Year 10 are studying coastal erosion, and the teacher introduces Happisburgh in Norfolk, where the soft cliffs have retreated and houses on Beach Road have been lost to the sea. Over three lessons, using Google Earth's historical imagery, each student chooses six dated images from the earliest available to the latest and measures the distance from fixed points, such as the church tower and the end of Beach Road, to the cliff edge with the ruler tool. They enter the measurements in a shared Google Sheet, giving the class more than 150 readings along the same stretch, compare repeat measurements to judge how precise the method is, and calculate the rate of retreat at each point, charting how it varies along the coast, including where the old wooden defences have failed. Each student then builds a Google Earth project with placemarks for their measured cliff lines and writes a 300-word judgement on whether the Shoreline Management Plan's decision not to hold the line at Happisburgh is supported by the rates they found.
Tools: Google Earth, Google Sheets Nine ideas for your own version in Generate
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