Lesson video

Hello, my name is Miss Chorekdjian, I'm so excited to be learning with you today.

I will be guiding you through our geography lesson.

I'm really excited to get started.

We're going to have a great time learning together today.

Let's start our learning.

Welcome to today's lesson from our Local Area unit called Local Area: How Is It Changing? Together, we'll be continuing our inquiry into our local area and how it's changing.

Today's lesson is called Measuring Settlement Change.

Our learning outcome is to use maps to measure and investigate settlement growth over time.

Some of the learning is brand new, but I'm here to help you.

This links back to previous learning you might have done exploring your local area and identifying human and physical features.

You've also looked at recent changes in your local area as well.

I'm excited to get started, I hope you are too.

Here are the keywords that we'll be using in today's lesson: Historical maps, annotation, developed, and census.

Let's practise saying these words.

We'll do my turn, your turn.

Historical maps.

Historical maps.

Annotation.

Annotation.

Developed.

Developed.

Census.

Census.

Well done.

I want you to be using these keywords throughout the lesson as well.

Let's think in more detail about what these keywords mean.

Here are the definitions of our keywords.

Historical maps show what an area was like in the past.

An annotation is text or notes added onto a map or image to provide additional information.

When something has developed, it's changed from what it was in the past, usually for the better.

A census is a collection of data about a whole population.

Great.

These are the learning cycles that we'll be working through in today's lesson.

First, we're going to look at how we can measure settlement change using a census.

Then, we'll investigate how we can measure settlement change using maps.

And finally, we'll be able to use these sources of information to conclude how our local area has changed over time.

I'm really excited about today's lesson.

Let's get started.

In our last lesson, we try to think of some inquiry questions to help us investigate how our local area has changed.

These questions included: how has our local area changed? Has it grown over time or declined? That means has the settlement gotten bigger or smaller? One way of measuring change in a settlement is by measuring how many people live there.

Remember that one way we can define settlements and categorise them is by looking at the number of people who live there, so that's thinking about the population.

Have you seen this image before? This helps us see how settlements are related to population size.

Hamlets have the smallest population and megacities have the largest.

Let's read the settlements in order from the smallest, which is at the top of the triangle, to the largest, which is at the bottom of the triangle.

We've got a farm or hamlet at the top, so that's the smallest type of settlement.

Then, we have village, then it's town.

So, town could be grouped into a small town or a large town.

And then, we've got a city, and finally we've got a megacity.

Remember that the population helps us categorise these different settlements.

So, if we look at the numbers, we can see that a farm or a hamlet has got a maximum of 500 people in them, and then a village has about 3,000 people that live there.

We can think of cities as having more than 100,000 people in them and megacities having more than 10 million people living there.

Let's check our understanding of settlements.

Can you put the following settlements in order of population size? Start with the smallest at the top and the largest at the bottom.

The settlements that I'd like you to order are megacity, hamlet, city, town, and village.

Pause the video now and complete this check.

How did you get on? Did you order them correctly? The smallest type of settlement is a hamlet, so we put that at the top of the triangle.

Then, it's village, next it's town, then it's city, which is one of the largest types of settlements.

And finally, it's megacity, which is the largest type of settlement that we have.

Remember, we've ordered them based on population size, so that means the number of people that live in each type of settlement.

Since 1801, the government has counted the number of people in each area every 10 years.

This is called a census.

Using information from a census means we can see how populations have changed over time.

So, let's check our understanding of what a census is.

Let's answer this question together.

What is a census? Is it, A, a count of how many towns and cities there are, B, a count of the number of houses, or, C, a count of the population at a specific time? Pause the video now and answer this question.

How did you get on? Did you answer C? That's correct, a census is a count of a population at a specific time.

And remember that the government does a census every 10 years.

Good job.

Well done, everyone.

I'm going to give you a thumbs up for that.

Let's continue with our learning.

In this unit, you will be investigating your local area.

As an example of how to do this, I'll be using my local area.

This is the location of St.

Albans in England, which is my local area.

We're going to investigate how this settlement has changed over time.

First, we'll be looking at the population information.

This is the census data for St.

Albans.

In the left-hand column, it's got some dates where the census was completed.

And in the right-hand column, it's got the population number at that time.

So, you can see that the settlement has changed over time and the numbers of people living there have increased.

Have a look at this table and have a discussion about what you think this table shows you.

Pause the video now and answer this question.

Great, so let's go through this table together.

In 1891, there were only 4,000 people living in St.

Albans, that would make it a large village.

By 1951, the population had increased to 44,000.

More people usually means there must be more houses.

This suggests that the settlement has grown.

By 2021, the population was almost 150,000.

Today, St.

Albans is a city, so we can see quite clearly in this example that St.

Albans in 1891 had begun as a large village with a population of only 4,000 people.

And then gradually over time, more and more people chose to settle there and more houses were built.

And finally, by 2021, you can see that the population has increased to almost 150,000, which means that the settlement size has changed and that we can class St.

Albans now as a city.

It's now time to have another check.

So, I want you to match the census data to the correct dates on the timeline.

So, remember, the data we have is the number of people, so the population that were living in St.

Albans at a specific time.

So, we've got 4,000, 44,000, and 147,000.

Where do those population numbers go on the timeline? Pause the video now and complete this check.

So, in 1891, St.

Albans had a population of 4,000.

In 1951, St.

Albans had a population of 44,000.

And in 2021, St.

Albans had a population of 147,000.

So, let's quickly remind ourselves of the different sizes of settlements.

Remember that a village generally has a population of between 500 and 3,000 people.

So, you can see that in 1891, St.

Albans was a large village.

And then, you can see that a town is bigger than a village, and usually has about 10,000-100,000 people living in it.

