In the first weeks of Mission 2010, the class divided into nine teams; each one examined one of the major factors affecting New Orleans.  These teams and their corresponding focuses were:

• Team 1: Designing for future hurricanes and storm surges: past occurences and predictions, size variation, evolution and probability, assessing risk, models, and evacuation plans
• Team 2: Designing for global warming and sea-level rise: predictions, implications for the Gulf Coast and New Orleans in particular
• Team 3: Designing the future of wetlands: role in storm dissipation, loss, reclamation and cost, relocation of people
• Team 4: Levee construction and design: improved/alternate technologies, evaluation of current solution, change in regulations regarding control of levees, role of Army Corps of Engineers
• Team 5: City design: Race, class, and neighborhoods in New Orleans: history, preservation of culture and diversity, current redevelopment plans, social and environmental justice.
• Team 6: Government Involvement: past, present, and future subsidies, projects, recovery operations, and interventions; spending equitably and wisely; class issues; roles and relationships of local, state, and federal agencies; corruption
• Team 7: Insurance: costs for Gulf Coast and other coastal US cities, ambiguities in covered damages, government involvement, building codes to minimize damage in catastrophe
• Combined Team 8 and 9: Designing a system to evaluate and monitor geology: subsidence, oil, and gas; long-term outlook for the Mississippi River Delta, causes of subsidence, and ability to predict the geologic future of the Gulf Coast. Also, entire Mississippi River system: history and future predictions of flooding, economic importance, long-term plans to control the river, maintenance techniques, costs to keep river in its present course, and flood preparation along the river.

Through these teams, we compiled much of the information we felt was most relevant to creating a comprehensive plan for New Orleans; this is the information contained in the background section of our website.