Coastal environments are dynamic. The action of wind and waves is critical to shaping and maintaining them, and vegetation on primary and secondary dune systems is vital to maintaining their stability. Human activity, if left unchecked, can cause serious damage to delicate coastal ecosystems.
Planet Earth is an amazing machine, and we—and our future—are riding on it. This video introduces students to the Earth system’s primary interacting subsystems (the biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere); the nitrogen, carbon, and water cycles; and three surface processes: weathering, mass-wasting, and erosion.
