This document outlines a school exchange program between a French school in Parentis and a German school in Frankfurt from April 2nd to 9th. As part of the program, students will study ecosystems on the Atlantic coast through field work, lab work, and firm visits. The focus will be on biodiversity and environmental protection. Activities included identifying different types of shells, examining how dunes are formed, analyzing tide marks, and learning about human influences on the landscape from the ONF organization. The overall goal is for students to better understand European ecosystems as part of a Comenius exchange program.

1. Saturday April 2nd to Saturday 9th
Cooperation between Frankfurt and Parentis
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2. Ecosystems of the Atlantic coast
◊ Shells of the foreshore beach p3
◊ How is a dune shaped ? p4
◊ Landscape reading p5
◊ Arthropods p6
◊ Tide mark p7
Ecosystems are dynamic
◊ Parabolic dune p8
◊ Barkhane p9
◊ Arcachon harbour : lagoon p10
◊ Beach dune p11
◊ Paleoenvironmental element p12
◊ Human influence, ONF p13
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3. The Shells
Shells can be totally different. It
depends on where they live. Monday, 4th April 2011.
When you have bigger and
thicker shells you can say that
they lay on a beach with very
high and rough waves. You can
also see them when the grains
of sand are very thick. When
you’re on a calm beach with
very thin sand, the shells are
very very small. On our first
day, Monday, the beach with the
high waves, we found 5 differ-
ent types of shells on the Cou-
rant d’Huchet.
Tellina crassa
Glycymeris
Cardium norvegicum
Donax Vittatus
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From Marion, Maria, Gaëlle and Arianne

