Surveying the Shoreline

Coastal Ecology—Surveying the Shoreline

Summary: Wrack, the debris cast ashore, wash up along many tidally influence shores in Oregon and are often a main nutrient source for communities living along a shoreline habitat. The source of the wrack varies depending on the location, but time and again evidence of the watershed to ocean connection is visible along the shore. This activity can be adapted for classroom use by collecting wrack and using it inside or for field use depending on location, time availability as well as the presence of wrack at the field site. This activity is appropriate for estuarine shorelines as well as beaches and shorelines along the open coast.

Concepts to teach: Cycles, productivity, balance and interconnectedness.

Goals: Students will learn about the watershed-estuary-ocean connection by exploring and identifying shoreline wrack and identifying the organisms that live and depend on it.

Standards:
6.2E.1, 6.3S, 7.3S, 8.3S

Specific Objectives:

  1. Students will be able to identify wrack and how explain how it occurs onshore
  2. Students will collect data on the contents of the wrack and make a graphical representation of their findings
  3. Students will analyze their data and provide an explanation for the results
  4. Students will be able to define at least 2 species in the community that depend on the presence of wrack

Activity Links and Resources:

Assessment:

  • Examine worksheets for completeness and detail
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Survival in an Estuary

Coastal Habitats & Species—Survival in an Estuary

Summary: Students will investigate the range of conditions that selected animal and plant species need to survive in an estuarine environment. They examine and analyze data for abiotic factors to determine if a particular species would survive in an estuary under the given conditions.

Concepts to teach: Ecology, estuaries, pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity, conductivity

Goals: Deepen students understanding of estuarine systems by examining abiotic factors and extreme conditions.

Standards:
H.2L.2; H.2E.4; H.3S.2

Specific Objectives: Students will:

  1. Describe three types of estuarine environments.
  2. Describe the particular environmental conditions necessary for organisms to survive in an estuary.
  3. List four principal abiotic factors that influence the survival of aquatic life in estuaries.
  4. Determine the range of pH, temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen tolerated by some common estuarine species.

Activity Links and Resources:

Assessment:

  • See the Check for Understanding section in the Survival in an Estuary lesson for suggestions on how to assess student learning.
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Team Marine

Stewardship—Team Marine

Summary: Turn environmental awareness into student action. “Team Marine” from Santa Monica High School is an active student group that tries to “raise awareness about the global marine debris, energy and climate change crises through different service learning and community outreach projects.” Team Marine maintains a website with their achievements, resource links, and community outreach ideas.

Concepts to teach: Stewardship, community outreach, public awareness

Goals: Empower students to work as a team and share their learning with the public through creative activities that raise awareness about environmental issues.

Standards:
H.4D.6
SS.HS.GE.07, SS.HS.SA.01

Specific Objectives:

  1. Identify a local water quality issue and simple solutions that the public can undertake to improve environmental health.
  2. Work in conjunction with local water quality stewardship organizations in their existing restoration, clean up, and/or public education campaigns.
  3. Devise an independent way to raise awareness of the water quality issue.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • To identify local water quality issues, explore the Citizen Biomonitoring, Nonpoint Source Pollution, and Real Time Data topic guides.
  • Team Marine—This active student group in California may serve as an inspiration or model for Oregon students. Their website contains descriptions of the activities they have undertaken, competitions in which they have been involved, student-created media public service announcements, and partner links.
  • Surfrider Blue Water Task Force
    • Teach and Test—Throughout the school year, students from 5 southern California high schools coordinate with Surfrider to collect bi-weekly water samples from beaches and wetland areas.
    • Urban Runoff—This video from Green Observers describes the Santa Monica H.S. students’ involvement in the Surfrider Teach and Test program.

Assessment:

  • Produce effective outreach materials to the public that share information and provide steps people can take to improve ocean and watershed health (Ex. poster, PSA, website, public speaking, etc)
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Telemetry Tales

Coastal Habitats & Species—Telemetry Tales

Summary: Steller sea lions are disappearing from the Gulf of Alaska and Aleutian Islands. In this topic guide, students practice using telemetry data from wild sea lions to try to learn more about what is going on with the species’ population.

Concepts to teach: Population ecology, telemetry, science inquiry

Goals: Students use telemetry data to offer evidence-based explanations for biological events.

