Hello, my name is Mrs. Mehrin and I'm so excited to be learning all about changing environments and the land development and deforestation.

Welcome to today's lesson from the unit "Living Things and the Environment." Your learning outcome is, I can describe some negative effects of human impact on the environment.

Now, I know that learning can sometimes be a little bit challenging, but that's okay, 'cause it just means that we are going to work really hard together and we're going to learn lots of fabulous new things.

Let's begin.

So here are a list of your keywords for today's lesson.

Alongside them are the definitions for those keywords.

Now I am going to be referring to these keywords throughout today's video and I will be going through the definitions as well.

However, if you find it helpful, you can pause the video here and you can jot these down before we begin.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

Now, our lesson today is split into two parts.

Let's begin with the first part, "Human Impact: Land Development." So Sam and Jacob have been learning about natural processes that change the environment.

Now, an environment is the surroundings of a living thing and the other animals and plants that live within it.

And Sam says, "Last year, our town flooded when it rained heavily.

This caused harm to the local environment and affected the plants and animals that live in it." Jacob says, "I saw on television that many living things were not able to survive when their environment changed due to a forest fire." Now, an environment can change due to natural processes, which include the following, forest fires, hurricanes, and drought.

Do you know of any other natural processes that change the environment? I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

So natural disasters cause changes to the environment.

Can anything else cause environments to change? What do you think? Again, I'll give you another five seconds to have a think about anything else, apart from just natural disasters, that can cause a change to the environment.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

So humans, we can change the environment.

Jacob says humans can cause environments to change too.

And some of the changes caused by humans can help the environment, but some can also cause harm.

Now, the actions of humans can have a negative impact on environments, such as removing trees.

Now, can you think of anything else that humans might do to have a negative impact on the environment? And remember, a negative impact means to cause harm to the environment and the living things within it.

I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

So humans can have a negative impact on the environment by changing a meadow into a sports pitch, for example.

The plants and animals that once lived there have lost their habitat, the place where they need to live.

Now, which of these actions would have a negative impact on an environment or the living things within it? Would it be a, planting trees, b, building a new motorway through a forest, c, dinging up a field to build a car park, or d, putting up bird boxes for birds to nest in? So think about which of these would have a negative impact on the environment or the living things within that environment.

I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Off you go.

Fantastic, well done.

The answer is b and c.

Building a new motorway through a forest and digging up a field to build a carpark.

So remember, you're going to have lots of animals which live in a forest and in a field.

And if you dig those up, if you build a motorway or you build a car park, you're taking away that environment and that habitat for those living things, those places where the living things need to get their food from or it's a place where they live.

Now, land development is when an area of land is changed to meet the needs of humans.

Now, often land is developed and environments are changed to build more houses for the growing population of humans, so the number of people.

Now, new towns and cities are often developed on land that was once a countryside.

So, the more the population increases, the more people we have, the more towns and cities that are needed to be developed because people need a place to live.

True or false, a growing human population means that we need fewer towns and cities, and therefore have more countryside? Is that true or false? I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

The answer is false.

Now, why do you think this is? Again, I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Fabulous.

Well done.

It's because a growing population can mean that towns and cities are often developed on land where there was once countryside.

So you're not going to have more countryside, you're going to have less.

Now, Sam says, "I wonder what happens to all the animals and plants that live in a habitat that is changed by humans." Well, Aisha says, "I think the animals just move somewhere else instead." And Jacob says, "Well, plants can't move somewhere else as they are growing in the ground, so I think they will die." What do you think? I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

So animals and plants live in habitats where the environment meets their requirements for life.

Now, a requirement is something that a living thing or something needs.

So when their environment is changed by humans, it may no longer provide their requirements of food, water, shelter, and clean air.

Remember, requirements are the things that something needs.

So, a living thing needs food, water, shelter, and clean air to survive.

Now, when new houses that factories and car parks are built, their habitats are lost, meaning they lose sources of food and shelter.

And sometimes animals can move to new habitats, but often there are no new habitats that will provide all their requirements for life.

So one of the things, where I currently live, many, many years ago that used to be an open field.

And that meant that a lot of the wildlife that lived there before no longer had a place to go.

And this is the case for a lot of places around the world.

And one thing that we're finding now is because we have got one part of our garden, which has a lot of trees and it's a little bit hidden away, we now have a fox den at the bottom of our garden, which is hidden away and it's separate from the rest of our garden.

