Author: John Collins, Tessa Omer, Isabella Thayer, and Sara Wall
Edited by Steve Anderson & Katie Whittington
Introduction
On September 12th and 13th 2023, four NCSU environmental science seniors attended an event at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center in Harkers Island called, “Five Years Later: Remembering Florence”. During these two days, local volunteers gave tours to guests of Down East, NC while others from the community shared their stories about how ghost forests have affected their lives. Also attending were other environmental scientists from NCSU working on different projects to address issues caused by ghost forests, such as flooding and road closure.
Community leaders also organized multiple panels that took place over these two days at the museum. These panels consisted of various experts from a diverse array of fields that had unique perspectives on the issues that Down East communities face. In addition to hearing from so many locals, visitors got to see some of the work done from the previous NC State students who had worked on a similar project the year prior. The previous group created a brochure, which was made available guests in several different places in the museum. Visitors also visited the Chronolog site that prompts citizens to upload pictures that are used to see how ecosystems are changing over time. Learn more here. Since it was early in the project, the student’s experiences at this event helped inform the goals of the project.
Image 1. Map of southeastern Carteret County, NC. Produced by Isabella Thayer in ArcPro.
Lesson Plan
With science communication being the focus of this project, a lesson plan was developed that instructors can use to inform groups of young people about the ecosystem transition that they are witnessing in their backyards. This lesson plan was crafted to be presented to an audience aged eight and above, with appropriate vocabulary and activities.
The entire lesson is centered around coastal ecosystem transition, showing the changes from coastal forests to ghost forests and then to saltwater marshes. There is a lecture part of the lesson plan as well as a main activity that instructors can do. The lecture slides are meant to take around 20 minutes and provide an introduction to ghost forests and how they are formed. The activity description can be found in the lesson plan, which utilizes creativity as students will draw out their interpretations of a given prompt. The prompts will then culminate in a single story that will take students through the entire process of transitioning from coastal forest to salt marsh.
Although it highlights the issues that arise due to sea level rise and flooding, the ending emphasizes the positive outcomes of the situation. The entire lesson should take about an hour and will give participants an understanding of why ghost forests occur and what can come next.
To determine the effectiveness of the lesson plan, there was an initial test run of this material on a group of college students. Data was collected using a Google Form asking students to rate their confidence levels ranging from “unsure” to “very sure” based on 5 questions regarding the key objectives of our learning material.
This first test run was a success, and participants gave helpful feedback on ways to improve the lesson plan and activity for the appropriate age group. The data collected from these college students showed that their confidence in knowledge improved after the lesson presentation.
Later in the semester, there was a test run on a group of 5th grade students at Smyrna Elementary School in Smyrna, NC. Again, data was collected to analyze the effectiveness of the program, but instead used a paper form accessible to the younger kids. This data also showed an improvement in confidence levels of the 5 objectives, suggesting the lesson plan was effective at teaching this age group of students.
Image 2. Group presenting the lesson plan to 5th graders at Smyrna Elementary.
Image 3. Drawings produced by 5th graders after the presentation. These drawings indicate the transition of upland and freshwater ecosystems transitioning to saltwater ecosystems.
Additional Deliverables
In addition to the main lesson plan, the project also produced several supplemental activities that educators can use to provide a deeper understanding of ghost forests. These activities can be found embedded within the lesson plan document (linked above) along with an infographic that explains the concepts associated.
The infographic covers four major causes of saltwater intrusion:
- Increased soil salinity due to the evaporation of water from trapped pools of saltwater in artificial ditches (Manda et al. 2014).
- Saltwater intrusion can occur during drought when freshwater flow is decreased and saltwater moves farther upstream (Bhattachan et al., 2018).
- Water that can become trapped due to natural barriers and levees on the coast, leading to higher salt concentrations in the soil.
- Saltwater intrusion can occur due to low freshwater in aquifers, most often caused by excess pumping (White and Kaplan, 2017).
There are activities that go along with each of these concepts that can be done in a classroom setting or be take-home activities.
Some additional activities that program participants or museum visitors can take home with them include a crossword puzzle, a word search, a “spot-the-difference” exercise that compares multiple pictures from the Chronolog site at the museum, and a ghost coloring activity. The purpose of these activities is to highlight vocabulary words that are associated with ghost forests, so kids could become more familiar with them.
“Spot-the-difference” shows participants the changes that can be seen on Harkers Island from June to October 2023. Kids can also go visit the site to see for themselves exactly what changes are being noted with the “spot-the-difference” worksheet. Lastly, the ghost coloring activity is meant to limit the fear associated with the term “ghost” in regards to ghost forests. Creating a positive correlation between ghosts and ghost forests can make the entire concept less scary for younger children.
