Part 1: Engage (Anchoring Phenomenon)

A coastal town faces repeated hurricane storm surges. Municipal leaders must choose short-term and long-term defenses that protect the town while balancing cost and ecological impact. Use the Coastal Resilience simulation to test tradeoffs between mangrove restoration and concrete seawalls.

1. Observations and Questions:

• What immediate effects do seawalls have on wave energy reaching the town?
• How do mangroves change resilience as they mature over multiple years?
• Generate at least two “need to know” questions about cost, timing, and ecological impacts.

Part 2: Explore (Simulation Investigation)

Open the Coastal Resilience simulation.

2. Experimental Plan and Data Collection

• Design three defensive strategies within the provided budget:
  • Strategy A — Seawall Focus: build seawalls across the entire build zone.
  • Strategy B — Mangrove Focus: plant mangroves in every buildable cell and allow growth.
  • Strategy C — Mixed: a 50/50 mix of seawalls and mangroves.
• For each strategy:
  1. Reset the simulation to the start state.
  2. Implement the strategy using the toolbar.
  3. Run Simulate Category 4 Storm and record: Resilience %, Biodiversity Index, Cumulative Damage, Budget remaining, Years passed.
  4. Repeat the storm simulation for 3 consecutive years (advance year between storms) to observe long-term effects.
• Additional tests:
  • Reduce the budget by 50% and repeat Strategy C.
  • For Strategy B, compare results when mangroves are allowed to mature (advance years before storm) versus immediate storm exposure.

Data table (one row per run): Data table (one row per run): | Strategy | Year | Resilience (%) | Biodiversity Index | Cumulative Damage ($) | Budget Remaining ($) | |—|—:|—:|—:|—:|—:|

Part 3: Explain (Sensemaking)

3. Mechanisms and Evidence

• Use your collected data to explain why seawalls give rapid protection but reduce biodiversity and degrade over time.
• Explain how mangrove maturity affects wave dissipation and why time-lag matters for decision-making.
• Use evidence from the simulation (metric panels, storm narratives, and the performance chart) to support your claims.

Part 4: Elaborate/Evaluate (Argumentation & Modeling)

4. Decision Matrix

• Propose at least two prioritized criteria (for example: minimize cumulative damage; maximize biodiversity; minimize long-term maintenance cost).
• Create a decision matrix scoring each strategy against your criteria. Justify weights and scores using simulation data.

5. Final Recommendation

• Recommend a solution that optimizes the selected criteria, describe tradeoffs, and discuss limitations of the simulation model.