Lesson video

Hello there.

Welcome to this geography lesson with me, Miss Roberts.

Today, I'll be guiding you through a lesson about the city of Cardiff.

Together, we are going to find out where Cardiff is, and discover some interesting facts about it.

I'm very excited to find out about this city.

Are you? Let's begin.

By the end of the lesson today, you will be able to locate Cardiff and you will be able to identify some of its features, like the M4 motorway, on maps or in an aerial photograph.

There are some keywords that we are going to be using a lot in this lesson, and after the lesson, you will be able to use these keywords yourself to talk about the city of Cardiff.

Listen carefully whilst I say each of our keywords.

The first word is scale.

Can you say scale? Good job.

A scale on a map shows us the size of the area on the map in real life.

Our next keyword is an aerial photograph.

Can you say aerial photograph? Well done.

Now, an aerial photograph is a picture of an object or a place, but it's a picture that is taken from above.

Our next keyword is a natural feature in Cardiff, and that is the River Taff.

Can you say River Taff? Good job.

The River Taff travels for 64 miles from its source in the Brecon Beacons, through Cardiff to its mouth in the Bristol Channel.

Our next key word is motorway.

Can you say motorway? Well done.

Motorways are major roads.

You can travel along great distances on a motorway at fast speeds.

Our last keyword today is capital city.

Can you say capital city? Great job.

In any country, the capital city is the city where you find the government.

It's the place where the government sits, and it's the centre of their power.

This lesson about Cardiff has two parts.

In the first part of the lesson, we are going to ask the question, how do we know where Cardiff is? Later in the lesson, we'll be finding out some interesting facts about Cardiff.

So to begin with, let's start this investigation into the location of Cardiff.

Maps help us to locate places.

They also help us to plan journeys and find our way around.

We are going to be looking at the location of Cardiff on some different types of maps.

There can many different kinds of maps of one place, like Cardiff.

Maps can be digital maps, or maps could be printed.

This is a map of the whole of the United Kingdom.

Maps can have different scales, depending on what we need to use them for.

This map tells us that the city of Cardiff is located in the south of the country of Wales.

Can you find Cardiff on the map? It is in Wales, which is the pink country on the map.

Well done.

Now let's look at another, different map.

This map also shows us Cardiff, but this map gives us some more information than the map we looked at before.

Maps can show us more information or less information, depending on their scale.

This map has zoomed in to show the wider Cardiff area, so now we don't have the entire United Kingdom on this map.

What we do have is the city of Cardiff, just like on the other map, but now we have zoomed in so we can see the wider area around the city in a bit more detail.

We can see that there is a major road called the M4 motorway.

The M4 motorway, and some of the other major roads, called A roads, are labelled On this map.

We can also see grey lines that are smaller roads, but they are not labelled.

Now let's look at another map.

This map still shows the city of Cardiff, but we've now zoomed in even further.

We don't have the wider area around Cardiff on this map, we see just the city centre.

That means that this map has a lot more detail.

On this map, we can read the name of the river, we can also see the names of some of the roads, and we can see some information about places of interest.

Pause the video and take a moment to look carefully at the map.

What places of interest in Cardiff can you find on this map? Did you find some interesting places? In the middle, you can see that Cardiff has a place called The National Museum.

There are also named examples of beaches and other museums, as well as places to go shopping and places to stay.

That's a very helpful map.

So I hope you've been listening carefully to all of that information about different types of maps.

There are two words missing from this sentence.

The two words are detail and scales.

Choose which word to fill each blank to complete the sentence.

Have you decided? Let's check.

Maps use different scales to show us the same place in more or less detail.

Good job.

Now let's continue and find out more about features of the city of Cardiff.

Look at this map.

On this map, we can see the M4 motorway has been labelled.

The M4 motorway is a connection between the south of Wales and the city of London.

Part of the M4 motorway runs around the edge of the city of Cardiff, so this means that Cardiff is very easy to travel to in a vehicle, because the motorway is so close by.

On this map of Cardiff, the River Taff is labelled.

The River Taff flows for about 42 miles on the section that is in the south of Wales.

It flows through the city of Cardiff, and then it drains into the sea at Cardiff Bay.

Look at the map.

Can you find Cardiff Bay? Well done.

We can see Cardiff Bay here on this aerial photograph as well.

Photographs of places taken from above also help us to locate things.

These photographs are called aerial photographs.

In an aerial photograph, you can see features such as settlements.

They're areas where people live.

You can see transport routes, like roads or motorways or bridges or train tracks.

You can pick out very large buildings, like hospitals or stadiums, and you can also find some green spaces on aerial photographs too.

What you can't see on aerial photographs are the very small details.

Look at these three examples of ways that we can locate features of Cardiff.

Which one of these provides the most information about specific features? A and C are both different types of maps of Cardiff, and B is an aerial photograph.

