INVOLVING HIGH SCHOOL INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE STUDENTS IN A LONG-TERM BARRIER ISLAND RESEARCH PROJECT

A long-term, on-going research project to map the distribution of overwash fan deposits on the lagoonal side of Dauphin Island, a barrier located off the Alabama coast, has involved an annual student field trip for the past few years. Dauphin Island is located in an area of the northern Gulf Coast that is prone to hurricane landfall. As a result, the lagoon located between Dauphin Island and mainland Alabama has been the site of much overwash sand deposition through the years. Students from the Murphy High School International Baccalaureate Program are utilized to locate and collect sediment samples and cores that are then transported to a sediment laboratory for geological description and detailed grain-size analysis. The students involved in this field project learn about barrier island morphology and evolution, and the researchers gain a reliable, long-term database for their investigation and for future work.