IB Geography students visited Slapton Sands in south Devon last weekend to study the dynamic coastal environment for their internal assessment (IA).
Slapton Sands is a gravel barrier beach in Start Bay on the south coast that is under threat from the sea. Students collected primary data to tackle their research question: Are the defences used to protect the Start Bay coastline appropriate?
Data collection techniques included beach profiling, bi-polar surveys, cost benefit and flood risk analysis, land value surveys and lithology studies. Data presentation and analysis techniques included GE graphing, Spearman’s rank correlation, Chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U-Test and choropleth mapping.
Slapton Sands also provided a syllabus case study of a ‘coast in conflict’ and students considered the causes, consequences and management of coastal erosion. One student said it was ‘a beautiful environment and a really useful trip.’
Paul Thompson
