examples of adaptation & resilience:

Part 2 Extensions

Defining Resilience & Adaptation (Agree-Disagree Line):

  • Show the statements and ask students to think to themselves which one they agree with more:
    • Resilience is necessary for communities to respond to environmental change
    • Adaptation is necessary for communities to respond to environmental change
  • Announce that one side of the room is the “Agree with statement 1” wall while the opposite side is the “Agree with statement 2” wall.
    • Ask students to stand somewhere along an imaginary agree-disagree line between the two walls to show which statement they agree with (and by default, which statement they disagree with). The line represents a continuum, and they can stand anywhere along that continuum. If they agree equally with both statements, they can stand in the very middle, if they agree with one more than the other, they can show that as well.
    • After everyone has chosen their initial place along the line, students should turn to a neighbor and explain why they chose to stand where they did.
    • Offer that students can change where they are standing at any point if their thinking changes as a result of the discussion.
    • Choose students standing at different places to explain their thinking with the whole class. Ask students to share why they agree/disagree.
    • Ultimately it should come up that an agreed-upon definition of “resilience” and “adaptation” is needed.
    • Pose the questions: What do you think of when you hear the word “resilience”? What do you think of when you hear the word “adaptation”? Students turn and share their responses with someone they are standing near.
    • Offer one final time for students to adjust where they are standing. Provide a summary statement of how your students currently feel. (Eg. “It looks like many of us feel like both resilience and adaptation are needed, but the majority of us still feel that resilience is the only way forward.)
    • Students return to their seats. Hold a discussion to wrap up the activity.
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Credits

This activity was developed for Project Resilience, funded by the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.