1. Questions and Answers
Estuaries and You!

3. What is an estuary? Where river meets the sea Slow water (low energy)
Low-lying lands
Salt tolerant plants and animals

4. What is a salt marsh?
low, wet area flooded by salt water during high tides

5. Common Plants and Animals

6. Why is the bottom of the salt marsh muddy?
Calm water
Decaying matter

7. How were the salt marshes formed?
Began forming after last Ice Age (~10,000 ya)
when eroded soils from newly formed mountains were deposited along the coast.
Today, sediment trapped by grasses continues expands our marshes.

8. How have plants & animals adapted?
SALT
Only some have actually adapted to the salt water
Some can excrete salt
Most have developed ways to store fresh water
TIDES
Some move to escape rising water
Some dig
Some have gills that can work as long as they are wet

9. Why is the salt marsh important to sea animals ?
Nursery
Food source

10. Can marshland be re-created once it is destroyed?
Efforts can be made to clean up and replant
Better to avoid destroying them in the first place

11. Why is the estuary and salt marsh important to people?
Food
Buffer Zone
Filters
Economy

12. What are your ideas???

13. Here is what to do!
Work as a group to create a plan to save, preserve, clean, or restore a marshland.
Include a story behind your idea for your presentation to your peers.
Make a poster to promote your idea to the public.
Make sure the poster illustrates both the problem and the solution.