Teachers from a range of schools across the Jurassic Coast have selected 8 - 15 pupils from Year 8 -10 who are able, gifted and talented in Geography. Pupils from each school are leading their own year long research project, selecting their own stretch of coastline and investigating four main questions:

• Why is the coast special to me?
• How is the coast currently being managed?
• What are the challenges that communities face with coastal change?
• What opportunities and benefits will arise as a result of coastal change?

Each school's group are currently in the process of undertaking research along their stretch of coastline including:

• Desk based research to investigate the demographics, coastal defences, geology, the stakeholders and the shoreline management plan policy.
• Questionnaires and interviews with local residents, visitors and businesses regarding present and future climate and coastal change.
• Physical research of the geology, geomorphology, beach profiles and coastal defence schemes.
• Photography and filming.
• Innovative use of the GIS software ‘Digital Worlds' to undertake quantitative research e.g. measuring coastal erosion over time, understating the demographics of the area and using it as a tool to link photographs, videos and websites to their piece of research.

To conclude this year of research, each school will present their findings at a high profile conference in March 2011 in front of ~150 people. The pupils from each school will choose the format of their presentation. A small part of this project can be taught as part of the Geography curriculum. However, the majority of the work is extra-curriculum with a lot of commitment required from the pupils and teachers to meet after school and during school holidays. This project has enabled a lot of cross-subject and cross-year teaching and learning as a really sustainable aspect to the project.

The selected sections of coastline include:

• Budleigh Salterton
• Jacob's Ladder - Pennington Point, Sidmouth
• Seaton
• Lyme Regis - Seatown
• West Bay, Freshwater Campsite and Burton Bradstock
• Isle of Portland
• Weymouth seafront and Overcombe/Preston area
• Durlston - Old Harry Rocks (focusing on Swanage)