7 Great Ways To Add Education To Your Next Beach Trip
Let’s be honest. When you’re considering taking a trip to the beach, you’re probably thinking more about relaxation than you are about education. The warm sand and cool ocean breezes are an amazing change of pace from the every day, and are plenty of reason to take a beach trip on their own! After all, everyone could use a break every now and again.
But, if you take a moment to consider it, beaches are also places that are uniquely qualified for all sorts of learning activities. In fact, no matter what subject you’re wanting to explore, there’s almost certainly a great way to do so during your trip to the beach, often without even needing to turn your break into a “school” thing.
These are some of my favorite ways to add some entertaining education to almost any beach trip!
Biology at the Beach
I have yet to meet the kid that isn’t at least a little interested in learning more about animals!
Exploring Beach Creatures
For kids who normally live inland, a trip to the beach can be an amazing opportunity to explore an entirely different set of animals. And even for kids who regularly make it out to see the sea, there can be plenty of opportunities to see or talk about some new species.
Fantastic seabirds fill the sky, diving into the water for food. Fascinating creatures hide in tide pools or under the sand. And evidence of animals no longer living litter the shoreline, in the form of seashells. You may even find a fossilized shark’s tooth, proof of one of the mightiest predators in the ocean!
Beach biology is often one of the easiest subjects to dive into, but it’s also a subject with some serious depth. Shell hunting along the shore or looking through tidepools are some of my favorite beach activities, and they can yield a wealth of information. Guide books can help you identify your finds if you have them, but a quick Google search will often work just as well, and is usually closer to hand.
Sea Animal Experiences
If you want to take things a bit further, many areas have specific experiences that can really transform your trip.
Sea turtle projects around the world are great examples of this and can be a lot of fun. Most recently, my family had a chance to participate in releasing baby Olive Ridley turtles into the sea at the Campamento Tortuguero Boca de Tomates in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, though there are opportunities to help sea turtles Stateside as well. We visited the Georgia Sea Turtle Center during our trip to Jekyll Island in 2021 and learned a ton about these magnificent creatures.
Other fun ways of adding biology lessons to your trip could include discussing marine food webs, going whale watching, or snorkeling through any nearby coral reefs!
Geology at the Beach
When you’re on a trip to the beach, you’d think that most of what you could learn would have to do with the water. After all, the water is usually why people visit. Even so, there’s a surprising amount to learn about the land on a trip to the beach, starting with the very sand beneath your toes!
Types of beaches
In the movies, beaches are almost always composed of bright white sand and crystal clear seawater, and many popular vacation spots have beaches that look just that way. But there’s actually a ton of variation in beaches across the world!
In fact, beaches are composed of the very same materials as the lands where they’re located, just worn down by the repeated crashing of the waves. With seven continents and millions of miles of shoreline, there are plenty of different types of beaches out there.
Here are some of the different kinds that we’ve come across in our travels!
Tan sand beaches
Most of the sand on earth is composed of bits of rocks and minerals that have been eroded down. The most common mineral in the sand is a mineral called quartz. The tan color you see in a lot of sand comes from other minerals, like iron oxide or feldspar, getting mixed in with the white color of the quartz.
Since these are all extremely common minerals, tan-colored sand has become the “normal” kind of sand that you can find in sandboxes, deserts, and beaches all across the world.
White sand beaches
Like tan-colored sand, white sand beaches are typically composed of a large amount of quartz. However, instead of iron oxide or feldspar, white sand beaches will typically have something different mixed. For many tropical beaches, that something is parrotfish poop!
Parrotfish eat the algae that grow on coral in tropical reefs, typically by taking bites of the coral itself. Since the calcium carbonate that makes up the hard bits of coral is undigestable, it passes through the fish’s body, coming out as sand. Some scientists estimate that up to 80% of the sand around coral reefs is made by parrotfish!
Other colored beaches
While tan and white are the most common colors of sand, beaches around the world come in a variety of colors. Black beaches like Monterico and El Paredon in Guatemala are a result of nearby volcanic activity, as the ash mixes with the sand. Pink beaches, like Flamingo Beach in Costa Rica, get their color from the broken shells of tiny creatures called Foraminifera. And in some places, there are even emerald green beaches made from small bits of the mineral olivine!
