Lesson video

Hello everyone, and welcome back to our geography lesson today.

Last week we were looking at the geography of the UK and particularly we were zooming in on the geography of Scotland.

Today we're going to look at another part of the United Kingdom, and we are going to look at the geography of Wales.

Now you might have noticed that I am somewhere different today and behind me you can see the beautiful landscape of the Brecon Beacons National Park, which is just one of the amazing landscapes that we can find in Wales, and it's one of the physical geographical features that we are going to look at in our lesson today.

So let's get started.

Our lesson today is called what is the geography of Wales? And that's what we're going to be focusing on today.

In our lesson today, we're going to recap the seven continents of the world.

We're going to think about where in the world we can find Wales? And we're going to think about the human and physical geographical features we can find in Wales.

We looked at those in Scotland last week, today we're going to look at them in Wales.

So for this lesson you will need a piece of paper, a pencil or a pen to write with and your amazing geography brain.

If you haven't got one of those things in front of you then pause the video now so that you can go and grab one.

Okay we are ready to get started.

Now I wonder if you can remember from last lesson, all of the seven continents of the world.

Now I'm going to make it a little bit trickier for you this week.

I'm going to give you a bit of a challenge to see if you can spot the continents just from the shape that they make on the map.

So I'm going to show you each one, and I want you to write down the continent that you see.

So these are your first two continents, which continents are they? Pause the video now and see if you can write the name of continent A and continent B of you go.

Okay let's get ready to mark our work.

So our continent A on the left-hand side is, South America.

If you got that right, give yourself a big tick.

If not, that's okay you can correct it now.

And then our continent B on the right hand side was, Africa.

Congratulations if you got that one right as well, give yourself a big tick and fix it if you need to.

Okay we're now ready for our next two continents.

Here you've got continent C and continent D pause the video see if you can work out which continents these are, of you go.

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

So we had continent C was, Asia.

Congratulations if you got that right.

And continent D we had, Australia.

Give yourself a big tick if you've got those right, or correct them if you need to.

And then we've got two more to have a go at.

So have a look at continent E and continent F.

See if you can write down the names of those ones, think about which contents we haven't had yet.

Pause the video now and write them down.

Okay let's see if we've got those correct.

So continent E we had, North America and then continent F it looks a little bit different here to how we normally see it on a map, because this is one that's right at the very south of planet earth and it is, Antarctica.

Give yourself a tick if you got each of those right or fix them if you need to.

Now that only leaves one continent left, have a think which of the seven continents have we not seen so far? And I'll give you a clue.

It's the continent where we live in the UK.

Which one is it? See if you can write it down now, pause the video and write it down.

Hopefully we have all managed to spot that this is the continent of, Europe.

Fantastic if you got it right give yourself a big tick.

Now Europe is indeed the continent where the United Kingdom is.

Have a look closely I wonder if you can point to where the UK is on this map, have a go.

Did you manage to spot it? The UK is here where we can see our red.

So now we're going from the world to Europe and we're going to then zoom in on the United Kingdom.

Here's our map of the UK.

Last week we looked at Scotland, which is in the very north of the United Kingdom.

I wonder if you can find Wales on this map, pause the video, see if you can point to it on your screen.

Let's find out if you were right.

Wales is here, well done if you've got that correct on your map.

So Wales is on the west is just west of England in the south of the United Kingdom.

So we're going to be focusing on Wales for our lesson today and we're going to look at the different human geographical features and physical geographical features.

I wonder can you remember what is a human geographical feature and a physical geographical feature? Let's remind ourselves now.

So a physical geographical feature is part of the natural landscape of the earth.

So it's something that occurs naturally it's not made by humans.

For example, things like mountains, lakes, beaches, and cliffs.

Those are all physical geographical features.

And then human geographical features are things that are related to the behaviour of humans.

So things made by humans or things that humans use such as cities or villages, shops, and factories.

Those are all examples of human geographical features.

And we're going to start off by looking at some human geographical features of Wales.

