On a recent afternoon at Livingston Collegiate Academy in New Orleans East, ninth grade science teacher Deandria Barnes handed three students large syringes and gave them a job: keep the city from flooding.
A plastic tub rigged with tubing stood in for the network of underground pipes, pump stations and canals that drain New Orleans when it rains. Other students played the role of rainstorms, pouring water into model neighborhoods.
Barnes started with a light drizzle. Water was already leaking. Then she called for the heavy rain…