Flood prevention strategies

Program a prototype system to alert homeowners flooding risks

The flood prevention strategies activity tasks participants to program a prototype system to alert homeowners flooding risks.

Flooding is becoming increasingly common in parts of the United Kingdom and causes a lot of damage to peoples’ homes. The sooner a potential flood can be detected, the more time homeowners have to prepare and to save their property.

This is one of a series of resources to support the use of the BBC micro:bit in Design and Technology lessons. Damage caused by flooding can have widespread effects on people’s lives, homes, businesses, and agriculture. Authorities aim to provide adequate warnings when the risk of flooding is likely, however this can be challenging.

Activity info, teachers’ notes and curriculum links
In this activity, learners will debate the social impact of flooding and how design and technology could provide solutions to this. They should think about how programmable systems could be used to help homeowners and the authorities respond better and provide earlier and more effective warnings that flooding is likely to occur. They will then develop a working flood warning system using the BBC micro:bit.

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Tools/resources required
Projector/Whiteboard

To watch videos the ‘flood warning system’ and ‘flood engineers’ videos, please visit the IET Education website.