So let's begin.

So Wales has a population of around 3.

2 million people.

So lots of people live in Wales.

There are many villages and towns and cities of different sizes.

There are some really, really big cities and there are some smaller towns and villages, and the capital city is called Cardiff and that's in the south of Wales.

We're going to zoom in on Cardiff now.

Cardiff is the capital city of Wales it has a population of around 477,000 people.

There are lots of human features that we can see within this city itself.

Some of them you can see in the pictures on the screen.

So Cardiff is full of human features, such as shops and cafes and restaurants and offices and businesses.

And it's famous also for its university.

So you can go and study at university in Cardiff and it's very famous as the home of Welsh Rugby which is a really popular sport all over the UK, but particularly in Wales.

And the Principality Stadium is a huge sport stadium within the city of Cardiff and it seats 74,000 people that's a lot of people and you can see the outside of the stadium in the picture on the right-hand side.

So those are some human features that we can find in Cardiff.

Some others are things that lots of tourists go to Cardiff to visit.

So lots of people like to visit Cardiff to see the castle, which dates back to the Roman times, which is almost 2000 years ago.

So lots of really interesting history in the castle.

And then on the right-hand side, you can see the Millennium Centre, which is an art and theatre and music venue.

So lots of people go there to see different plays or concerts and music concerts as well.

Cardiff also has lots of transport links like train stations, bus stations, and an airport.

So people can visit the city really easily.

I want you now, now that we've learned a little bit about Cardiff, I want you to think about how Cardiff might be similar or different to the place that you live.

So for example, I live in London.

I live in the south of London and Cardiff is quite similar to London in lots of ways.

It has lots of similar human geographical features.

For example, there are lots of train stations in London, and there are lots of train stations in Cardiff as well.

So I wonder if you could think of a human feature that is the same, or that is maybe different to the place where you live.

So I want you to write me a sentence now to tell me how is Cardiff similar or different to the place where you live.

So your sentence might start, Cardiff is similar to where I live because? Maybe telling me some of the human features or Cardiff is different to where I live because? Have a go now, pause the video and see if you can write a sentence.

So now we focused on those human features.

We're now going to look at some of the physical geographical features of Wales.

So remember these are things that occur naturally in the landscape.

So Wales has a very varied landscape.

There are lots of different types of landscapes that we can see in Wales, for example coastal plains so near the sea, valleys as well as hills and mountains.

Now the tallest mountain which we're going to look at in a moment is Mount Snowdon.

That's the tallest mountain in Wales.

And there are also many rivers which flow through Wales.

Some of them are just in Wales and some of them flow through England as well.

So let's have a look at some of those particular physical geographical features we can see.

First of all we have hills and mountains.

There are lots of lovely mountains and beautiful hills in Wales.

One of them you can see on the left-hand side is Mount Snowdon, which is located in Snowdonia in the northwest of Wales.

Mount Snowdon is 1085 metres tall.

So it's a pretty big climb to get to the top.

Another famous mountain in Wales is Pen y Fan, which is located in the south of Wales in the Brecon Beacons National Park, which is where I am today.

And it's 886 metres tall, and lots of tourists like to visit these places and also Welsh people like to visit the places as well, because they are great for hiking and for walking and for being in nature and enjoying that lovely landscape.

So one physical feature is the hills and the mountains.

The next physical feature we're going to focus on is the coastline of Wales.

Now, as I said, it has a very varied landscape in Wales, and it's got 1,300 kilometres of coastline and those range from flat Sandy beaches to towering tall cliffs.

Now one place where you can find lovely Sandy beaches is in the south of Wales in the Pembrokeshire National Park.

That's where lots of people visit to go to the beach.

That's in the southwest of Wales and lots of towns and cities in Wales are also located on the coast so near the seaside, those include cities like Swansea or Cardiff and St Davids and many people visit Wales to enjoy the beaches or to have lovely walks along the cliff looking out to the sea.

