NIWA Township Flood Challenge with Year Six

 As part of our Protecting Estuary Inquiry we have  been investigating how our local wetlands are important for mitigating floods. Did you know floods are Tamaki Makaurau's most common natural hazard?

We played this online simulator to try and plan for town flooding: https://niwa.co.nz/township-flood-challenge-game/introduction-township-flood-challenge-game 

It taught us lots of strategies!

Afterwards we teamed up to play the board game version kindly loaned by Sustainable Schools.

Here was some of our thinking and actions:

Addison "You have to be very careful with your money"

Elizabeth "I learnt that it was really hard for me to get enough money to move out of the flood plain"

Jerry "We had to come together as a community and donate to each other to be able to buy stuff to stop the flood damage"

Kaiden "I sold the farm first when  I had lots of money before there were more floods"

Flynn "It was a good idea to buy a rental property out of the flood zone because then we get income"

Monique "Our farm was damaged and we had no money so we tried to get a loan from the marae"

Corina "We don't want to loan to them because we don't think they will be able to pay us back"

Rebab "But without the farm you won't have any food"

The marae decided to rent a house from the landlord for 200k a year because it was out of the flood zone. They also moved the whare nui 

Jerry "If you get the money you have to move the cowshed back because that is what gives you income"

We liked the online version for learning the game and then the board game for generating discussion.

We all agreed it was important to think very carefully about the location of your first house away from flood prone areas.