Lesson video

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to geography.

I'm Mr. Hutchinson, and we're learning all about settlements, we're learning about villages and towns and cities, and we thought about all sorts of different types of settlements, how they're shaped, how they emerge, what sorts of things are around them.

And today we're going to continue with our learning and our big question that we'll be investigating is this: what are the human and physical features that we can find in our settlement? So we've looked at settlements generally, we've looked at some specific settlements as well, and now we're bringing it home.

We're going to do some geography in our local area.

So you can use everything that you've learned to investigate as a geographer, your settlement, your local area.

It's going to be a really exciting lesson and I can't wait to get started.

Here's what we're going to be doing.

The first thing that we'll do is get to grips with what the difference between a physical and a human feature is.

Then we will investigate a settlement.

After that, you're going to get a chance to investigate your own settlement.

And we'll finish with our end of lesson quiz to lock in all of the new learning that we have gathered during this lesson.

Now I'm especially excited because in this lesson, the settlement that you'll look at to begin with is my settlement, it's where I live and I'm going to go out and do some geography in the field.

But before we do that, we need to think about what is it we're going to be investigating.

We're going to be investigating the human and the physical features that we can see.

So what do we mean by those two terms, physical and human features? Well, we already know that a settlement is a place where at least one person has chosen to live.

We know that settlements can be really, really big.

They can be mega cities with over 10 million people in them, or they can be really small, just a single person there.

And they can be temporary, or they can be permanent.

People can settle in a location for just a short amount of time, or they can decide to stay there forever.

Here are some examples of some settlements from around the world and we can see it as a wonderful diversity.

It's so interesting to see all of the different kinds of settlements that have emerged all around the world.

Okay, so let's just make sure that we're really clear on the facts of settlements.

See if you can answer these following statements with whether they're true or whether they're false, let's see if I can catch you up.

The first statement is, at least 50 people have to live somewhere for it to be a settlement.

True or false? The second statement is, settlements are always very large.

True or false? And the last statement is, settlements can be temporary.

People don't stay there forever.

True or false? Write down your answer to those questions, pause the video, have a think and write down your answers to those questions and you can click play again when you're ready for the answers.

Okay, let's see if we got those right.

So the first statement, at least 50 people have to live somewhere for it to be a settlement.

What did you say? Do you say it was true or false? That is of course false.

As long as there is at least one person living somewhere, then it is a settlement, we call that a settlement.

Settlements are not always very large.

Settlements can be big or they can be very small, so that is also false.

And can settlements be temporary? Of course they can, that's true.

Settlements can be temporary.

They don't have to be permanent.

So when we look at settlements, when we take a look at settlements, we can see that there are different features.

There are different things that make them special, that make them distinctive, that we can look closely at.

We can split those features into either physical features or human features.

So two categories, okay? There can be physical features or human features.

What do we mean by those? Well, a human feature is anything that people have made, anything that humans have made.

They could be buildings or they could be roads and they were things that weren't there before humans came along.

So there are human features in any settlement, but there are also physical features, geographically physical features, and they're the natural things that were already in place.

They could be trees or they could be rivers, they could be land forms, the way the land is formed, whether it's hilly or whether it's flats, it could be the coast around the area, all of the physical things that were already there and that would be there, whether there were humans there or not.

Those are the physical features.

And when we're looking at settlements, we can analyse them as geographers to see either the physical features or the human features.

Let's take a look at a few, shall we? What can we see here? Is this a physical feature of the place or a human feature? Well, this is the coast.

I can see the cliffs curving around meeting the sea.

So this is a physical feature, humans didn't make this.

This has always been there.

That's a physical feature.

What about this? Have a close look at this.

Do you think it's a physical or a human feature? I can see this babbling brook or a stream moving through a sort of forest or woodland, this is a physical feature.

Humans didn't make this either.

It's been there for a long, long time.

What about this? This is actually called a fjord.

A fjord, very often found in Scandinavia, and it's where the sea goes into the land, cuts into the land.

And this is a physical feature of course, humans didn't make this either.

What about this? This railway bridge with a train on top running through the land, is this a physical feature or a human feature? Well done, excellent, this is a human feature.

People made this, people made this railway bridge through the land so they could get to places much quicker and move heavy items. What about this? Can you see a physical feature or a human feature? Well, I've written that this is a human feature because of all of these buildings, but you might have said, "Hold on a second, Mr. Hutchinson, I can actually see a physical feature there as well." And if you spotted that then well done.

It's a bit of both because there's the human feature of all of these buildings and then there's the physical feature of the river running through, so well done if you spotted that.

What about this one? Is this a physical feature or a human feature? Well, I'm trying to catch you out a little bit here.

I'm trying to trick you because there's the human feature of the buildings down either side here, but what about this body of water? Did you say that this was a physical feature or human feature? This is actually a human feature because this is a canal, so that's not a river.

It's not some water that naturally occurs.

Humans have dug and built that canal, filled it with water so that they can move boats through the city in an easier way, so it's actually a human feature, even though it looks a little bit like a physical feature.

So we can categorise things into human features or physical features and sometimes there is some interesting debates to be had, but for now let's just categorise them to human or physical features.

So I've got a bit of a task for you now, let's see if you can sort some of these different features into human or physical.

So first of all, there's this, we already saw that picture.

Was that a human or a physical feature? Then there's this one, human or physical? This one, human or physical? And this one, human or physical? Pause the video and see if you can sort these features into either human or physical features.

Okay, great work.

You might have put some little numbers or letters on these to help you to sort them 'cause you don't have them there in front of you.

You might have just use your fingers, that's okay, whichever way you chose to do it.

