Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Scale of Nature: Modeling the Mississippi River

2011; Issue: 2011 Linguagem: Inglês

10.22269/110321

2164-7798

Kristi Cheramie,

Fish Ecology and Management Studies

Despite knowing I was looking at, standing on and manipulating an object that was no more or less than a point of reference, a miniaturization of the real thing, the size and scope of the simulation sucked me in. I couldn't hold the model in my hand or separate it from the environment surrounding it, and so it became a place in and of itself. I was lost in its depths and found it difficult to understand as merely a representation of a very real river system 30 miles to the west. I'm not suggesting the Army Corps of Engineers confused their workplace with an adult sandbox. But I am struck by the disconnect that can occur when a model becomes the substitute for the "real thing," when the copy, which can never replicate the complexity of its source, becomes the fulcrum around which decisions are made. Beyond the achievement of constructing such a model, what effect has this fake river had on our relationship with the real river it seeks to mimic? In puzzling over this question, three lessons seemed to emerge.