Lesson video

Hi there! Welcome to today's geography lesson.

My name is Ms. Roberts.

What's your name? Are you ready to learn about the River Taff with me today? Great.

The River Taff is in the city of Cardiff and it's a very important part of the city, so this is going to be very interesting.

By the end of the lesson today, you will be able to describe the course of the River Taff and explain how the River Taff has changed over time.

We're going to begin with looking at some keywords together, so don't worry if there was anything you weren't sure about in that last sentence.

Let's look at the keywords together now.

The first keyword is course.

Now, you've just heard us say course in that sentence, that you will be able to describe the course of the River Taff by the end of this lesson.

Can you say course for me? Good job.

Now, the course of a river is the path that it takes from its source, which is where the river starts, to its mouth, which is where the river ends.

All rivers have a source and a mouth, okay? Our next keyword is freshwater.

That's two words squashed together to make one word, freshwater.

Can you say freshwater? Excellent.

Freshwater is water that is not salty.

Our oceans have saltwater in them.

They're not freshwater.

Our next keyword is a verb, verbs are doing words, and this verb is to divert.

Can you say divert? Well done.

Now, to divert something is to make it go a different way, to make it take a different route than it would naturally take.

The next keyword, you may be aware of this because we hear a lot.

This word is pollution.

Can you say pollution? Well done.

Pollution is anything around us that makes our environment dirty.

We can see pollution in the air around us or in the water around us or on the ground around us.

There are so many different types of pollution.

So, I'm going to split today's lesson into two parts, and the first part will investigate the question, where does the River Taff flow? Later we're going to think about the wildlife that we can find living on the River Taff.

So let's begin today by thinking about where the River Taff flows.

In other words, we're going to look at the course of the River Taff.

The picture shows part of the River Taff as it flows into Cardiff.

The Welsh word for river is afon.

The Welsh name for the River Taff is Afon Taf.

You may know that Welsh as well as English are both widely spoken in Cardiff.

Look at these two pictures.

The first picture shows the source of the River Taff.

The second picture shows the mouth of the River Taff.

The path taken by a river from its source, where starts, to its mouth, where it ends, is called the course.

The course of the River Taff starts in the Brecon Beacons National Park and it ends when the River Taff drains into Cardiff Bay.

So here the first picture is the Brecon Beacons where the source of the River Taff is found, and the second picture is Cardiff Bay, where the river empties.

That's the mouth of the River Taff.

Cardiff Bay is actually a human-made water feature.

It's a very large freshwater lake.

Do you remember freshwater from our keywords before? Freshwater is water that is not salty.

The water in the lake is freshwater because it has come from the river and not from the sea.

Therefore, the levels of salt in the lake are not very high.

The River Taff and another river called the River Ely both drain into Cardiff Bay.

Have you been listening closely? Let's have a quick question to check on our learning so far.

What is the course of a river? Is it A, the name of the river, is it B, the path the river takes, or C, the length of the river? Decide now.

Have you chosen? Good! I have chosen option B.

That's the right answer, because the course of a river is the path that it takes from its source to its mouth.

Well done.

Let's continue our journey along the course of the River Taff now.

The River Taff flows from north to south.

It flows through several Welsh towns, for example, towns called Merthyr Tydfil and Pontypridd, before it reaches Cardiff.

In Cardiff, the course of the River Taff goes right through the centre of the city.

This picture shows the River Taff going through the centre of Cardiff.

About 200 years ago, there was a famous engineer called Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

You can see him here in this picture.

He was trying to construct the railway through Cardiff.

But there was a problem, because the River Taff made it difficult to build the railway because the area they wanted to use for the train tracks was often flooded by the River Taff.

Now, Brunel was an engineer and he liked nothing better than solving problems. That's what engineers are good at.

He came up with a plan.

Brunel had an idea to divert the river.

This means to change its course or make it go a different way.

Channels were constructed to make the river flow west and directly into Cardiff Bay.