Rock or gravel beaches
Some beaches don’t have much in the way of sand at all! Instead, larger diameter rocks and minerals cover the ground. Only rock particles ranging from .075mm in diameter to 4.75mm are called sand. Particles from 4.75mm all the way up to 75mm in diameter are called gravel.
Gravel beaches are most often associated with areas where the waves are stronger, or more energetic.
A Simple Starting Point for Teaching Geology at the Beach – Erosion
Geology can be an extremely deep subject if you want to dig into it. But if you’re only looking for a surface-level lesson to get started with, I suggest a discussion on erosion.
Erosion is one of the most easily visible geologic processes around, especially at the beach. The waves are constantly wearing away at the beach, spelling destruction for innumerable castles in the sand. Though it should be noted that erosion is also the reason the sand is there in the first place.
You can also talk about proposed solutions for overcoming erosion in the short term, like planting mangrove trees off vulnerable shorelines or building seawalls, or challenge them to come up with their own structures for keeping their sandcastle safe!
Astronomy at the Beach
Sea, sand, and sky, beaches have it all. With that wide-open horizon, a trip to the beach can be an excellent chance to learn about space!
Tides
Especially during the day, talking about tides is one of the best ways to explore astronomy at the beach. That’s because despite being a phenomenon that happens here on Earth, tides are controlled by the position of the moon.
Essentially, the gravitational pull of the moon tugs on the water in such a way that it collects in two planet-wide waves with their crests in the locations closest to the moon and farthest away from the moon. These are the high tides. The low tides, then, are the wave troughs, halfway between the two high-tide locations.
That’s a pretty simplistic explanation of the process, but it is essentially what’s happening. For a more complete look at tides, I found this website to be a great resource!
Stargazing
If you’re ok staying until after dark, beaches can be absolutely wonderful places to check out the stars! A large part of that is simply due to the fact that there’s nothing obstructing the sky when you look out to sea. Without buildings, trees, or mountains in the way, there’s a ton of sky to see.
Honestly, just sitting and watching the stars is wonderful, and can be a great way to pique your kids’ interest in space. It’s hard to look at all those stars and not start wondering what’s out there! But, if you want to take it up a notch, a good reference book or phone app for finding constellations is super helpful.
Which stars you will be able to see depends heavily on what beach you’re on, the time of year, and unfortunately, the amount of light pollution around, but if you’re in a place with dark skies it’s absolutely worth it.
Light Pollution
Especially on beaches near larger tourist destinations, light pollution is one of the biggest impediments to beach astronomy today, so it’s probably worth mentioning. If astronomy is something you want to do, I highly recommend looking for beaches that aren’t located in the middle of a bright tourist area. If you manage to find one, the results can be stunning.
Meteorology at the Beach
Whether we like it or not, the weather is a major factor to consider when planning a beach trip. Luckily, it’s also a topic that can be quite educational!
Weather Patterns
There are so many different factors that affect the way weather works on earth, but a pretty big one is related to the way that water and land absorb the sun’s heat. That makes places where you can experience both, like the beach, a perfect place for learning!
Water takes a lot more energy to heat up than something like sand. That’s a large part of why sand can feel so hot underfoot while the water remains chilly. This also has an effect on the air above them. Air over the land heats up quickly, lowering the air pressure above it. The air above the water heats slower because the water under it stays cool.
The cool air has a higher pressure than the warm air, so it begins to move towards the beach. And that’s why beaches have wind!
In the evenings, the opposite happens. Once the sun goes down, the sand cools more quickly than the water, and the air moves from the land out to sea. This is just one of the ways that beaches can affect the weather.
Extreme Weather
Storms, hurricanes, and floods are all extreme weather events that can occur in beach areas. While you hopefully won’t be experiencing any of them during your trip, talking about what each weather event looks like and ways to stay safe is a great way to add a bit of education to your trip.
Architecture at the Beach
Coastal areas can sometimes have architecture with a completely different look and feel from buildings farther inland. Often, these differences end up being a direct result of building near the beach, though admittedly, sometimes it can be a stylistic choice to maintain a “beach vibe.”
Either way, beach architecture can be a lot of fun to check out!
