Include required wetlands
Check the goal before building. Each wetland plot absorbs two water units.
Flood-Safe Town
Allocate wetland and pond plots to divide a simplified storm between storage, river flow and floodwater.
Grades 3–5 · Earth Science
Your goal
Keep floodwater at zero during 12 units of rain. Include at least 0 wetland plots and use at most 2 total wetland and pond plots.
Reduced motion is on. The controls still update the scene.
You have a 2-plot goal. Wetlands absorb two water units per plot. Ponds hold three.
This landscape is an illustrative water-budget puzzle, not a safety recommendation or flood forecast. Every storm starts with empty storage. A wetland plot absorbs two units and a pond plot stores three before the river carries up to six. Excess water appears near the town. Real flood risk depends on location, storm timing, drainage, river level and many other factors.
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Learn with Flood-Safe Town
Flood-Safe Town gives elementary students a simplified landscape planning puzzle. Choose wetland and pond plots, send one storm, and see rainfall divide among soil absorption, pond storage, river flow and water near the town. Goals limit the number of plots and sometimes require wetlands, encouraging children to compare how each choice changes the water budget. Every storm starts with empty storage. The activity illustrates why retaining some runoff can reduce water reaching a channel, while clearly explaining that real flood safety needs much more information.
What to look for
Size the pond
Each pond plot stores three units. The river can carry six units in this puzzle.
Count every unit
Compare soil, pond, river and floodwater. They add to the storm rainfall.
For teachers and curious learners
Use a conserved storm-water budget to compare illustrative landscape storage choices. Ask students to predict what will happen, change one setting, and explain what they observe. Learn gives a starting point. Practice and Challenge offer new goals with the same scene.
Illustrative plots have fixed absorption and storage and begin empty for each storm. The river carries six units. This model is neither a flood forecast nor a safety recommendation.