Historic American Engineering Record. Elwha River Hydroelectric System, Glines Hydroelectric Dam & Plant, Port Angeles, Clallam County, WA. 1968. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/wa0605/.
Many high school students will have some prior knowledge of dams, the purpose of them, and how they may impact the environment. Introduce this concept by brainstorming prior knowledge about dams in general and providing geographic context for the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. Students should be able to make connections between the geographic and environmental impact of dams in their areas. Students should also be able to connect dams to other human-made technologies that impact the environment.
The Glines Canyon Dam was built on the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State in the early 1900s. The dam was built to supply electricity and fuel regional growth in nearby Port Angeles, but it also blocked salmon migration and flooded ancestral land of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe.
Source: https://home.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/elwha-ecosystem-restoration.htm
- How did the Glines Canyon Dam impact the geography and environment of a river drainage?
- How does the dam affect the river?
- How do the supporting buildings affect the forest by the river?
- How does the height of the dam affect fish and other wildlife that live in the river or use the river for migration?
- How do dams impact the geography and environment?
- Why do people build dams?
- Why do people remove dams?
ELA Standard
ELA.RI.9-10.1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
Social Studies Standard
G2.9-10.2. Explain how humans modify the environment with technology.
Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
- Begin by showing students the photograph collection. Give them time to go through the collection. This could be structured in different ways such as through a Gallery Walk, groups assigned specific pictures, or as a jigsaw activity. The goal here is for students to discuss specific details they notice in the collection.
- Students complete a notice/wonder graphic organizer for the collection, citing each photo by number (Image 6, Image 8, etc.).
- In groups, students discuss their findings through the lens of the instructional focus questions. They cite each photo when discussing different details, and they make notes about why they believe each element cited may have an impact on the environment.
- After group discussions, students individually write a composition that discusses their inferences on the impact of the Glines Canyon Dam on the environment. They cite multiple details from the collection in their writing.
- Finally, this activity may be extended by further research into the Glines Canyon Dam and the ultimate decision to remove it due to the environmental and cultural impacts.
- The National Park Service has information about the removal of the dam, including pictures of the removal and links to other information.
- The Hydropower Reform Coalition has a detailed account of the history of the dam, the efforts to remove it, and how the Elwha River has responded to the removal.
- The National Oceanic Atmospheric Association has information about the removal of both dams on the Elwha River, as well as links to other resources.
- The USGS has a timelapse of the removal of the dam, which may be useful for students who want to examine picture evidence of how removal affected the environment.
Historic American Engineering Record. Elwha River Hydroelectric System, Port Angeles, Clallam County, WA. 1968. Print. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/wa0603/.