F242B – Fragile Shores: The Past and Future of Florida’s Coasts

This course explores the history of the Florida coast and Floridians’ relationships with the sea over the past 2,000 years or so (when the modern shoreline came into being). This program is organized around four of Florida’s coasts to consider the modern problems confronting coastal communities in light of history. While all of Florida’s coasts face similar problems, each lecture will use one coastal space to explore the impact of an issue in detail. Each discussion, enhanced through images and video, will begin with a description of the modern problem and then move back in time to contextualize it. Attendees will gain a strong understanding of the problems with Florida’s coasts while gaining an appreciation of how these coasts have changed over time.