Lesson video

Hi everyone.

My name is Miss Dhillon, and last lesson we were learning about what land forms rivers create.

Can you remember through which process a meander is created? Is it through deposition, erosion or transportation? If you said erosion well done, you are correct.

In today's lesson, we will be exploring the question why are rivers important to people? This is what the structure of today's lesson is going to look like.

First, we're going to start with the star words, then you will begin by doing a concept map with your ideas about rivers, and why they might be important to people.

Then we will look at the Volga River in Russia.

This is a river we learnt about in lesson one, and why it's important for the people living there.

And then finally, we will then look at the Amazon river in South America and why it's important for the people living there.

First of all, make sure you have all the equipment ready for today's lesson.

On the screen, you can see the star words for today's lesson.

I will be explaining these star words in more detail throughout the lesson, but first let's start by saying them out loud using my turn, your turn.

Are you ready? Volga River, agriculture, fertile, fishing, sturgeon, caviar, Amazon River, transportation, tourism.

Well done team.

To start the lesson, I would like you to create a concept map.

I would like you to draw a cloud in the middle of your page like you can see on the screen.

And then inside that cloud, I would like you to write down, rivers are important people because, and three dots.

I would like you to think about these two questions.

Why are rivers important to people, and why do people build their communities and cities along rivers? These two questions should guide your thinking around the concept map.

Pause the video now to complete this task.

Remember this is a task you're doing before the start of the lesson, so it's just your initial ideas about what you think.

Pause the video now to complete the task.

Here are some examples of what you might have written.

You might have said that rivers are important for transport to help people get around.

You might have even said that rivers are important because that is where we get our drinking water from.

You might even have said that rivers are important because people might rely on the river for food.

For example, eating fish.

Other reasons rivers are important to people are for farming, for tourism, and for leisure.

In today's lesson, we will be exploring some of these reasons in more depth.

The Volga River is a very important river in Russia.

Nearly 40% of the Russian population live within the area of land affected by the Volga River.

Over 50% of Russia's agriculture.

agriculture means farming, takes place along the Volga River.

The river has produced very fertile soil.

Fertile soil is soil that is very rich and very good for growing plants.

So this means that farmers are able to grow cereals such as wheat and barley, with various other types of fruits and vegetables too.

Pause the video now to complete the task on the screen.

This is a true or false activity.

So read the statement and decide whether it is true or false.

If it is false, I would like you to rewrite the statement, and turn it into a true statement.

Pause the video now.

You can now see the answers on the screen.

For A, you should have said it's false.

And if you rewrote the statement, you should have said that over 50% of Russia's agriculture takes the place along the Volga River.

For B, the statement is also false.

The statement should be that the Volga River has produced soil that is fertile.

And C is true, so you don't need to change that statement.

The Volga River is also very important for the Russian fishing industry, and it's also a source of food for the people.

There are over 120 species of fish in the Volga River.

One of these include the sturgeon.

My turn, your turn, sturgeon.

The largest sturgeon to ever be caught was from the Volga River in 1827.

And it weighed 1,570 kilogrammes, and was over seven metres long.

Pause the video now to complete the task on the screen.

The answer was B.

Did you get the correct answer? Well done for remembering that correctly.

Russia is also very famous for caviar, which is fish eggs.

My turn, your turn, caviar.

Good job.

The caviar comes from fish that live in the Volga River.

On the screen, you can see examples of red caviar and black caviar.

The Beluga Sturgeon from the Volga River produces the most valuable caviar.

But the issue is that the Beluga Sturgeon has become endangered due to overfishing.

And so this caviar is very hard to come by now.

I would now like you to pause the video to complete the task on the screen.

Describe one of the reasons why the Volga River is very famous.

You have sentence stems to get you started, and also some key words to help you write your answer.

Pause the video now.

Here is an example of a model answer.

You can see all the keywords in bold.

Take a few moments to check your answer against this model answer.

So you should have said that the Volga River is very famous for caviar, which are fish eggs.

And the most value of caviar is from the Beluga Sturgeon but actually this is now endangered due to overfishing.

So those are the key ideas that you might have mentioned in that answer.

How did you do? Did you write a similar answer? Well done team, you are working really hard.

The Amazon River has its source in Peru.

Where is the source of the Amazon River? Good job, in Peru.

And Peru is marked as a circle on the map for you to see.

The river, then travels Eastwards.

On the map, you can see, I have written West and East, which are the compass directions.

In which direction would it be Eastwards? Can you point on the map where Eastwards would be? Good job if you said in this direction towards the East.

So the river travels eastwards through Brazil before it meets the Atlantic ocean.

Can you point to where the Atlantic ocean is on the map? Well done, if you said it's here.

The Amazon river's tributaries, which are smaller rivers that flow into a larger river, pass through Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador.

The Amazon river has many tributaries, which are rivers and streams that flow into a larger river or lake.

You can see these on the map.

They are the thinner blue lines.

We are now going to talk about why the Amazon river is so important for the people that live around the river.

Many of the areas through which the Amazon river, and its tributaries pass, are very hard to access by road.

Which means it's very difficult to get to those areas by road.

And so the river is very, very important for these people to be able to get around, and also to transport goods by boats.

Farmers are able to transport their produce from deep within the Amazon rainforest to other communities so that they can sell the products and earn a living.

On the screen, you can see a picture of someone delivering their produce via a boat.

I would now like you to pause the video to complete the task on the screen.

Why is the Amazon River used for transportation of goods? Think about what we've just spoken about and how tricky it is to get to certain areas.

So that is your clue to help you with this answer.

You have a sentence stem and some key words to get you started.

Pause the video now.

Here is an example of a model answer.

The Amazon River is used for the transportation of goods, because the areas through which the tributaries pass are hard and difficult to access by road.

Therefore boats are used to transport goods.

This is an example of what you might have written.

Take a few moments to check your answer.

Well done for writing in full sentences and endeavouring to use all the key words.

I know you're working really hard and trying to use all the words that I am suggesting for you to use.

Companies are able to use larger boats to tow, which means to pull larger amounts of goods, such as logs.

This is a much cheaper way of transporting larger goods.

Give me an example of a large good that is transported across the Amazon river.

Good, you should've said logs.

Cruise boats that are often filled with tourists who want to see the Amazon River, also use the river so the tourists can explore the river.

This tourism creates jobs for the local people and generates money for the local people as they can also sell their local produce and handcrafted items to tourists.

Pause the video now to complete the task on the screen.

Remember use the pictures to help you fill in the missing gaps.

Here is the answer.

Did you manage to get the final question for today's lesson correct? Well done if you did.

You can clearly use the pictures to help you get to the right answer, well done.

I really hope you enjoyed today's lesson as much as I did.

And today you have learnt how rivers can be very important for agriculture, very important for the fishing industry, and for transportation of goods and people.

Next lesson, we will be learning about what happens when rivers floods.

Bye everyone.

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