Ecological Design Challenge: Atlantic City

• In this activity, students will design a plan to stabilize the shoreline and reduce flood damage in Gardner's Basin, New Jersey.
• The plans must include criteria for successful completion and ideas for how the site will be monitored. 
• This activity is a part of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection's educational program, Building Ecological Solutions for Coastal Community Hazards.
  

Positives

• This activity gives students a chance to use design thinking skills to solve real-world problems.
• The instructions and images of the actual site are included in the PDF.
  

Additional Prerequisites

• Teachers may want to discuss types of structural features that can help prevent flooding and erosion before students begin the activity.
• This NJ DEP site provides photographs, site assessments, permitting documents, and other information about the Atlantic City Gardner's Basin Living Shorelines project.
  
• Teachers may want to share this rubric with students so students are clear about the teacher's expectations for the activity.

Differentiation

• Students could work individually, in pairs, or in small groups.
• Teachers could extend the activity into a larger project, including three-dimensional models, posters, slideshows, or diagrams to explain their plans.
• Biology classes could make a food web to show how horseshoe crabs, red knots, and pollinators fit into Gardner's Basin's ecosystem.
  
• Other resources on this topic include this video that explains how a New Jersey community built a flood prevention plan, this video on sea level rise and flooding in coastal New Jersey, and this interactive map of flooding in New Jersey.