Lighthouses
In many parts of the world, lighthouses are a quintessential part of beach architecture. In fact, there are right around 700 different lighthouses in the United States alone, which is pretty amazing when you consider there are fewer than 100,000 miles of coastline spread out over the entirety of the States. That means there are 7 lighthouses for roughly every 1,000 miles of coast!
With modern navigation equipment, lighthouses might not seem quite as important, but they do still work to protect boaters who may have strayed off course. Plus, if you find one that allows tourists, they make great places to look out over the waves!
Piers or boardwalks
While piers and boardwalks are physically little more than wooden posts and planks, they remain some of the most functional architectural pieces at the beach. Both piers and boardwalks are all about getting people where they want to go more easily than they otherwise could.
Boardwalks often run parallel with the shore, allowing people to walk easily along the coast without dealing with the sand. If you’ve ever had to drag a wheeled snack cooler or push a stroller over sand you can instantly see why that’s desirable.
Piers are usually placed perpendicular to the beach, where they can jut out over the water. Fishermen will often use piers as a place to cast their lines, and in many places, they are the only place on the beach where they are allowed to do so. But even if you’re not looking to catch your dinner, piers can be a fun place to admire the ocean!
Buildings on Stilts
Beaches in areas that are prone to flooding will often have their buildings up on stilts. On sunny days when the tide is out, this might seem odd, but when the waves come in, stilts can be a life-saver!
Stilts can be about a lot more than avoiding the water, however. Since beach sands will often shift throughout the year, they’re not a particularly strong place to put your foundation. Stilts will often be set into the firmer ground beneath the sands to give buildings the steady footing they need to survive.
History at the Beach
As a kid, history was one of my least favorite subjects. In large part, that was because I thought that history was a bunch of names and dates that I didn’t want to memorize. However, as an adult, I love history because I’ve figured out what it really is. Stories!
Check out the local history
Every place has its own local history that sets it apart from everywhere else. Taking some time to learn about the history of the beach you’re visiting can lead to some really interesting discoveries. Was this beach once the home of a famous millionaire? The location where pioneers first arrived? The homeport of pirates?!?
If you don’t ask any questions, you may never know!
Food and Cuisine at the Beach
There’s a lot to be said for bringing a packed lunch for your trip to the beach. It’s easy, inexpensive, and allows you to maximize your time by the water. Even so, if you’re not taking the opportunity to explore the local food scene, you may be missing out on a particularly delicious learning opportunity.
Cuisine and culture often go hand in hand, and if you spend a bit of time researching the foods you try by the beach, you could make some interesting discoveries! If you’re not quite sure where to start, I found this article from Eater.com to be a good starting place.
Thinking more internationally? Check out this one
Seafood
I’m personally of the opinion that if you’re close enough to the sea that you can see it, getting some fresh seafood is a must!
Fish and shellfish have been staples of coastal diets around the world since pretty much forever. In large part, that’s because, unlike livestock, fishing doesn’t require owning land. Individuals would have been able to gather shellfish from the beach or catch fresh fish for their families even if they couldn’t afford other foods. As such, in many parts of the world, seafood lacked prestige compared to other meats. One example of this is how lobster was regularly fed to prisoners in parts of the US because it was considered an undesirable food.
The seafood you’ll find at the beach varies a lot depending on where you are in the world. I highly suggest being adventurous!
This seafood handbook is a great resource for learning more about the different seafood you can find around the world. Seafood Handbook | SeafoodSource
Beach food that isn’t seafood
From hotdogs at Coney Island to fresh coconut at tropical beaches around the world, there are plenty of beach foods that aren’t seafood. If you or your kids aren’t feeling the fish, you can still learn lots about the local culture from what else is being served.
Beach foods tend to be quick and easy foods, which means they have a lot in common with street foods. Small, snackable portions of local favorites is often the norm. Try to find something that reflects the local culture and use it as a launching point for discovery! Tacos in Mexico, spam musubi in Hawaii, whatever fits the bill!
Beaches around the world are known for being all about getting away from it all and relaxing. And that’s a good thing! Taking some time off from the daily grind is essential for living life to the fullest. But with a little bit of planning, it can be really easy to also add a bit of education to your beach trip in a way that doesn’t detract from your escape.
It’s the best of both worlds!