This stopped the river from flooding around the area where they needed to build the train tracks.

That's right, Lucas.

That's a great observation.

Without Brunel, Cardiff, it just wouldn't have developed into the great city it is today.

When the river was diverted, the land was drained and then it was ready to be built on.

The railway tracks were laid and Cardiff Central Station was designed and then constructed on that land that was once part of the natural course of the River Taff.

It's quite amazing, isn't it, that engineering could solve that problem.

Here's a true or false activity about what you have just heard.

Is it true or false to say that engineers are problem solvers? Have a think and make your choice.

Have you decided? Okay, give me thumbs up if you think it's true and thumbs down if you think it's false.

What have you chosen? I have chosen thumbs up because I think it's true.

Engineers are problem solvers, aren't they? That's right.

Now, as a geographer, whenever we make a statement like we have just done here, our statement is that engineers are problem solvers, we need some evidence or some explanation or some extra information that proves how we know what we are talking about.

So I am going to give you two more sentences.

I want you to pick which one of those sentences is the most helpful piece of evidence that we can use to explain this situation.

Listen carefully.

Statement A says that Isambard Kingdom Brunel found a solution to flooding by diverting the River Taff.

And statement B says that engineers design new things to help us do things differently.

Which of those is the most helpful here? Have you chosen one? Lovely.

Did you choose statement A? I did.

I chose statement A because Isambard Kingdom Brunel was an engineer, so this is evidence of what an engineer did, and the problem that he solved was flooding and the solution he had was to divert the river.

So option A is a statement that gives us evidence to prove that we know engineers are problem solvers.

Statement B is true, engineers do design new things to help us do things differently, but that is a definition of what an engineer does.

It doesn't explain how we know they are problem solvers.

Great.

Now let's put our new learning about the River Taff to use in an activity.

This blue line represents the River Taff.

You can see that I have labelled the source and the mouth.

Remember, the source is the start and the mouth is the end.

There are three boxes for labels at the source and at the mouth.

I want you to put the labels in the correct places on the sketch.

The words are all provided there.

You need to choose which ones belong to the source and which ones belong to the mouth.

Pause the video while you complete the activity.

All done? Good job! Now here's the answers for you and I'll explain them to you as well.

First, let's look at the labels that I have put on the source.

We know that the River Taff flows from north to south, so the source is in the north.

The source of the River Taff is in the Brecon Beacons.

That's that national park we talked about.

And the source of a river is usually in a highland or mountainous area.

You saw the beautiful picture of the hills in the Brecon Beacons earlier.

That means that the mouth is in the south because the River Taff flows from north to south.

It drains into Cardiff Bay, and Cardiff Bay is at the coast.

Well done, everyone.

Great work! We are going to move into the second part of our lesson about the River Taff.

We are going to investigate what wildlife the River Taff is home to, and to do that we need to think about how humans use the River Taff as well.

Cardiff is a very busy city.

There's a lot of people that live in Cardiff and a lot of industry happens around Cardiff.

Cardiff actually grew because it was a key hub for the coal industry.

People need to use water in their homes and industry uses a lot of water in factories.

A company called Welsh Water is responsible for providing the water in Cardiff and for looking after the River Taff as well as other rivers in the area.

Waste water that we have used in our homes, so that's dirty water, it disappears down the plughole when we empty the sink or when we flush the toilet and it's taken out of the buildings and through pipes.

A lot of waste water is then treated and cleaned, but sadly, sometimes waste water is pumped straight back into rivers like the River Taff, and this causes a lot of pollution.

Aisha has made a great observation.

She has said that pollution in the River Taff also came from waste water from the coal industry, and that's very true.

The waste water doesn't just come from homes and buildings, it is from industry as well.

In the past especially, the water of the River Taff was heavily polluted.

Today there are more rules about polluting the water, lots more regulations, and this means that industries are a lot more closely watched to keep an eye on the pollution that they create and to get them to reduce it.