But we find that we have a lot of foxes every single day coming in and out of that area.

And that's because they're just trying to find somewhere that they can go and somewhere that they can live because their habitats have been taken away.

Now, when new roads are built, they often split land where animals live, just like in this picture here.

And animals' habitats become smaller and they have less resources to meet their requirements.

And animals are in danger if they try to cross the road 'cause they could get hit by a car.

Now, land development negatively impacts plants and animals through the following, loss of habitat, noise pollution, and light pollution.

Now, how do you think land development affects plants and animals? I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

So we'll go into that in a second, but before we do, let's do a quick true of false.

So damage to the environment is only caused by natural disasters.

Is that true or false? I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

The answer is false.

Now, why do you think this is? Again, I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

And that's because changes that humans make can have a negative impact on the environment as well as natural disasters.

So here is your first task.

It says match the images of features of a growing population to their correct descriptions of the impact.

So match the images of features of a growing population to their correct descriptions of the impact.

So here are the descriptions and here are the images.

So what I'd like you to do is to pause the video now and have a good at doing this activity.

You can go back in this video as well to have a look at those descriptions.

Okay, off you go.

Fantastic, well done.

So here are your answers.

So for a new road, animals' environments will be divided.

There will be less resources to meet their requirements.

They may be injured or killed by this new human feature.

For city development, with more buildings, traffic, and people, animals may be too frightened to come out of their shelters to look for food.

There will be far fewer plants as they will have been removed to make space.

The city at night.

So animals that hunt at night like owls and foxes will find it difficult to catch their prey, which will be hiding from the lights.

Housing construction.

Plants will be destroyed and land will be changed, preventing animals from digging burrows and building nests to raise their young, the area will become noisy and dangerous for them.

Well done.

So now we are on to the second part of our learning today, which is "Human Impact: Deforestation." So Sam says, "I watched the news and saw that in some countries they're cutting down forests for farmland." And Jacob says, "Oh yes, that's what deforestation means, removing trees to clear land to use for something else." Now, can you think of any reasons why deforestation happens? I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

So deforestation can happen when humans need the land for the following, cattle farming.

So this would be for our food, for milk, for meat, mining for materials, growing crops, and harvesting wood.

Now, what is deforestation? Is it when a, deforestation is when trees die and fall down, b, it's when forests are removed by humans, or c, it's when humans plant new trees? I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

The answer is b.

Deforestation is when forests are removed by humans.

Now, by removing whole forests of trees, habitats are destroyed and the environment is changed that it might never recover.

And the Amazon rainforest is the largest rainforest on earth and is home to over three million types of living things.

And because humans want to use this land for something else, nearly a fifth of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed by deforestation.

And where the trees have been cleared, habitats have been lost and the environment changed so that it no longer provides the requirements for the living things that used to live there.

And remember, requirements are the things that something needs.

So the poison dart frog has lost the plants it uses as shelter and the ants it eats.

The white cheeked spider monkey has lost the trees it shelters in and the fruit the trees provided for food, and the harpy eagle has lost the trees it nests in to rear its young.

Now, the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest is really bad because it provides a lot of the oxygen that we breathe.

Now, deforestation can cause changes to the something, meaning that plants and animals no longer have their requirements met.

Is it a, temperature, b, environment, or c, soil? So which word would fit into that blank spot there in that sentence? I'll give you five seconds to think about your answer.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

The answer is environment.

So here is your final task for today, it's to create an information poster, talk, or presentation to explain to another class or friend what impact deforestation has on an environment.

You need to use the words environment, requirements, and impact.

So I'd like you to pause the video here and have a go at doing this activity.

Off you go.

Fantastic.

Well done.

So here is a lovely poster, and yours might have been different to this.

So we have got "The Impact of Deforestation" as the title and then an explanation of what deforestation is.

So deforestation is when forests are removed by humans, and they've given the reasons for it.

And then they've given some explanations as to why some of that deforestation might happen, but what the impact is on the living thing.

This is a fantastic poster and really informative.

So now we are onto the summary of our learning today.

The actions of humans can have a negative impact on the environment.

A negative impact happens when changes cause harm to an environment or the living things within it.

A growing human population can mean that towns and cities are often developed on land where there was once countryside, and deforestation is when forests are removed by humans.

You have worked really hard today.

I'm incredibly proud of your fantastic critical thinking and your fabulous work.

Well done.