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Lesson Plans: Coastal Erosion

Objective

The objective of this activity is to study the coastal erosion (or deposition) by waves and sea level rise at a particular area.

Materials

Each student or group of students will need the following:

Important Points to Understand

To observe changes in sea level, scientists regularly measure the sea level at certain places. If they want to predict what will happen to sea level in the future, say at a particular beach, they look at the past trends.

Has sea level at this beach been rising or falling over the past years? Has the beach sand been eroded by rising sea level or accumulated because of falling sea level?

Preparation

Try to explain that the information in the table below shows a study of estimated volume of sand on a part of the beach at Lefaga, Samoa.

Year 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976
Sand Volume (m3) 268 331 192 394 201
Year 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981
Sand Volume (m3) 185 386 252 323 351
Year 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986
Sand Volume (m3) 364 385 343 349 377

Procedure

  1. Plot the data on a graph paper, time in years on the horizontal axis and the volume of sand on;vertical axis.
  2. Try to understand the zigzag character of the graph.

Questions

With the graph, try to answer the following questions:

  1. Which years showed erosion and which years showed deposition?
  2. Can you predict what will happen to the beach over a long period of time (e.g., 50 years) from these data?