This Science project is by Katelyn
Barrier Beach Development
My hypothesis is that as you move west on Long Island the grains of sand get smaller and finer,due to the sand’s origination from rocks to the east. To prove this hypothesis correct or incorrect I took sand from four places on Long Island; Montauk, Robert Moses, Jones Beach and the North Shore. I then put samples of sand from these places through a series of sieves to measure how much of each grain size there was per sample. The sample was of 200 grams of sand. When I sifted all the sand, I graphed the results on four different bar graphs. This showed how much of each size were in the samples from the different beaches. When I graphed the results, I found that my hypothesis was correct. As you moved west on Long Island the grains got smaller. I also looked at samples of the sand under a microscope and measured the size up to different size dots. This is when it was proven that the average size of sand decreased as the location moved westward. The same was done to look at the shape of the grain. It became smoother as I moved west. As for the North Shore, the sand there was sort of a mixture in size. It had many different size grains in it but was generally on the bigger side. It was also in the middle of the charts in the shape. While it was not totally rough as it was in Montauk, it was not a complete circle shape.
This project was awarded an Honors