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Can You SEA Walls? (Grade 9-12)

Master Teacher

Margaret Spigner

Time Allotment

2- 45 Minutes 1- 90 Minutes

Overview

This lesson will explore the wave energy that is generated and transferred in the ocean. Through the use of technology, students will explore the aspects of a wave and how its energy affects the ecology of the seashore. Students will engage in an activity that uses the nature of science and technology to design a scientific investigation on how to prevent damage to the coastline from long shore currents.

Subject Matter

Marine Science
Physics
Inquiry

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to

Identify coastal features and how to manage coastlines;
Design a scientific investigation and
Discuss the effects of different types of sea walls on beach erosion.

South Carolina Standards

(These Standards are available online at http://www.myscschools.com/offices/cso/)

I. Inquiry

Inquiry is not an isolated unit of instruction and should be embedded throughout the content areas.

The nature of science and technology is incorporated within this area.

A. Identify Questions and Concepts that Guide Scientific Investigations

Experimental design should demonstrate logical connections between a knowledge base and conceptual understanding.

B. Design and Conduct Investigations

Prior knowledge about major concepts, laboratory apparatus, laboratory techniques, and safety should be used in designing and conducting a scientific investigation.

D. Formulate and Revise Scientific Explanations and Models Using Logic and Evidence

Scientific explanations and models are developed and revised through discussion and debate.

Recognize and Analyze Alternative Explanations and Models

Scientific criteria are used to discriminate among plausible explanations.

Communicate and Defend a Scientific Argument

Experimental processes, data, and conclusions should be communicated in a clear and logical manner.

Understandings about Scientific and Technological Inquiry

Historical scientific knowledge, current research, technology, mathematics and logic should be the basis for conducting investigations and drawing conclusions.

IV. Physical Science (PHYSICS)

Interactions of Energy and Matter

1. Waves, including sound and seismic waves, waves on water, and light waves, have energy and can transfer energy when they interact with matter.

Media Components

Video

The Earth Revealed, Lesson 24: “Waves, Beaches, and Coasts.” This video contains real live wave action and animated examples of waves and the characteristics of waves. This video will explain how the power of waves makes the coastal area a dynamic place.

Web Sites

Tsunami Physics
This web site will discuss the mechanisms of tsunami generation and propagation and its effect on the coastlines.

Coastal Features
In this web site students learn about the physical factors that create coastal landforms. They will investigate how coasts can be managed and examine the conflicts that occur.

GeoResources
This web site demonstrates how constructive and destructive waves affect the coastline. This would be a good site if time permitted to use as a word search assessment. Click on the red arrow at the bottom of the page to go to a test or word search.

Waves - Beaufort Wind Scale
This is a great web site for teacher background information and a scale to measure the force of the wind on the water. It might be a good reference guide for students to quantify data in an experiment.

Geography Coasts
This web site can be used for teacher background information. It is an exercise that will help you discover the main causes of coastal damage and ways it can be managed.

Materials

approximately 20 Mini Legos pieces or one 8” x 11” stiff cardboard per group of four (Various pieces to make a sea wall per group)
1 wave tank or rectangular tub per group of four (paints tray works well)
sand (approximately 1 cup per group of four)
12-inch ruler (to generate waves) (per group of four)
500 ml beaker of water (any container will do to hold water) per group of four
scissors (per group of four)
centimeter rulers (one per person)
toothpicks (hold down objects in the sand)

Equipment

Computer
TV & VCR

Prep for Teachers

Prior to teaching this lesson, bookmark all of the Web sites used in the lesson on each computer in your classroom. Load the Shockwave plug-in, available at www.macromedia.com, onto each computer in your classroom.
Fast forward video to lesson #24
When using media, provide students with a Focus for Media Interaction, a specific task to complete and/or information to identify during or after viewing of video segments, Web site, or other multimedia elements.
Start collecting materials for the inquiry part of the culminating activity (various supplies to build mini sea walls).

Introductory Activity

(Time allocated approximately 10-15 minutes)

Explain to your students that they will be watching a video clip from the series Earth Revealed. INSERT “Waves, Beaches and Coast” #24, into your VCR. CUE the tape directly past where they are showing large waves hitting the beach and the narrator sitting on rocks next to the beach. Cue to start the tape before the narrator says “Perhaps the ultimate ocean wave is the seismic sea wave other wise know as the tsunami”.

Step 1: Provide your students with a Focus for Media Interaction, asking them to listen for the answer to the following questions: How high can a tsunami can get? How fast can it travel? What force causes a tsunami?

Step 2: Before starting the tape ask the students to answer the question and write all possible answers on the board.

Step 3: Start the tape and allow the students to watch until it shows the devastation after the tsunami hits Hilo and the narrator say, “The death toll for that day was 159.

Step 4: Stop the tape and ask for volunteers to answer the questions. (Answers to the questions - 30 meters, 800 kilometers, earthquakes). Check the board to see if any of the student’s answers were correct.

Learning Activities
Learning Activity #1

(Time allocated approximately 35 minutes.)

Step 1: Provide students with a Focus for Media Interaction by telling them to look for the mechanisms of tsunami generation and propagation and its effect on the coastlines. Have the students log on the web site Tsunami Physics at http://www.geophys.washington.edu/tsunami/general/physics/physics.html Tell the students to familiarize themselves with the answer to the question, What is a tsunami? Ask the students to click on the pronunciation tsoo-nah-mee in order to hear how it is pronounced. After the students have read the definition they should summarize it in their own words and write this in their journals.