Now the next physical geographical feature we're going to look at is valleys.

Now valleys are low areas of land between two hills or mountains.

So it's when there are two hills or mountains and you've got the valley in the middle.

So the lower part in the middle, and they often have things like streams or rivers running through them.

Valleys are great places to walk and hike as well as to practise some more adventurous sports like mountain biking going up and down the hills or kayaking.

So these are some other physical features that we can see in Wales.

Now, I want you to think about the physical geography of Wales.

So some of those features that we've looked at today, how are they similar or different to where you live? So as I said I live in London, which is a big city and I live in the south of London.

So there are some nice physical features like the River Thames is near where I live.

So I can see physical features like that that is similar to the rivers running in Wales, but there are also a lot of differences to where I live compared with the physical geography of Wales, there are no mountains here in South London that I can go and climb, and there are no valleys in South London where I can go mountain biking either.

So that's one thing that's different.

I want you to think about the place where you live and think about the physical geography of your area.

Is it similar or is it different to that of Wales? So pause the video now and see if you can write me a sentence about the similarities or differences between the physical geography of Wales and the area where you live, pause the video and have a go.

Now the final thing we are going to think about today is how the land is used in Wales.

So last week when we were looking at Scotland, we looked at three different ways that land is often used in the UK.

Those three things were agriculture, which means using land to farm animals or crops, national parks, which are places where the nature is protected so that people can go and visit and human settlements, which are towns, villages, and cities where people live.

So in Wales there are lots of different ways that land is used and these are three of the main ways, similarly to how it was in Scotland.

Now a huge part of land use in Wales is agriculture.

So 80% of the land in Wales is actually used for farming.

That's a really, really high percentage.

There are lots of different farms in Wales, and these can be for rearing animals or for growing crops.

So you can see a sheep farm and a cow farm on the screen in front of you, but also growing crops like vegetables and grains is also really, really important in the agriculture of Wales.

Then we have some land used in national parks.

So you've got the examples of Snowdonia National Park and Brecon Beacons National Park, both really beautiful places that lots of people can go and enjoy the nature.

And then we've got human settlements.

And so again these can be really, really big cities, or they can be smaller towns and villages where humans live and work and do their business as well.

So those are three different ways that land might be used in Wales.

I want you to think about all of the things that we have learnt today and all of the things that we learnt last week when we looked at the geography of Scotland.

So I want you to think how is the geography of Wales similar or different to the geography of Scotland that we learned about last week? So to do this we're going to consider some human features and some physical features that the two countries might have in common, or that might be different between Scotland and Wales.

So we're going to think about the geography of Wales being similar to Scotland because? That might be because of a human or a physical feature and maybe some differences between Wales and Scotland.

Again thinking about those human or physical features.

I'm going to show you an example of what your answer might look like.

So you have the geography of Wales is similar to that of Scotland because they share many physical features.

For example, both Scotland and Wales have tall mountains, such as Ben Nevis and Mount Snowdon.

Wales and Scotland also have similar human features, for example, both Cardiff and Edinburgh those two capital cities are cities with universities in them.

So thinking about the human features we've learned about, and the physical features, I wonder if you can compare Scotland and Wales together.

So this is your last challenge today team, pause the video now, and you can use these sentence stems to help you to write a comparison.

So write me some sentences that show the differences or the similarities between the geography of Scotland and Wales.

Pause the video now and have a go.

Wow, fantastic work today team.

That's the end of our lesson today.

Well done for all your hard work.

Now, if you've enjoyed the lesson today, and you're really proud of the work you've done, you might want to share your work with the Oak National team.

And if you'd like to you can ask a parent or carer to share your work on Instagram.

So maybe taking a photo of your writing and they can share that to social media like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational with the hashtag #LearnWithOak that way your teachers can see the wonderful work that you have been doing.

I'm really proud of your hard work today you should be too, well done for completing today's lesson, you can now go onto the quiz to see how much you can remember, and I will see you for another geography lesson next time.