Standards:
H.3S.3, H.3S.5

Specific Objectives:

  1. Identify how Steller sea lion populations have changed over recent decades.
  2. Use telemetry data to make conclusions about life history events of individual sea lions.
  3. Use telemetry data to explain one factor that may affect Steller sea lion population changes.
  4. Describe the advantages and limitations of using telemetry data to study sea lion ecology.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • The SealTag website from the Pinniped Ecology Applied Research Laboratory (PEARL) provides background on Steller sea lion population and ecology, engineering curriculum, and describes how scientists use telemetry tags to answer questions about sea lion population changes.
  • PEARL is based in the Marine Mammal Institute at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center.
    • The HMSC Visitor Center features an exhibit about the internal telemetry tag being used on the Steller sea lions.
  • See Steller sea lions at the Oregon coast
    • Visit Sea Lion Caves near Florence to see a haul-out area for Steller sea lions.
      You can also usually see Steller sea lions by looking down at the beach from the pull-off area from the South-bound lane of Hwy 101 about 1/4 mile north of the Sea Lion Caves entrance.
    • Visit Simpson Reef Overlook on the Cape Arago Highway in Coos Bay to see a haul-out area for Steller sea lions.

Assessment:

  • Students use data to answer questions posed throughout the SealTag.org website:
    • What can a sea lion’s body temperature tell us?
    • What was the probable cause of Stella’s death?
    • What was the most common cause of mortality in the Steller sea lion telemetry study?
  • Describe both the advantages and limitations of using telemetry data to study sea lion ecology.
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The Brant Project

Coastal Habitats & Species—The Brant Project

Summary: Studying and monitoring shorebirds exposes students to a host of natural history and ecological principles that play a role in some of the longest migration found on earth. The Brant Monitoring Project has been developed for classrooms along the Pacific Flyway to participate in an on-going international monitoring of Brant geese populations while learning of their adaptations and habitat requirements that allow them to make this long journey every year. At a minimum this curriculum can be used in the classroom anywhere and later on be optionally expanded for field monitoring along the Brant’s migration route or adapted to observe many other species of shorebirds traveling through Oregon.

Concepts to teach: Natural history, adaptations of waterfowl survival, wetland and estuarine habitats, observation, data collection, graphing populations

Goals: Students will understand the ecology of shorebirds, specifically the Brant goose, along the Pacific Flyway through observation and field monitoring.

Standards:
4.2L.1, 5.2L.1, 3.3S.2, 4.3S.2, 5.3S.2, SS.03.CG.04, SS.03.GE.01, SS.05.GE.01, SS.05.GE.02

Specific Objectives:

  1. Students will be able to describe the adaptations and habitat requirements of the Brant Goose and other migrating shorebirds.
  2. Students will be able to map and identify the Pacific and Atlantic Flyways locating wintering and breeding grounds.
  3. Students will use optics (spotting scopes and binoculars) to successfully identify shorebirds and observe behavior at a distance.
  4. Students will observe and count brant and other shorebirds using sampling techniques.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • The International Brant Monitoring Project Curriculum hosted by Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and designed by South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. The curriculum was originally designed for middle school grade levels, but lessons have been used successfully with elementary students.
  • Migratory Superheroes! The Shorebird Sister Schools Program, USFWS, provides additional shorebird education materials, more opportunities for students to connect to other classrooms along the Pacific flyway, and where to go to observe shorebirds in Oregon.

Assessment:

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The Flood Next Time

Planning—The Flood Next Time

Summary: In what manner and to what extent are communities preparing for future climate-induced coastal flooding and erosion? Communities are slowly beginning to understand the problem, and are in process of deciding which entities are responsible for planning, implementing and supporting adaptation strategies. This topic guide focuses on some of the strategies that are being considered along the west coast of the U.S.

Concepts to teach:

Goals:

  1. Barriers to adaptive planning for climate change include a lack of a sense of urgency about the issue.
  2. Leadership is an important component of coastal adaptation planning.
  3. Planning adaptive strategies to cope with climate change relies on participation and input from several segments of society.

Standards: NGSS Performance Expectations

  • HS-ESS3-1. Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.

Specific Objectives:
Students will be able to:

  1. Describe a planning action being taken in a coastal community in response to climate change.
  2. Identify factors that may motivate different stakeholders who might participate on a climate change community planning team.
  3. Engage the public in a community adaptation planning discussion.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Reading: Oregon Sea Grant’s Coastal Climate Change – Survey Results for Oregon 2012—This survey summarizes an assessment of attitudes, barriers and needs for Oregon coastal climate change adaptation plans.
  • See The New Waterfront topic guide to review the predicted impacts of climate change on specific coastal communities. How can stakeholders in these communities come together to address local concerns?
    • Discuss strategies for engaging the public about the need to take action on a local level. For example, the RISE: Climate Change and Coastal Communities media project seeks to engage the public through telling the stories of people who have been impacted by climate change.
    • Challenge students to create a communication product that engages various audiences and stakeholders (peers, public officials, etc)
  • Reading: Examples of planning resources from communities in the Pacific Northwest.
  • Additional Resources
    • See the Coastal Decision-Making topic guide for an activity about stakeholders
    • Activity: Participate in the King Tide Photo Project—Document impacts of coastal flooding during extreme high tides
    • Oregon Dike Maps—How will dikes be affected by sea level rise? This NOAA Digital Coast map resource helps land managers locate dikes and levees so they can make critical decisions about these human-made structures.

