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Atlantic Rising

I have been aware of the Atlantic Rising project for a short while now through a recent Tweet and post on the SLN Forum.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve been having a look at the website and thinking of ways in which the work can be used in the classroom.

If you are unfamiliar with the project, the video below has a brief recap as well as details of the school photography competition.

Launch of Atlantic Rising's school photography competition

We will be setting the competition for Year 8 as homework this term, as our unit is coasts and we all live right on the coast.

We will also be using some of the useful case studies available on the main site.  For example, there is a nice write up of a coastal protection scheme in Ghana.  We will compare the experiences in Portsmouth with those there.

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One of the most useful resources are the photo and video galleries.  These help tell the human story as well as the interaction between people and their environment. 

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I plan to use the video below next week to illustrate the issue of how people can influence coastal erosion:

Sand extraction in Sierra Leone from Atlantic Rising on Vimeo.

There are many parallels between this case study and some of  those in the UK. 

There is also a useful schools page with resources to schools below the 1m contour line and a nice bag of resources that include lesson plans and ideas.

I will be following the project closely, maybe creating a display map of their progress and using the Google Map on the home page to explore and introduce some different areas of the world.

Overall, there is a great range of resources available, and I like the way in which the project leaders are getting young people involved. I recommend you have a look!

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