Dorset Coastal Study

15 Oct Dorset Coastal Study

Four intrepid A’level geographers;led by their equally brave, but short geography teacher, braced the strong winds of the Dorset coast to undertake an integral coastal study.

The adventurers set off on Friday 12th October 2018, with their trusted driver Mr. Marples, and headed to their first location; Durdle Dor & Lulworth Cove.   These landforms are royalty along the the famous Jurassic coastline.  Facing strong winds of 21mph, courtesy of storm Callum near Wales, they made their journey by foot!  The adventurers stood and admired the majestic glory of Durdle Dor; a cliff arch that has stood in the English Channel for thousands of years. The adventurers headed off again to discover the wonders of Lulworth Cove. This coast is remarkable as it should not exist, a bay found in a concordant coastline, where the brute strength of the destructive waves have eroded the hard rock and punctured through into the soft rock to create a calm fishy smelling bay!

Day 2 was the field investigation. There was much concern by the A’level students due to the unsettled weather and large destructive waves. The need to find out how sediment was affected up Chesil Beach, overrode their fears. Their short, but brave, Geography teacher, led the way and took up the first position closest to the breaking waves. The students conducted beach transects battling the strong winds to find the width of Chesil Beach. In order to find out if sediment has been affected by coastal processes, sediment analysis and wave types were investigated. The A’level geographers conducted this investigation as a group and team work and communication excelled as they did this efficiently without disturbing those who had ventured onto Chesil Beach.

The A’level geographers were an excellent group who did really well and showed incredible resilience in some very unsettled weather conditions.

We returned home to Redditch on Sunday 14th October, very tired but now knowledgeable about Coastal geography.

A big thank you to Mr. Marples for driving us around this weekend. Another Thank you to the students; Tyrell M., Charlie A., Imogen H. and Kasey R., for making this field trip so enjoyable and for their hard work!

Mrs. Mistry