Let's see if you were right, you'll know.

So I've sorted them into the different features.

The first human feature was that railway track.

The first physical feature that I wrote down was that brook or that stream, a brook is like a small stream, especially when it runs through a forest or woodland.

Then there was that human feature of the canal, and finally the physical feature of the coastland.

So let's investigate a settlement.

Now we know the difference between human features and physical features.

Let's put that into practise and investigate the settlement and I'm going to show you my settlement.

I'm going to show you near where I live and to do that, I'm going to need a few things.

So first of all, I'm going to need some appropriate clothing to make sure that I am ready to investigate my local area.

And this is my local area, London.

I live in the city of London and I actually live in the east of London just over here.

We're going to talk about compass directions, north, south, east, and west later in another lesson.

I live in this bit here, so let's zoom into it.

Here we have zoomed in.

This is near to where I live in the east of London.

So it's just this little bit here, if you can just see this bit of green here, this is where I'm going to zoom into, and there we go.

And this is like a map that's sort of like a diagram.

It's been drawn, but I could turn this into a real picture of the area.

And you can see all of the different human features and physical features.

You can see the River Thames running through here.

And if I gave back to this big map, you see this bump of the River Thames here, the blue river running through, look at that bump.

And here we go again, and there's that bump.

I'll show you one more time.

There's the bump and there's the bump there just near to where I live.

So I'm going to investigate my local settlement.

I'm going to investigate where I live.

I've got my sensible clothing.

You can take a parent or a carer out with you.

So it's really important that you don't just go out into the settlement by yourself.

You need to take a parent or a carer so that they can investigate the area with you.

If you've got something, I've got this notebook, my geography notebook, and I take this out with me.

If you've got a geography notebook, or if you don't have that, just some paper and some, and a pen and maybe like a book or something to lean the paper on, then that will be really helpful as you're going out investigating.

And we're going to be investigating those human and those physical features.

That's what we're going to be trying to spot.

So that's why it's useful to have a notebook because you can be looking at those different human and physical features.

So let's give it a go.

Let's go on into the local area.

So here I am in my local community, in my settlement, ready to do some geography.

And if you want to do really good geography in your local community, you need to be looking with your eyes so carefully, more carefully than you normally do when you're walking around because now we're trying to spot all of the different human features and physical features that we've been learning about and seeing if we can see any in our local communities and the settlements that we live in.

Now, you'll see, I've got my notebook ready to write down any features that I see or I could even sketch some of the features that I can see.

So I'm ready to do lots of geography in my community.

And straight away when I come outside, I've noticed, but of course I've always noticed this, but now I'm really thinking about it, that there's a human feature right where I live, which is the road.

There's a big road going on my street so that all of the different people can get to where they're going using their cars.

I can also see a physical feature, a natural feature, which is the tree here.

And if we look down my street then you'll see that there's actually trees all down in a nice straight line.

And I'm thinking, when trees are normally in nature, they're not in a nice straight line like that.

They're all a bit bit higgledy-piggledy and all over the place.

That's how they naturally appear.

So I wonder if this is a bit of a mixture between a human feature and a physical feature.

So it's a physical feature because it's the natural trees, but it's a human feature because the humans have planted them to be able to be lined up along the road like this.

I wonder what other human and physical features I'm going to find.

So one of the first things I can see in my local community, the settlement that I'm in, which is part of a much bigger settlement of the city of London, is that there are some local shops nearby and within any settlement, within any community, this is a key human feature of shops for people come over to buy things.

Near to where I live has also some human features of some transport things like that bus that you just saw, a railway line running through near to where I live and that's where this train runs through for people to get to work, they can hop onto that train.

It goes underground to take people around the city.

If I go a little bit further out of my settlement and I do need to take a little bit of a drive because there's no natural woodland just nearby within a walk from where I live, but if I take a little bit of a drive, then I do find some physical features of the land.

And you can see here, there's this stream running through a forest near to where I live.

That stream is a physical feature, it's cutting through this woodland and through the forest and if I walk through that forest then you'll see that there's a human feature of a path there that's been made for people to walk along, but there's lots of wild and natural trees, all sorts of different trees that are a physical feature of the land.

And I'm sure that within those trees, there are some animals.

Lots of animals in England come out at night.

We might not see them in the day.

They might be sleeping or hiding away, keep nice and safe.

That's another physical feature of the land and I can see it all looks very wild there.

Not like on my road where it was in a nice, straight line.

Here, the physical features of the trees, just growing wild and free.

Now, if I take a little bit more of a walkout, then I'll also be able to see a river, the river that we saw on that map, the River Thames, and I'll show you a video of that.

I took a video of that river and you can see that there are some human features.

So there's been a cable car that's been created, that's been built across the river to take people across, and a sculpture there, but that river is a physical feature running through the land.

So those are some of the features that I spotted in my local community and my settlement.

And you might be able to have seen that there were roads and there were buildings and there were train stations, all of those different things that I spotted.

Can you remember seeing all of those different things? So now you have a job, you have a task and that's to investigate your settlement.

So now your job is to go out into your local community with a parent or a carer so that you can see which different features you can find.

And I'm sure that you'll have lots of fun and I'm sure that as a geographer with your new geography knowledge, you'll be able to go out and discover all sorts of interesting things and see your community, your settlement in a new way to think, oh I wonder if that's a human feature or a physical feature.

How did my settlement form? Have a great time being a geographer.

Don't forget to complete our end of lesson quiz.

And if you'd like to share any of the work that you've completed on social media, then you can ask your parent or carer to share it on any of the social media channels with the hashtag #LearnwithOak.

I'll see you next time.

Thanks for joining.