The most physical deliverable this project produced was a wave tank that was constructed to demonstrate how storm surge can get trapped behind natural levees and increase soil salinity. The model used a 5-and-a-half-gallon fish tank for the basin. A levee was also created using chicken wire as a base frame, which was then filled in with spray expanding foam, and the edges were sealed with caulk. A 1.5 x 4 ft board was cut to create a “pier” in which our wave making mechanism would be strapped upon. This mechanism is an RC motor with a three-way (two direction rotation and off) switch powered by a 12-volt battery. The wave paddle was constructed out of a piece of aluminum flashing bolted to the motor. Water was filled until it reached the base of the pier, and the motor can then be switched on. The speed at which the motor rotates was adjusted until waves became large enough to crest the levee. The speed setting was left on the correct setting and the water level was marked for future use. To drain the wave tank, the water needs to be dumped out and left to dry until further use.
Image 4. The finished wave tank prototype. Produced by Sara Wall.
Conclusion
The lesson plan created for both the school and museum addresses the background and future of ghost forests as the ecosystems transition from coastal forest to saltmarsh. Furthermore, the activities get kids more familiar with the terms associated with ghost forests and can be helpful in getting children to discuss what they have learned with their parents as they can bring the worksheets home. The wave tank helps demonstrate the occurrence of trapped saltwater leading to increased soil salinity. All of these activities seek to get kids and adults more engaged with the environment and more aware of environmental change, particularly on the coastal plain of North Carolina.
To evaluate the success of the lesson plan, a system was devised to rate confidence in knowledge levels before and after the learning material. This semester, there were test runs of the material on two different groups. There first was a test run of the lesson plan and evaluation with college-aged students in Dr. Marcelo Ardón’s environmental science class. Even though this age group is not the primary target audience, it was valuable to test the learning material and activity to get feedback on what could be improved. To evaluate the effectiveness of the lesson plan, a Google Form was created for these students to fill out at the start and end of the activity using the following questions:
- I know what ghost forests are.
- I know some species that live in a coastal forest.
- I know what saltwater intrusion is.
- I know at least two different ways that saltwater intrusion can lead to the formation of ghost forests. (later changed to “I know what a snag is”)
- I know what a saltwater marsh is.
- I know some species that live in a saltwater marsh.
These questions use the key learning objectives of the lesson plan and ask the student to rate their confidence level from unsure, somewhat sure, fairly sure, or very sure. On November 30, 2023, there was an opportunity to test run this material again with 5th graders at Smyrna Elementary. Based on feedback from the first trial, question 4 was changed to “I know what a snag is”, and the rest were kept the same. The following graphs visualize the data that was collected via Google Forms for the college students and fifth grade students respectively.
Figure 1. College students trial results. Questions listed above.
Figure 2. 5th grade students trial results. Questions listed above.
The lesson plan and activity were found to be effective in both college aged students and 5th grade students. This was a great outcome, as individuals from a wide range of ages learned from the activities that were developed. After all, these activities will be used at Core Sound Waterfowl Museum, a place where people of all ages come to learn.
Ghost forests will only become more obvious to those living on the coast as temperatures and sea level rises, droughts become more frequent, and groundwater becomes saltier. Providing these communities with the scientific background to the issues they are facing can create more informed awareness of environment changes on the coast. A better understanding of what is occurring and why offers an opportunity to help alleviate the fear that builds as communities see and experience environment changes. Although they will continue to see ghost forests expand due to sea level rise and more frequent major storms, equipping residents of coastal areas with information about their local environments will be key in getting young people more aware of climate change and ecosystem transition.
Works Cited
Bhattachan, A., Emanuel, R. E., Ardón, M., Bernhardt, E. S., Anderson, S. M., Stillwagon, M. G., Ury, E. A., BenDor, T. K., & Wright, J. P. (2018). Evaluating the effects of land-use change and future climate change on vulnerability of coastal landscapes to saltwater intrusion. Elementa, 6. https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.316
Lawson, D.F., Stevenson, K.T., Peterson, M.N. et al. (2019). Children can foster climate change concern among their parents. Nat. Clim. Chang., 9, 458–462. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0463-3
Manda, AK , Giuliano, AS and Allen, TR . (2014). Influence of artificial channels on the source and extent of saline water intrusion in the wind tide dominated wetlands of the southern Albemarle estuarine system (USA). Environmental Earth Sciences 71(10): 4409–4419. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-013-2834-9
O’Donnell, Kiera L., et al. (2024). “Saltwater intrusion and sea level rise threatens U.S. rural coastal landscapes and Communities.” Anthropocene, vol. 45, Mar. 2024, p. 100427, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2024.100427.
White, E., and Kaplan, D. (2017). Restore or retreat? Saltwater intrusion and water management in coastal wetlands. Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, 3(1):e01258. doi: 10.1002/ehs2.1258