California Coastal Voices

Resources for Concrete Questions: Engineering Solutions for the Coast

Download unit packet.
Download student pages only.

Activity #1, Invitation to Engage: Concrete Questions on California's Central Coast

• Daily Phenomenon #1, image credit NASA
• KCET 2011 news clip "Swept Away: Paradise in Peril"
• California Sea Grant explains coastal armoring
• California Sea Grant explains sand movement
• KQED's interactive website companion to their 2004 program Coastal Clash
  How Beaches Work (no longer functional)
  Coastal Armoring (no longer functional)
• Littoral Cells, Sand Budgets, and Beaches: Understanding California's Shoreline report for California Department of Boating and Waterways, California Coastal Sediment Management Workgroup, October 2006
• Littoral Cell diagram
• Beach: A River of Sand, video by Encyclopaedia Britannica Films. Watch on YouTube.

Activity #2, Exploration: A Home on the Edge

• Daily Phenomenon #2, image credit Della Huff
• Pacifica bluff image set, images Copyright (C) 2002-2014 Kenneth & Gabrielle Adelman, California Coastal Records Project, www.californiacoastline.org
• Naturally Resilient Communities' Nature-Based Solutions to flooding and erosion
• Sea Level on the Rise activity from Lawrence Hall of Science. University of California ocean and climate sciences instructional materials, including the Ocean Sciences Sequence for grades 6-8: The Ocean-Atmosphere Connection and Climate Change, are available from the Lawrence Hall of Science. For further information, and professional development, contact the Marine Activities, Resources & Education (MARE) program at (510) 642-5008 or at mare.lawrencehallofscience.org. Included MARE materials are based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. GEO-1202741 for the Future Scientists Promoting Climate Literacy program and course. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
• A Home on the Edge handout in Word
• Rising Seas in California, an Update on Sea-Level Rise Science, April 2017, produced by a Working Group of the California Ocean Protection Council Science Advisory Team, supported and convened by the California Ocean Science Trust
• Case Studies of Natural Shoreline Infrastructure in Coastal California, California Natural Resources Agency et al., 2017
• Los Angeles County Public Beach Facilities Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Assessment, Los Angeles County Department of Beaches and Harbors, April 2016
• Updates on Pacifica bluff Esplanade apartments:
  Cliffside Homes Near Collapse in California Due to El Niño Erosion, NBC Nightly News video, January 2016
  Pacifica apartment on crumbling cliff demolished, KTVU video, February 2016
  Crews demolish Pacifica apartment building that threatened to collapse into ocean, LA Times January 2017
  Pacifica: 'End of an era' on Esplanade, Mercury News January 2018
• Data in the Classroom sea level rise lessons from NOAA

Activity #3, Explanation: Teacher-Led Earth Systems Lab

• Daily Phenomenon #3, image credit Goldfinger and Chaytor, OSU
• Teacher background information on current circulation
• Sea Surface Temperature image

Activity #4, Elaboration: Student-Led Earth Systems Lab

• Daily Phenomenon #4, images Copyright (C) 2002-2014 Kenneth & Gabrielle Adelman, California Coastal Records Project, www.californiacoastline.org
• Global Average Absolute Sea Level Rise, 1880-2015, Spreadsheet, U.S. EPA
  Graphic showing the data graphed, EPA
  Documentation for the data, EPA

Activity #5, Extend and Evaluate: Crafting Consensus at Surfers Point

• Daily Phenomenon #5, images Copyright (C) 2002-2014 Kenneth & Gabrielle Adelman, California Coastal Records Project, www.californiacoastline.org
• Case Study Reading on Surfer's Point (PDF)
• Case Studies of Natural Shoreline Infrastructure in Coastal California, California Natural Resources Agency et al., 2017. (Contains a Surfers' Point case study starting on page 9.)
• Relative Sea Level Change Along U.S. Coasts, 1960-2015, image, U.S. EPA
  Documentation for the data, EPA

Surfer's Point at Seaside Park