BEACH EROSION

Fus-Ro-Dah

Beach Erosion

I am doing a project on what wall will do better on protecting a city. The walls i'm using are dunes, greenery, stone, or plastic/wood. I thought the stone would work because it breaks down waves and its heavy and wont move.

I made a beach out of sand and i put toothpicks in the sand. i made waves by putting a piece of plastic on the bottom and lifting it and i wanted to see how many would toothpicks would be knocked down by the waves. In between waves i put different walls in front of them to see how well they got protected.

My data was 20% of the houses survived when natural, the one with nothing on it or nothing protecting. 30% of houses survived with dunes, piled up sand. 100% of them stayed up with greenery, a sponge. 60% survived with stone, piled rocks. 90% plastic, a plastic wall.

The winner of the competition was greenery because it absorbed all the water and totally stopped everything that was coming because it saved 10/10 houses. I could of done this better by getting the real materials instead of representations of them. I could of taken my time and put it together slowly. My hypothesis was wrong because i thought the rocks would break the waves and it would win.

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that the rock would do better because it is heavy and it can’t break apart. It can also break up waves and it would stop them in their paths. I think greenery would knock over because it stay stable in sand. Plastic and wood would stop the first waves but in time the beach will erode the sand that’s holding it and it will fall. And dunes will get swept away. That’s why stone is better.

Problem

I am trying to find out what wall will do better at saving a city from being flooded by waves. One is greenery like a tree but i used a sponge. Stone wall is a pile of pebbles. Dunes which is a pile of sand. Also, a plastic and wood wall.

Procedure

1: I will get a plastic bin screw down a board to one side.

2: I will put sand on the other and fill the side with the bin, with water.

3: Then I will put houses on the side with the sand and put different walls in front of the houses.

4: When I pull up the board it will make waves to try and knock over the walls.

5: This is a fair test because each barrier will be hit with three waves the same size.

I will measure the strength of the walls by how many houses got knocked down.

Conclusion

My hypothesis was wrong, the best wall is not stone because the water goes right through them but i was right when i said they would stay up so that's good. The real winner was greenery because it completely absorbed the waves and it didn't have any spaces to go through the greenery. I think my experiment was accurate because i performed the test 3 times on each wall. I can improve this experiment by doing it earlier and not be stressed when writing this and i could also use the real thing when i make the walls because i used a sponge for the greenery.