Quick Take
After watching storms wreak havoc on the coastline near her home, Hazel Campbell, a junior at Santa Cruz's Pacific Collegiate School, began researching how kelp could work to prevent coastal erosion. Her research won third place at an international science fair for students.
Living next to the Pacific Ocean means a few things are guaranteed: beautiful sunsets, ocean breezes and coastal erosion. Recent winter storms have caused massive damage to the coastline along West Cliff Drive and in Capitola – damage that has driven a local teen to action.
Hazel Campbell, a 16-year-old junior at Santa Cruz’s Pacific Collegiate School, watched these storms wreak havoc on the coasts near her home. After learning that the seawalls meant to protect cliffs merely break when faced with a major storm, Campbell turned to nature to look for new ways to prevent coastal erosion.
She learned that kelp forests might help prevent erosion by reducing a wave’s energy. The research she found on the subject was inconclusive, though, so she decided to test it herself.
“I live right by the coast and it’s really upsetting to me whenever I see like a new section of the road or somebody’s front yard just falling into the ocean,” Campbell said. “So I wanted to look into how can I use the resources found in nature to stop or slow down coastal erosion?”
Last week, she presented her research at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair – the world’s largest STEM research competition for high school students – where she placed third in the Earth and Environmental Sciences category.
Campbell designed and tested an experiment to better understand how kelp forests can reduce coastal erosion. After winning “Best in Show” and becoming the first contestant ever to earn a perfect score on the judging rubric at the Santa Cruz County STEAM Expo – a countywide science fair and showcase for K-12 students – she went on to win third place in her category at the California State Science Fair. She then qualified for the International Science and Engineering Fair.
Thousands of students from all over the world travelled to Columbus, Ohio, to compete in this year’s event. Campbell competed against 69 other projects in the Earth and Environmental Sciences category. Her project, “Nature-Based Erosion Prevention Field Data and Modeling of Drag Force on Giant Kelp Under Winter Swell,” won third place in the category. Heather Wygant, science coordinator at Santa Cruz County Office of Education, notes that fewer than 10% of all finalists at the fair place third or higher.
“It was really cool to be around so many kids who were interested in research and really excited about it,” Campbell said. “I really loved it.”
The science fair features students from around the world who are doing work that is not just at a college level, but at a graduate or even postdoctoral level, said Miguel Aznar, lead judge of the Santa Cruz County Science and Engineering Fair. The event “is one of the very few venues where students that are that enthusiastic, that driven, can compete, be recognized and be rewarded.”
Combatting coastal erosion with kelp
Experts disagree about whether kelp can effectively reduce coastal erosion. In theory, large kelp forests can protect shorelines by reducing the energy of giant waves. The kelp slows down the waves, making them weaker by the time they hit the cliffside. These smaller, slower waves would do less damage to the coast over time. Some research shows that while kelp does reduce wave energy, it might not be enough to meaningfully protect coastlines.
However, when Campbell looked at this research, she found a few notable knowledge gaps. She points to a study by Kristen Elsmore, published in a 2024 volume of the Annals of Botany, that concluded that kelp forests have a limited effect on reducing erosion. This experiment did not measure wave energy in the winter months when storms cause the greatest damage to the coastline, Campbell said: “I thought that that was way too important of a knowledge gap for us to just dismiss kelp as a solution.”
To test this, she took to the seas. She built a device that let her measure the drag of a kelp frond attached to a boat. She used that data to create mathematical models that measured the extent to which kelp can slow down waves.
She says her model differs from previous ones because she included factors that other research did not. These include measuring large storm waves and accounting for friction in the pulleys on her device, which other researchers neglected to do. Campbell determined that previous models underestimated how much kelp could contribute to slowing waves and, therefore, to reducing erosion.
This thorough research and experimentation helped Campbell stand out at the STEAM Expo and place at the international fair, said Aznar: “She not only understood the research, but corrected it. [It] was a very proud moment for us in Santa Cruz.”
Campbell says she hopes her model can be a more accurate tool for helping to implement kelp as a solution to coastal erosion. Currently, kelp is not considered as a viable option to protect the coastline because the research is so mixed. Better understanding kelp’s value in this role could help to support its conservation and restoration.
“As someone who lives by the sea and has seen [coastal erosion] happen, it’s really exciting when I can combat one of those problems,” Campbell said. “It feels really meaningful.”
Campbell encourages her fellow science-interested students to approach their experiments with patience and persistence. She also emphasizes the importance of learning to effectively explain an experiment. “If you have good research, it’s nothing without your ability to communicate to people who don’t have a background in science,” she said. With an enthusiasm for both science and the humanities, Campell hopes to pursue environmental science and journalism in college.
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