Step 2: Have your students click on the first question, What does "tsunami" mean? Have the students read the definition and rewrite it in their own words in their journal. Have the students return to the next question by clicking on the block at the bottom of the page that says Tsunami Physics.

Step 3: Have your students click on second question, How do tsunamis differ from other water waves? Read the three paragraphs and then click on the word animation next to the red film clip. After the students watch the animation have them write a summary in their journal about the movie. Have the students return to the next question by clicking on the block at the bottom of the page that says Tsunami Physics.

Step 4: Have your students click on third question, How do earthquakes generate tsunamis? Read the three paragraphs and then click on the word simulation next to the red film clip. After the students watch the simulation have them write a summary in their journal about the movie. Have the students return to the next question by clicking on the block at the bottom of the page that says Tsunami Physics.

Step 5: Have your students click on the fourth question, How do landslides, volcanic eruptions, and cosmic collisions generate tsunamis? Have the students write in their journal describing what happened in the picture to the right. Have the students return to the next question by clicking on the block at the bottom of the page that says Tsunami Physics.

Step 6: Have your students click on fifth question, What happens to a tsunami as it approaches land? After the students have read the definition they should summarize it in their own words and write this in their journals. Have the students return to the next question by clicking on the block at the bottom of the pa October 19, 2004

Step 7: Have your students click on sixth question, What happens when a tsunami encounters land? Read the three paragraphs and then click on the words numerical simulation next to the red film clip. After the students watch the animation have them write a summary in their journal about the movie. Have the students turn in their journals as an assessment exercise.

Learning Activity #2

(Time allocated approximately 10-15 minutes)

Start the tape “Waves, Beaches and Coast” #24 where it ended in the Introductory Activity at the picture of the orange sunset on the beach. The narrator says, “Fortunately Tsunami’s are not everyday events…”

Step 1: Provide your student s with a Focus for Media Interaction, asking them to notice the refraction of the waves hitting the shoreline.

Step 2: Start the tape and allow the students to watch until it shows the dotted lines presented on top of the waves and one thick horizontal line is presented across the top. The narrator will say, “The waves near shore tend to approach…” Pause the tape at this point. Ask students to estimate the degree of the angle the waves are to the shoreline. Then have one student come up to the TV and use a protractor to measure the actual angle.

Step 3: Start the movie again and allow the students to watch the rest of the explanation. Pause the movie when they show the animated picture of the shoreline. The narrator will say, “Wave energy is concentrated along the shoreline at bays”. Ask the students to predict what will happen to the shape of the shoreline? Next ask a student to come up to the TV screen and draw with a vis-à-vis marker to show what the shoreline will look like after the waves have impacted it.

Step 4: Start the movie again, allowing the students to see the results.

Step 5. Wipe off the vis-à-vis marks and continue watching the movie until it shows dotted lines on top of the waves. The narrator will say, “Gravity is going to pull that water straight back down on the beach face”. Pause the movie at this point and ask a student to draw with a vis-à-vis marker on the TV what the movement of the sand will be like.

Step 6: Wipe off the vis-à-vis marks and start the video again. Pause the video when it shows an aerial view of a spit (sand piled up behind the breaker). The narrator will say, “To prevent the harbor from being sealed off.” Ask the students “What can engineers due to prevent the harbor form being sealed off?” After student discussion start the tape again and play until it shows what happens to the sand in the winter and shows the geologist talking. He says, “The bigger storm waves.”

Learning Activity #3

(Time allocated approximately 20 minutes.)

Step 1: Provide students with a Focus for Media Interaction by telling them to look for the processes responsible for transporting sand along the coast. Have your students log on to the Coastal Features web site at http://www.ship.edu/~cjwolt/geology/cst.htm and have student click on the bottom where it says Quiz Questions underneath the word Options. Tell the students to familiarize themselves with the questions and then go back to the slide show. Tell the students to click on the back button at the top left-hand side of the screen.

Step 2: Once the students understand the questions they are looking for they are to click on Slide Show under Options. Tell the students to examine the photograph, read the description and try to decide which process is responsible for the coastal shape. Have students write the answers in their journal.

Step 3: Once the student has finished looking at all of the slides have them return to the Quiz Questions and try to answer them with the new knowledge they have obtained from the slide show. If students need more review time they can click on Browse Slides (fast, small picts) also under Options.

Culminating Activity

Inquiry Lab - Build a sea wall that would absorb the energy from longshore current waves.

1. Time allocated approximately 35-45 minutes.

2. See Activity Sheet 1

Assessment

Lab Report – See Step 12 on Activity Sheet 1.

For additional assessment students could try a short test or word search based on what they have learned in this unit at the following web site.

http://www.georesources.co.uk/ws.htm

Cross-Curricular Extensions

Math and Physics: Have students calculate the speed of waves they generated in their wave tank. The students could put up a marker in the sand at the beach and time how long it takes one wave to pass. They could then calculate the frequency of the water waves inside the pan.

Social Studies: Students could research historical examples of tsunamis and other destructive waves, focusing on their catastrophic effects on the community.

English: Students can write in their journals summarizing the information on the web site and developing the main ideas.

Community Connections

Invite a speaker from the Coast Guard, Department of Marine Resources or Oyster Reef Restoration Project to talk about the effect of boater’s wake on the coastline.
Take students on a field trip to the beach and do a quadrant study or beach morphology study.
Have students research and report how the waves have shaped their local coastline.

Activity Sheets (PDF)

Activity Sheet 1