People are also a lot more aware of the consequences of polluting our rivers and lakes.

And yes, as Jun says, one of those consequences is that fish and other animals can't survive in water that is polluted.

So if the River Taff used to be very polluted but it is now getting better, I wonder what effect that has on the wildlife.

Let's stop for a quick question on our learning so far.

These three photographs all show water in rivers, but one of them shows litter pollution.

Which one? Have you decided? Now, picture A.

What a beautiful scene of the green countryside and the wide river flowing.

I don't see any pollution there.

Option C is the bank of a river where the water is lapping over the shore.

I can't see any pollution there either.

In picture B though, I can see pollution.

There is obviously a plastic bottle floating, and you can also see that the colour of the water is very dark and there is some oily substances floating on the top.

Polluted water like that is no good for wildlife.

Today, the River Taff is much cleaner than it was in the past.

There are regular clean-up campaigns that try to keep the river litter-free as well.

A lot of work to clean up rivers is done by charities and volunteers like the people you can see in the photo.

Thanks to the pollution levels of the River Taff reducing, it is now home to a lot of wildlife, including fish and birds and animals.

Some of the wildlife that you can see in the River Taff include salmon, birds like kingfishers, they're so beautiful and colourful, kingfishers, and animals like this otter.

That's such a variety of wildlife, and it wouldn't be possible without the hard work of volunteers cleaning the river and surrounding area.

Let's try a short activity now about what we were just discussing.

I'm going to read three sentences, but they are incomplete.

I want you to choose the best word from the options to complete each sentence.

Listen carefully.

Sentence one: A lot of pollution in the River Taff came from the coal industry or the water industry.

Number two: volunteers help keep the river clean by picking flowers or litter from the riverside.

And sentence three: the River Taff is home to lots of wildlife, including many species of fish, such as salmon or otters.

Have you made your choices? Lovely.

Let's look at the answers together now.

Sentence one: a lot of pollution in the River Taff came from the coal industry.

Sentence two: volunteers keep the river clean by picking litter from the riverside.

It's not a good idea to pick wild flowers.

We should leave natural habitats undisturbed.

And sentence three: the River Taff is home to lots of wildlife, including many species of fish such as salmon.

Otters are not a type of fish! Did you get all three? Well done! Time for a creative and imaginative activity now.

A volunteer clean-up day is being organised by a charity that looks after rivers.

I want you to design a bright and colourful poster to encourage people to take part in the clean-up.

You might consider using a slogan.

Sam is going to put on her poster, "Our fish need your help! Join the litter pick this weekend." When you finish designing your poster, share and compare your poster with a partner.

Talk about how they are similar and how they are different.

Pause the video now while you complete the activity.

Finished? You have some great ideas.

You're so creative! Laura and Sofia are talking about their posters.

Laura says that her poster says, "Your chance to end pollution!" And she has drawn big piles of rubbish with a cross next to them.

Sofia says that she hasn't put pollution in her poster.

Instead, she has drawn pictures of the wildlife.

And her poster says, "Protect animals by helping litter pick!" I think they're both excellent ideas.

Well done, Laura and Sofia, and well done you.

That's the end of today's lesson about the River Taff, so let's have a quick review of everything we've covered today.

We know that the course of a river is the path that it takes from its source at the start to its mouth at the end.

The River Taff flows from north to south, starting in the Brecon Beacons and ending in Cardiff Bay, which is a freshwater lake.

About 200 years ago, an engineer called Isambard Kingdom Brunel diverted the course of the River Taff so that they could drain the land and construct the railway on it.

And finally, we know that in the past the River Taff was very polluted, but today it has been cleaned up and is now home to many animals, birds, and fish.

You have done very well to listen to such a lot of information today, and thank you for sharing your creative ideas.

I'll see you again next time for another lesson about the City of Cardiff.

Bye for now!.