This year Mrs Handley and Miss Simpson took the Year 13 Geography students to Kaikoura. This trip is based around their Level 3 Research assessment looking at sediment size on the beach.

The weather was wonderful for the two days that we were away making it very pleasant to work and collect data along the North Beach. We stayed at Dusky Lodge which works well for a small group of students.

While there the students measured rock size, longshore drift and wind speed and directions, and took a lot of photos of beaches, rocks, and waves. This data was later converted to graphs and maps for their assessment.

On the second day we explored the Kaikoura Peninsula walking over the headland and back around the end between rocks, water, and seals. We now know how high a student can jump when a seal barks at them unexpectedly. We studied the changes that had occurred after the uplift from the Kaikoura earthquake and found wonderful examples of concretions that are now above water level on the south side of the Peninsula. 

The students seemed to really enjoy their time away and hopefully gained insight into processes that happen along shorelines.