Pause the video whilst you examine the options and make your choice.

Have you decided? Okay, let's check together.

Now, option B is an aerial photograph.

We've just been talking about those, and we said that we can pick out big things, but we can't see small details.

So this doesn't really provide us with the most information here.

So let's compare the two maps, A and B.

Which of those maps has zoomed in the closest to the city centre? Hmm.

On map C, I can see lots of green countryside around the city, so that means I can see a wider area.

Option A has zoomed in on the city centre.

Option A shows me a lot more information about the features of Cardiff.

Did you choose option A? Well done.

Time for an activity now about aerial photographs.

What features can you find on this aerial photograph of Cardiff? What can you say about this area of Cardiff from looking at the photograph? Pause the video now and share your ideas with a partner.

Have you finished? I think you have some excellent ideas.

Some of the Oak Academy children are going to share their ideas with us now.

Jacob says that he can see lots of buildings, but he can also find some green spaces and some trees.

Good observations, Jacob.

Alex says that he thinks that lots of people must live in this area of Cardiff, because it has transport routes like roads.

Good thinking, Alex.

When there are lots of people living in a place, they need to be able to travel to and from their homes easily.

Laura has noticed that there is a large river flowing through the city of Cardiff all the way out to sea.

Well spotted, Laura.

That's the River Taff.

So let's move into the second part of this lesson now.

We're going to find out some key facts about the city of Cardiff.

Here's the map of the United Kingdom that you saw earlier.

The city of Cardiff is in the southeast of Wales, in the United Kingdom.

Cardiff is the capital city of Wales.

The capital city is the most important city in a country.

It's where the government of a country works from.

Each of the four countries of the United Kingdom has their own capital city, and they are all named on this map.

We can see that the capital of Wales is Cardiff.

What are the names of the other three capital cities in the United Kingdom? Can you find them on the map? Well done.

I hope you've been listening and observing well so far.

I have a quick question for you to answer about Cardiff.

I want to know in which part of the United Kingdom is Cardiff? Is it in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, or England? Have a think now and make your choice.

Have you chosen? Did you choose Wales? Well done.

Cardiff is the capital city of Wales.

This is a picture of a busy shopping street in the centre of Cardiff.

Cardiff is not just the capital city of Wales, it is the largest city in Wales.

Around 360,000 people live within the city centre of Cardiff, and around 840,000 more people live in the wider Cardiff area.

So that means that just over a million residents live in the area around Cardiff.

That means it's a very busy place to be.

Because Cardiff is such a busy city, there are lots of things for people to do there.

This is a photograph of a very large stadium in Cardiff.

It was built in 1999, so it was called the Millennium Stadium, but it's now called the Principality Stadium.

It was built as a place for the Welsh International Rugby Team to hold their matches against other visiting countries.

It is also used to host other sporting events, as well as big musical concerts.

So if you were in Cardiff and you wanted to watch Wales play against France in a rugby match, where would you go? Would you go, A, to Cardiff city centre; B, to The National Museum; or C, to the Principality Stadium? Decide now.

Are you ready? Good.

Well, I know I wouldn't go to a museum to watch a rugby match, so that rules out Option B.

Option A is Cardiff city centre.

There are lots of things to do in the city centre, but we need to give the name of the exact place where we're going to watch our rugby match, and that's the stadium called the Principality Stadium.

Well done.

Now, you have learned a lot about Wales and about Cardiff today, so let's put all that new learning to use with an activity to finish the lesson.

In this task, you have a map of your own and you are going to add labels to it.

First, you need to add labels for each country of the United Kingdom.

Write the name of each country in one of the boxes on the map.

Then add a label of your own for the capital city of Wales.

I have put a star where this capital city is located.

Then try and find where you live on the map.

How far away are you from Cardiff? And when you have finished making your labels on the map, talk to a partner about what you have discovered today about the city of Cardiff.

What facts can you say? Pause the video now while you complete the task.

Have you finished? Well done.

Let's have a look at the answers together.

Here is my map of the United Kingdom, and I'm going to show you now where I put the labels.

I have labelled Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Then I have labelled Cardiff where the star is.

Some of the facts I shared about Cardiff are that I know Cardiff is the capital city of Wales, I know that the M4 motorway goes to Cardiff, I know that the River Taff is in Cardiff, and I know that about a million people live in the Cardiff area.

Wow! We have covered a lot in this lesson, so let's have a quick review of what we know now.

We know that maps and aerial photographs can help us to locate places and features.

We know that maps use different scales to show different amounts of detail.

We know that Cardiff is a city in the southeast of Wales and that it is the capital city of Wales.

We know that the River Taff flows through Cardiff and then empties into Cardiff Bay.

We also know that the M4 motorway is a major road that connects Cardiff and London.

We've discovered so much about the city of Cardiff, haven't we? Join me again next time for another lesson about life in the city of Cardiff.

Bye for now.