Critical Thinking

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Critical Thinking
Our Critical Thinking essays are designed with two objectives in mind:

To encourage a higher level of thinking and expression;
To investigate a problem and/or to resolve an issue using the Internet.

There are times when Internet sites may occasionally be unavailable, or may be reorganized. It is good practice to try the site at a different time before you assume it no longer exists. Early morning and late night are good times to access the Internet if you are having trouble downloading images. Also, certain sites are graphically intense, and may take awhile to view on your screen.

This activity contains 3 questions.

Severe flooding during the summer of 1993 caused unprecedented amounts of damage to homes, businesses, and ecosystems in the upper Mississippi River basin. These images show the Mississippi River in 1990 (a nonflood year), and 1993 (during the apex of the flood). Environmentalists claimed that floodplain development and flood control projects undertaken since the 1930s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were the primary cause of the flood. These claims were based on the assumption that natural wetlands that occurred in the Mississippi basin in the past would have absorbed most of the floodwaters and prevented the high floods.

However, sediment cores drilled from Mississippi floodplains clearly reveal evidence of similar large floods in prehistoric times, before the extensive human modifications occurred. What do you think? Use HotBot or the search engines in the GeoSearch section to search the Web for information on the Flood of 1993. Interpret information you find in terms of what you learned in Chapter 16. Here are some resources to get you started:

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Now look at this plot for Rush Creek in the eastern Sierras in California. What is the season of peak flow? What months have low flows?

Note that all three years show very similar patterns of discharge. What is the driving force behind the flow regime for this mountain station, located 8500 ft. above sea level?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

Suppose you and a friend are planning a kayaking vacation in Montana next summer. You know that the best kayaking conditions usually follow the spring runoff and end with the late season drought. You also know that there are three legendary kayaking rivers you'd like to try: the Gallatin, Clark Fork of the Yellowstone, and Boulder Creek.

Assuming you have a two-week vacation, choose the time period that will most likely provide good conditions on all three rivers.

How did you arrive at your answer? Did you look for peak flow, or did you consider that a river can have too much water for good kayaking? Did you consider year-to-year variability?

To create paragraphs in your essay response, type at the beginning of the paragraph, and at the end.

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