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Observing Estuaries: A Landform and Feature Scavenger Hunt

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Introduction

In this activity, students investigate landforms and features associated with estuaries. They begin by taking a journey down a river to an estuary system where the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico near the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve to investigate how landforms differ between uplands and riverine-estuarine environments. Student teams then use Google Earth and other resources to engage in a scavenger hunt to locate and identify landforms and features of estuaries.

This activity has three parts:

  1. What Is an Estuary?
  2. A Trip Down the Alabama River
  3. Estuary Landform and Features ‒ Scavenger Hunt

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Objectives

Students should understand that:

  • Describe differences between upland non-estuarine and estuarine landforms and features.
  • Visually identify and describe various landforms and features associated with estuarine environments, including salt marshes, barrier beaches, peninsulas, headlands, spits, mud flats, fjords, deltas, coves, harbors, sounds, and others.

Observing Estuaries: A Landform and Feature Scavenger Hunt: Supporting Resources

Estuary Scavenger Hunt

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Map: Google Earth

Introduction

Google Earth is a virtual globe web site that lets people fly around Earth, zooming in for details or zooming out for a broad perspective. Google Earth uses satellite imagery, aerial photography and a 3D globe, putting the world’s geographic information at your fingertips. With Google Earth, you can:

  • Fly to any location. Just type in an address, press Search, and you will zoom right in.
  • Search different types of terrain and study geologic and estuary features from any altitude.
  • Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain.
  • Save your searches and image data for future use.

Google Earth is a powerful tool for exploring your world. In your study of estuaries, it can be used to reveal the relationships among landforms, water features, towns, cities, and the habitats of the animals and plants that live in estuaries.

Finding NERRS Estuaries

A map of the United States has been marked with the location of all National Estuarine Research Reserves. To find one nearest your location, open up the Reserves.kmz/Google Earth program. Make sure that terrain and geographic features are checked under Layers. Look for circles or pins that indicate the location of NERRS sites. Double click on one that interests you. You can then zoom in and investigate the reserve you have chosen.

http://earth.google.com/