4. How is a dune shaped?
Lukas, Maël, Derya and Corentin.
Tuesday April 5th
For making a dune many different factors are important.
We need strong wind, plants and sand. South of Parentis en
Born we have perfect conditions for making a dune.
On the seaside a dune is less steep and it becomes slowly
bigger until it breaks sharply on the other side. You have to
imagine it like that: The wind from the ocean’s side blows
little grains of sand and forms a little hill. On the top of
the dune the sand just falls down. So we have two different
sides, one less steep then the other. Sometimes you can
see that the “foot” of the dune (lower part of the dune) is
taken away by big waves. Trees and other plants on the
dune are there for stabilization of the dune and also to
protect the dune from the waves. Plants, which grow on the
dune, hold the sand together. In contrast: dunes without
plants are shifting dunes.
All in all there are many factors, which you have to know
about by speaking about dunes.
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5. Landscape Reading
Leo, Drice, Julian and Lisa
The first activity today was to draw the landscape around the
dune
Courant d'huchet. We were devided in three groups and every
group had to draw another part. At first we had to say what
has which colour, for example the plants are green. Then we
had to allocate forms to different things on the landscape, for
example a circle means the lake. Besides we had to think
about what is influenced by humans and what is not.
Afterwards we drew our pictures.
Results:
-The humans built a fence that the visitors can not walk on
the dune. That is important because they would destroy the
plants and the dune would break.
-The animals would die because of the humans. They destroy
their living area.
-The nature protection area except of the few houses which
are privat property is not influenced by humans.
-The plants are very important because if they were not there
the sand of the dune would fly away and there would not be a
dune anymore.
We had some agreements for example everyone said the cars,
the fence, the way is human work. The plants and the lake are
natural. And the rocks are a bit influenced because they were
moved by humans.
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6. Michele Milde, Elodie Moser, Pierre Fleurentin and Sabrina Holldorb.
The arthropods are small animals which are living in the
tide mark and lay their eggs under pieces of wood be-
cause they need water and salt which is in the wood and
also protection from the sun and predators.
The “Puces de Mer” are very grey little shellfish which
is two centimetres high. They are shellfish because
they have two pairs of antenna.
The spiders are smaller than “Puces de Mer” and their
colour is black. They live in the tide mark too.
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7. HEIL Mona/CAMMAS Corentin
EMDE Mala/ DELACOUR Gautier
Tide mark
When the water rises, it leaves a line of many things: we call
it tide mark.
There are two kinds of items, the natural ones, like wood,
stones and shells, and artificial waste, like plastic and
glass…
Sometimes, people take the rubbish away. On one hand it is
good because the beach is cleaner and better for the vacation
but on the other hand, the wood and the other things stop the
water destroying the dunes.
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8. Tuesday, April 5th 2011
Parabolic dune Johanna Koch, Baptiste Audemard
WIND
10 Km
OCEAN
N
W E
S
The East
45 m
side is stee- 22°
15° per than
theWest
side.
Here we see a parabolic
dune model.
OCEAN
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9. The Barkhanedune
The Shape of the Dune
A profile of the dune
This Dune is a Barkhane dune.
The side of the dune facing the ocean is less steep (about 10°) than the side fa-
cing the landscape (about 30°) The height of the dune is about 20m.
:The diffrences with a parabolic dune are, that the belly of the half-circle faces
the ocean, and its also closer to it. So the parabolic must be older.
Jean-Arnaud Balcou , Eva Klein
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10. The Lagune ( Lena and Lena , Tuesday 4th april 2011)
We were at a lagune and there we fou
nd a lot of shells.
-Bittium: They are very small and long and
there are a lot of them together.
-Gibbule: Snails live in shells which are curled.
-Mysia: They have actually two parts and they
are white and they are smooth and they are about
3cm in diameter.
-Nasse: They are little and they look like a cone.
They are white and they have stripes.
-Ocenebra: They are little and curled. They are
not smooth, but uneven.
Everybody searched for shells on the Lagune and took pic-
tures of them. We put the shells in little boxes, brought
them back to school and studied them. Because at the La-
gune the sea is very calm and still the shells are very small
and different to the shells at other beaches.
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11. Beach dune (Biscarosse Plage)
Leo, Drice, Julian and Lisa 5th April
The last dune we visited today was the Beach dune in Bisca-
rosse Plage.
It was the only dune we visited which was built by humans.
Also it was the flattest dune we saw; it was only 16 meters
high.
The humans built it to have the control of it.
Because if the enviroment would built a natural dune it would
be much more difficult to control it.
People try to avoid movement of the dune by planting plants
and putting branches on the dune.
The dune is a straight dune which is quite long but not very
high.
On the ocean side it goes straight down because of the waves
which "eat" up the dune. On the other side, the forest side, the
dune is quite steep.
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12. Paleoenvironmental element
Lukas, Corentin, Maël, Derya
Tuesday April 5th
Today we were at the Biscarrosse plage and the dune,
which is only a few meters away from the beach. If you
watch the sand of the beach you will recognize that it has-
n’t just one colour. You will see that there is also black
sand. We wondered about the black colour of the sand and
we found out that there was a lagoon 4OOO years ago.
That’s also the reason why there some shells and snails in
the sand we also found in Arcachon’s lagoon. In the lab we
found 9 different kinds of shells/snails.
Here you can see 3 examples.
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13. ONF: Fight of the dune shifting
Mala Emde/ Gautier Delacour
Johanna Koch/ Baptiste Audemard
We know that the dunes are moving and will overflow
our villages. That’s why the organisation « ONF » had
build the dunes and other things for saving our homes.
The history
The sand comes from the ocean in the Ice Age with the help
of wind and waves. A long time ago the ocean was 120 me-
ters lower and 20 kilometers in the west.
What causes the dune shifting ?
The wind transports the sand into the landscape and if there is
a storm the big waves destroy the dunes.
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14. What are the human actions to prevent that shifting?
The sand and the water are dangerous for the villages be-
cause it can destroy them. In the end of the XVIIIth century,
the inhabitants started to plant many trees for a forest, and
they also planted gras on the dune to stop the dunes from
shifting. The inhabitants put many branches on the dune to
stop the movement of the sand. They also built fences. If the
sand comes to the fences it will be stopped. The sand cove-
red the fence and within one century the dunes were build.
Thanks
At first we want to thank the headmaster of the french school Saint Exupér
Philippe Augustin and Stefan Langsdorf, the headmaster of the german school
Musterschule, for letting us taking part in this program. We also want to say
thank you to the ONF that tought us alot about dunes and the area around. And
next we say thanks to the Comenius-agency. It’s great to have the oppertunity
to do such a fun and interessting exchange. And last but not least the tea-
chers!!! Thank you all (Misses Schwarzmeier, Mister Werner, Mister Lartique,
Mister Viarouge and Mister Labat) for all the organisation you went through
and the patience you had to bring up.
14 The german and french Comeniusstu-

15. EUROPEAN ECOSYSTEMS
BIODIVERSITY
AND PROTECTION
Saint Exupéry high school of Parentis takes part in a
European school exchange program with
COMENIUS between Frankfurt
MUSTERSCHULE and Tchèque
GYMNAZIUM PRAHA 7.
This project studies European ecosystems biodiver-
sity and protection of the environment..
Field works and lab works would be carry out along
with firm visits.
This project concern grade 9 students
(14-15 ans).
English will be the communication language
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