Assessment:

  • Students share with community stakeholders their presentation identifying a need for adaptation planning for a climate-affected coastal hazard.
  • Create a public service announcement, poster, infographic, or other engaging display that describes a community’s planning need for a specific climate-related concern.
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The Fragile Fringe

Planning—The Fragile Fringe

Summary: Coastal salt marshes may be at risk when sea level changes at a rate that is more rapid than normal. While coastal wetlands usually build up sediments and vegetation at rates similar to the rates that they subside (sink) or erode, the expected rate of sea level rise over the next few decades may flood or erode some wetlands before they can refill. Today, researchers are studying how salt marshes grow so that they can help land managers predict the wetlands’ response to elevated sea level. In this topic guide, students use a model to demonstrate wetland subsidence, and learn about the importance of sediment deposition and vegetation growth to marsh survival.

Concepts to teach:

Goals:

  1. Wetland subsidence is a gradual sinking of land with respect to its previous level.
  2. Wetland accretion is the deposition of organic material that leads to a vertical buildup of wetland area.
  3. Wetlands need to accumulate new sediments and vegetation to remain elevated and healthy.

Standards: NGSS Performance Expectations

  • MS-LS2-4. Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.

Specific Objectives:
Students will be able to:

  1. Define subsidence and demonstrate the resulting effects on wetlands.
  2. Understand how sea level rise can result in wetland loss.
  3. Identify factors that can help keep wetlands vertically elevated.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Activity: Loss of Wetlands – Subsidence in The Fragile Fringe from the National Wetlands Research Center—In this classroom experiment, students use a plastic box, soil and water to simulate a wetland and the effects water on the “elevation” of the soil.
  • Presentation: Sea Level Rise—from Maryland Chesapeake and Coastal Program. This model of salt marsh migration shows both how salt marshes stabilize shorelines and how tidal communities may respond to sea level rise.
  • Field experience: Visit a wetland area and identify high marsh and low marsh areas.
    • Using observations of plant composition and other cues, identify the mean low water (MLW) and mean high water (MHW) lines.
    • Compare your observations of the field site with the models discussed in class. What local factors could cause the marsh area at your field site to change (sink, rise, migrate)?
  • The Coastal Ecosystem Response to Climate Change (CERCC) webpage from USGS Western Ecological Research Center is a resource that describes how scientists monitor tidal marsh processes and responses to environmental changes such as sea level rise.

Assessment:

  • In the subsidence model, what happened to the level of the soil when water was added? What could be done to keep the soil elevation in the model constant?
  • How do shoreline structures help or hinder the amount of plant material and sediment that can build up on a marsh?
    • What types of shoreline structures allow for sediment to build up on a marsh?
    • What types of shoreline structures inhibit sediment build up on a marsh?
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The New Waterfront

Impacts—The New Waterfront

Summary: Climate induced sea level rise can lead to erosion and flooding events that threaten natural and human communities, establish new coastlines, and change ecosystems. What are the predicted impacts of sea level rise for a given area on the Oregon coast?

Concepts to teach:

Goals:

  1. Sea level rise poses a threat to many coastal communities.
  2. Coastal hazard models use geographic, historic, and economic information to predict future impacts.

Standards: NGSS Performance Expectations

  • MS-LS2-4. Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.

Specific Objectives:
Students will be able to:

  1. Use animations and other online resources to obtain information about the risks, if any, that a specific coastal community faces from erosion and/or flooding.
  2. For a given community, report whether impacts from coastal hazards have changed over time and/or are predicted to change in the future.
  3. Identify how climate change affects coastal hazard risks.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Sea Level Rise—In this Lesson 4.1 from Waquoit Bay NERR’s Bringing Wetlands to Market curriculum, students are provided with topographic maps of a coastal area and are asked to draw new shorelines based on predicted sea level rise for that area. They then discuss implications for shoreline changes for that particular area.
  • NOAA Coastal Services Center’s Digital Coast is a resource that includes predicted sea level rise information around the globe, as well as Coastal County Snapshots that can help students asses impacts of sea level rise.
    • Sea Level Rise Viewer—NOAA Coastal Services Center displays potential future sea levels in an interactive map.
    • Coastal County Snapshots—Obtain a profile of a coastal county to find out its flood exposure, how it benefits from wetlands, and the extent to which its economy depends on the ocean.
  • Oregon King Tide Photo Project—Citizen photo-document the impacts of coastal flooding during extreme high tides. Check the Flickr page to see if there is a photo for your target community, or contribute your own photo to the dataset.

