“Levees on the Mississippi River prevent freshwater from reaching the coastal marsh. I initially went slightly over 15 seconds but trimmed the audio of pauses to get down to the allotted time. I made the soundtrack first to make sure that I could say what needed in the 15 seconds allotted. I began not in Adobe Animate but Adobe Audition.

I will use this animation in class to teach a concept that I had been acting out with my hands as the roots of the plants releasing the soil into the Gulf (Marshall, The Lens, & ProPublica, 2014). Estimates of the potential financial losses caused by coastal erosion, in the long run, are in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The wetlands serve as a windbreak that slows down hurricanes and mitigates damage from storms in New Orleans and the surrounding area. The loss of the wetlands represents the destruction of the spawning grounds of many species that live their adult lives in the Gulf of Mexico. I teach about this phenomena in my geography course each year because it is a major ecological problem for the United States. The emergence of satellite photography in the late 1960s showed the loss of much land along the Gulf Coast. When the plants died, their roots no longer held the soil, which then washed out the Gulf of Mexico. The increased salinity kills coastal plant life unable to adapt. In the absence of freshwater flooding, the salt content of the water in the marsh built up over time.

The construction of levees following the Civil War cut off freshwater from the coastal marsh ecosystem. I decided to make my animation about the problem of coastal erosion on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. As the salt builds up the plants die and the soil is released into the Gulf of Mexico. I made a 15-second animation about coastal erosion using Adobe Animate.

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