Over the past years, I have noticed (and so have some students) that the coastal area of North East Point has been undergoing an extremely rapid degradation, turning into a ‘ghost zone’ with huge Takamaka trees dying, because they lose footing, and huge waves washing right up to the road and even flooding homes on the other side of the road. All of the underlying coral platforms that were once hidden or buried deep under the pristine sandy beach, are now exposed. With the introduction of IGCSE exams and the concepts of fieldwork, together with a group of IGCSE students, we organized small scale field trips to measure and keep records of the changes. Find other great lessons like this one on the Partners in Learning Network (Africa): http://africa.partnersinlearningnetwork.com

1. Will the sand ever come back…?
Author Mr. Jeffrey Nanty
Geography Teacher
Belonie Secondary School
• To prove hypotheses related to coastal management;
• To develop analytical, communication and social skills whilst working
as group in a totally different environment;
• To gain a sense of confidence in the use of different equipments,
and develop a feeling of independence in their learning;
• To test the ability of girls to undertake tasks outside the classroom
environment
• To be able to input and process the data collected ,electronically;
• To be able to electronically present the information from the
data/research.
Objectives
Software
Description Over the past years, I have noticed (and so have some students) that
the coastal area of North East Point has been undergoing an
extremely rapid degradation, turning into a ‘ghost zone’ with huge
Takamaka trees dying, because they lose footing, and huge waves
washing right up to the road and even flooding homes on the other
side of the road. All of the underlying coral platforms that were once
hidden or buried deep under the pristine sandy beach, are now
exposed.
With the introduction of IGCSE exams and the concepts of fieldwork,
together with a group of IGCSE students, we organized small scale
field trips to measure and keep records of the changes.
Learning Areas Geography-Fieldwork: Coastal Management
Levels 16-17 years
Data (primary, secondary) hypothesis, quadratKeywords
Project Overview
Microsoft Office package – Excel, Word, Powerpoint, Publisher,
Sources/
Referrences

2. Will the sand ever come back…?
Teacher Planning and Management
Documents
To teach Geography, a teacher should have a sound and profound
knowledge of the subject and should be well attuned to the world we
live in and able to address various world issues be it of human,
physical or natural aspect.
Background & Planning:
To be able to attend to the field trips, permission from the Ministry of
Education and parents had to be sought.
Because the main aspect of the lesson focused on the actual fieldwork
, most photographs focus on the events taking place on field rather
than in the ICT labs with the students at work.
The students were divided into small teams where each was assigned
a specific task such as wave count, profiling, sampling, measuring
distances.
The students also prepared some of the equipments such as the
clinometers and quadrat in class and in the school’s construction &
technology workshop.
The project itself is of two phases covering a period of two years and
two groups of students to gather comparable data.
Background
planning
Classroom images

3. Will the sand ever come back…?
Teaching Resources
Undertaking such an activity with students requires careful thinking and
step by step planning. The most outstanding aspect of such an activity is
the actual preparation of the students ensuring that they are well aware
of their tasks and the different concepts that upholds field investigations
as opposed to the theory of the classroom. The teacher also has to set
up the assessment grid in accordance to the work to be carried out.
Student Project Overview: In order to achieve a high success rate
whilst on the field , it was imperative that the students follow the given
instructions and guidelines. As part of a lesson, students prepared an
interactive quiz. A set of leaflets and a Power point slide-show was set
up as a sensitizing tool for the community.
Documents
Students' RecordsInstructions for
students
Graphical displays Final presentations

4. Will the sand ever come back…?
Assessment and Standards
Students are expected to demonstrate a high level of understanding of
the topic taught and are thus evaluated both in the classroom and on
the field. Both evaluations are in the form of written assessments: the
classroom assessment is done by the students, whereas the field
assessment is carried out by the teacher – using the assessment grid
for fieldwork. The former has two standards: the school’s and the
IGCSE’s. However , in the end, students are expected to achieve the
standards required by the IGCSE .
Assessment Rubrics: While carrying out the different tasks assigned
in and out of the classroom, the teacher monitors and allocates marks
using an evaluation sheet.
Mapping the Standards: Browsing the past IGCSE papers, it became
evident that not many assessments on coastal management was
available, especially in the Alternative to practical paper which assesses
fieldwork. Being something that affects us locally, we have used the
different text books available and our own personal knowledge as a
means of teaching our students about the importance of coastal
management and using IGCSE standards of evaluation, we have
devised our own evaluation of the fieldwork.
National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS):
The students are required to achieve the IGCSE ICT standard which
prescribes that they can make general use of the MS Office package
namely Word, Excel, Access ad Power Point. The students have
managed to demonstrate a high level of understanding and
manipulation of the software.
Documents
IGCSE Assessment
Standard
ICT Standard Teacher's
Assessment Grid
Paper Sample

5. Will the sand ever come back…?
Teacher and School Information
Belonie Secondary School is located in Victoria, the town center of the main island,
Mahé, and is one of ten secondary state schools in Seychelles. It has a current student
population of around 600 and 74 members of staff including the non- teaching staff. The
majority of the learners (90%) come from the neighbouring districts.
Born in Seychelles on the 23rd July 1973, I come from a family of 5. I am the youngest of
the three boys and two of us have followed in our mother’s and many other of our
relatives’ footsteps by taking up teaching. I have been passionately and enthusiastically
teaching Geography at Belonie school for now 11 out of the 14 years and no matter how
many challenges arise each year, I have always been ready to rise up . I mostly enjoy
teaching the more mature students these days as their curriculum offers a wider variety
of issues to be explored and they are easier to relate to as they tend to be more
understanding and eager to learn and discover new things around them. I hope to remain
in the profession for a good number of years.

6. Will the sand ever come back…?
Teacher and School Information
Belonie Secondary School is located in Victoria, the town center of the main island,
Mahé, and is one of ten secondary state schools in Seychelles. It has a current student
population of around 600 and 74 members of staff including the non- teaching staff. The
majority of the learners (90%) come from the neighbouring districts.
Born in Seychelles on the 23rd July 1973, I come from a family of 5. I am the youngest of
the three boys and two of us have followed in our mother’s and many other of our
relatives’ footsteps by taking up teaching. I have been passionately and enthusiastically
teaching Geography at Belonie school for now 11 out of the 14 years and no matter how
many challenges arise each year, I have always been ready to rise up . I mostly enjoy
teaching the more mature students these days as their curriculum offers a wider variety
of issues to be explored and they are easier to relate to as they tend to be more
understanding and eager to learn and discover new things around them. I hope to remain
in the profession for a good number of years.