Beach Learning Resources
General Resources:
A Kid’s Beach Journal – Journaling through educational experiences is always a good idea, and this journal looks like a great beach-specific choice! Of course, you can’t go wrong with a good general-purpose journal, either. I particularly like these Discbound Journals from Yoment.
50 Things to Do at the Beach (Explore More) – This is a book that explores some of the many different things you can do on the beach!
Biology
If you didn’t already know that I was a fan of everything that Nat Geo puts out, you will by the end of this list. Let’s get this started off with some amazing book offerings about tide pools and ocean life from National Geographic.
Ultimate Oceanpedia: The Most Complete Ocean Reference Ever (National Geographic Kids)
National Geographic Readers: Tide Pools (L1)
Science Chapters: All About Tide Pools
Smithsonian Handbooks: Shells
A Beachcomber’s Guide to Fossils
Geology
Beach Materials – Geology – The National Parks Service does a great job explaining all about beach geology.
Seawall Facts for kids – This could just as easily go under architecture. Seawalls are used in the fight against erosion.
Astronomy
Stargazing on the coast | A guide to astronomy by the sea – A guide from BBC’s Sky at Night Magazine
50 Things To See With A Telescope – Kids
Astronomy for Kids
A Telescope Setup -This is a highly-rated telescope for beginners, but one of my favorite features is the mount for a cell phone. I’ve found in the past that my kids have a tendency to move the telescope when trying to look through it, so having the cell phone mounted on the viewer to act as a screen can help to make sure they actually see what we’re looking at. Just beware, getting the phone to sit correctly in the mount can take some practice.
A Great Phone Camera – If you’re wanting to get pictures of that night sky while you’re out there, but don’t want to buy a full photography rig, I’m currently using the Pixel 7 Pro from Google.
All of the newer Pixel Phones do a pretty good job with astrophotography mode, so long as you can keep your phone perfectly still for the shot. I don’t typically tell people to buy selfie sticks, but the one I linked below does a decent job of keeping your phone steady with its tripod mode and comes with a remote so you can start your picture without tapping the phone.
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Budget Pick
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Great for anyone!
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Pro Pick
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The “A” series of Pixel phones are typically released midway through the yearly cycle and pack many of that year’s benefits into a more budget-friendly device. |
The Pixel 8 is this year’s mainline version of the Pixel Phone. Most of what’s on offer is the expected iterative upgrade over last year’s version, but this year Google is leaning heavily into AI enhancements that should give the Pixel 8 an advantage over its competitors. |
The Pixel Pro line takes what is good about the mainline Pixels and add just a bit more. This year, that means a larger screen, more zoom on the camera, and a bit more RAM to help make it feel quicker than ever! |
The “A” series of Pixel phones are typically released midway through the yearly cycle and pack many of that year’s benefits into a more budget-friendly device.
The Pixel 8 is this year’s mainline version of the Pixel Phone. Most of what’s on offer is the expected iterative upgrade over last year’s version, but this year Google is leaning heavily into AI enhancements that should give the Pixel 8 an advantage over its competitors.
The Pixel Pro line takes what is good about the mainline Pixels and add just a bit more. This year, that means a larger screen, more zoom on the camera, and a bit more RAM to help make it feel quicker than ever!
Architecture
This is a tricky one to recommend resources for. Architecture can be an amazing thing to show kids, but there are not very many resources aimed at teaching kids about the architecture of the beach.
Pier Facts for Kids (kiddle.co)
Seawall Facts for Kids (kiddle.co)
Lighthouse Facts for Kids (kiddle.co)
Sandcastles Made Simple – Step-by-Step Instructions, Tips, and Tricks for Building Sensational Sand Creations
Sand Brick Maker and Castle Set
13 Piece Sand Toys
History
Each beach has its own very specific history, so I suggest looking for resources specific to the beach you’re visiting. But if you’re looking for a general overlook of how beaches became such a popular vacation destination, I liked this article from the Smithsonian.
Inventing the Beach: The Unnatural History of a Natural Place | History| Smithsonian Magazine
Food and Cuisine
Food is another very location-specific topic, but one that is a ton of fun to explore. Have fun with it!
America’s Favorite Beach Foods in Every Region – Eater
Beach Snacks Around the World | Travel Channel
Eat the Beach – This is a foraging guide for foods you can gather for yourself along the shore.