Assessment:

  • Students write or present an oral report about potential erosion and flood risks in a given coastal community, and whether/how climate change is predicted to impact these risks.
  • Prior to a coastal field trip, have students research the area and describe potential impacts of sea level rise on that area.
  • Participate in the King Tide Photo Project to document the degree of flooding during extreme high tide events.
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The New Waterfront

Impacts—The New Waterfront

Summary: Climate induced sea level rise can lead to erosion and flooding events that threaten natural and human communities, establish new coastlines, and change ecosystems. What are the predicted impacts of sea level rise for a given area on the Oregon coast?

Concepts to teach:

  • Crosscutting Concepts
    • Cause and Effect, Stability and Change
  • Disciplinary Core Ideas
    • LS2.C – Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience
    • ESS3.B – Natural Hazards
  • Science Practices
    • Developing and using models, Constructing explanations and designing soluations, Engaging in argument from evidence

Goals:

  1. Sea level rise poses a threat to many coastal communities.
  2. Coastal hazard models use geographic, historic, and economic information to predict future impacts

Standards: NGSS Performance Expectations

  • HS-LS2-6. Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.
  • HS-ESS3-1. Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity

Specific Objectives:
Students will be able to:

  1. Use topographic maps, sea level rise viewers and other online resources to obtain information about the risks, if any, that specific coastal communities face from erosion and/or flooding.
  2. Report whether impacts from coastal hazards have changed over time and/or are predicted to change in the future for a given community.
  3. Identify how climate change affects coastal hazard risks.

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Sea Level Rise—In this Lesson 4.1 from Waquoit Bay NERR’s Bringing Wetlands to Market curriculum, students are provided with topographic maps of a coastal area and are asked to draw new shorelines based on predicted sea level rise for that area. They then discuss implications for shoreline changes for that particular area.
  • NOAA Coastal Services Center’s Digital Coast is a resource that includes predicted sea level rise information around the globe, as well as Coastal County Snapshots that can help students asses impacts of sea level rise.
    • Sea Level Rise Viewer—NOAA Coastal Services Center displays potential future sea levels in an interactive map.
    • Coastal County Snapshots—Obtain a profile of a coastal county to find out its flood exposure, how it benefits from wetlands, and the extent to which its economy depends on the ocean.
  • Oregon King Tide Photo Project—Citizen photo-document the impacts of coastal flooding during extreme high tides. Check the Flickr page to see if there is a photo for your target community, or contribute your own photo to the dataset.

Assessment:

  • Students write or present an oral report about potential erosion and flood risks in a given coastal community, and whether/how climate change is predicted to impact these risks.
  • Prior to a coastal field trip, have students research the area and describe potential impacts of sea level rise on that area.
  • Participate in the King Tide Photo Project to document the degree of flooding during extreme high tide events.
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The Ocean and our Weather

Science Concepts—The Ocean and our Weather

Summary: The ocean is a major influence on weather and climate. The ocean absorbs heat from solar radiation, and loses heat by evaporation. When water from the ocean enters the atmosphere as water vapor, it condenses and forms rain. In fact, most of the rain that falls on land originally evaporated from the tropical ocean. In this topic guide, students explore relationships between the ocean and weather on land though investigations of the water cycle.

Concepts to teach:

Goals:

  1. Water moves through a cycle that includes the geosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and atmosphere
  2. The ocean plays an important role in shaping climate and weather

Standards: NGSS Performance Expectations

  • 5-ESS2-1. Develop a model using an example to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact.

Standards: Ocean Literacy Principle 3

  • The ocean is a major influence on weather and climate

Specific Objectives:
Students will be able to:

  1. Build a model to show how water moves through the Earth’s systems
  2. Describe how the ocean influences weather on land

Activity Links and Resources:

  • Lesson: The Water Cycle—In this lesson from NASA GPM (Global Precipitation Measurement) students participate in a webquest to learn about the water cycle, and then build a model of the water cycle to observe how water moves through Earth’s four systems.
  • Images that describe the water cycle
    • Water Cycle Poster from NOAA Education Resource—Consider using to review parts of the water cycle with students, noting that much of the water that will end up as rain is evaporated from the ocean. The accompanying article points out that images can oversimplify understanding of complex factors involved in the water cycle.
    • Water Cycle Animation from NASA GPM—Visualize how water that evaporates into clouds from the ocean moves toward land and falls as precipitation.
  • Use the water cycle to connect the ocean and watershed. Review the Watershed Walk from OCEP Module One
  • Activity: The Incredible Journey through the Water Cycle—In this Project WET game adapted by the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, students learn about the physical processes of the water cycle by taking on the role of a drop of water moving through the system.

Assessment:

  • The NASA GPM webquest includes a Student Capture worksheet.
    How does water that evaporates from the ocean make its way to land?
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