So, in 1951, based on that population size, we could say that St Bans was a town.

And then, remember that we categorise cities as having a population greater than 100,000 people.

So, in 2021, the population of St.

Albans was 147,000, and that meant that we can categorise it as a city.

Remember that cities offer a wide range of facilities and have more efficient transport networks.

Good job, well done for completing that check.

It's now time for your first task.

So, I'd like you to think about what has happened to the population of St.

Albans.

You have to read these sentences and fill in the missing words.

You can discuss the answers with your geography buddy.

Here are the sentences that I'd like you to complete.

The total population of St.

Albans has (pauses).

In 1891, St.

Alban's was the size of a (pauses).

And by 2021, it was the size of a (pauses).

Pause the video now and complete task A.

How did you get on? Did you complete the sentences like this? The total population of St.

Albans has increased.

In 1891, St.

Albans was the size of a village.

And by 2021, it was the size of a city.

Well done for completing that task.

I'm going to give you another thumbs up.

Fantastic learning so far.

Let's continue our learning for today's lesson.

Now, we're going to think about how we measure settlement change using maps.

As well as using census information, we can also use maps to measure settlement change.

To do this, we need some modern and historical maps.

Remember that historical maps show us what an area looked like in the past.

In order to compare the settlements correctly using historical maps and modern maps, it's helpful to use the same map scale.

That way it's easy to see the actual size of the settlement changing without worrying about having to convert any numbers.

So, there's the map scale at the bottom, and we can see that it's the same scale.

So, quite clearly you can see how the settlement has changed over time.

Let's check our understanding here.

When we compare historical and modern maps, it's helpful if they have the same what? Is it, A, font style, B, colours, or C, scale? Pause the video now and answer this question.

Did you say C? That's correct.

It's really helpful if when comparing modern and historical maps, they have the same scale.

It doesn't really matter if the font style or the colours on the maps have changed, but it is really helpful if they have the same scale.

That means we can keep the comparison quite fair because we are looking at like for like.

So, let's look at a map of St.

Albans in 2023.

This is a modern map.

The settlement has been coloured in pink using the Digimaps annotation tool.

I've coloured all of the developed land connected to St.

Albans and classed this as part of the settlement.

When you use this tool on Digimaps, it calculates the area that you've highlighted.

So, the area in pink in 2023 was 22.

8 kilometres squared.

This is how big we are classing modern St.

Albans.

So, now let's look at one of our historical maps.

This is a historical map from 1950.

So, I've done the same thing here, and any developed land connected to St.

Albans is classed as part of the settlement.

The area of St.

Albans at this time was 12 kilometres squared.

So, you can see how much smaller the pink area is on this map compared to the last map that we looked at.

So, now let's look at our final map, and this is a map from 1890.

Again, it shows the area of St.

Albans.

And again, I've used that annotation tool to highlight all of the developed land that's connected to St.

Albans.

This time the area of the settlement was only 3.

2 kilometres squared.

So, you can see how small the area is here on this map from 1890 compared to the first modern map that we looked at.

Have a look at each of these maps and match the dates to the correct map of St.

Albans.

Remember the three dates we looked at were 1890, 1950, and 2023.

Pause the video now and complete this check.

How did you get on? Did you say that the first map was from 1950? Well done.

The second map was from 2023, and the third map was from 1890.

You can see that the earliest map from 1890 shows how small the settlement was at that time.

Then, you can see in 1950 just how much it's grown by comparing that pink area that's been annotated.

And finally, you can see in 2023 that St.

Albans has changed from being a village to a city, and you can quite clearly see the difference in area.

Well done for completing that check.

It's now time for task B.

So, we're going to use those maps for our second task today.

I want you to describe how the size of St.

Albans has changed since 1890 using clues from the historical maps.

Look carefully at all three maps.

Pause the video now and complete this task.

Great, how did you get on? Did you include any of the following information in your answer? In 1890, St.

Albans was a small settlement, 3.

2 kilometres in area.

60 years later, in 1950, it had grown in size to an area of 12 kilometres squared.

Today, St.

Albans is much bigger than the settlement in 1890.

It now measures 22 kilometres squared.

It looks like St.

Albans has grown.

And you might have talked there about the settlement classification changing because of the population number from a large village to a city.

Well done for completing that task.

That was really tricky, but you've worked through it so well.

I'm going to give you another thumbs up, good job.

Let's move on to the final parts of our learning today.

So, we are going to be thinking about how our local area has changed.

Taking into account all of the evidence that we've talked about today, we can tell that from the census and from the historical mapping evidence that St.

Albans has grown into a larger settlement than what it was historically, but has it grown equally in all directions? Let's have a think here.

Look at the historical maps and the modern map and see if you can work out if it has grown equally in all directions.

Pause the video now and answer that question.

We are going to be describing this change in terms of directions in just a moment.

First, I've added a compass here.

Can you remember all of the different points on a compass? There's four of them, and there's some clues there to help you.

See if you can remember what the four points are called.

Pause the video now.

Great, so the four points of the compass are called north, east, south, and west.

You might have remembered that, well done.

Let's have a look at this map in more detail.

The arrows show the direction and the size of growth.

We can see that St.

Albans has grown in almost all directions, to the north, dramatically to the east, a little to the south, but not really at all to the west.

Let's check our understanding now of this map.

Which direction has St.

Albans not grown towards? Was it, A, north, B, south or, C, west? Pause the video now and answer this question.

How did you get on? Did you answer C, west? That's correct.

So, the pink settlement has not really grown out towards the west at all.

Let's think about why that is.

St.

Albans has not grown much towards the west, but it has grown most towards the east.

This is because of natural and human barriers.

So, there you are, you can see the direction of growth there.

Let's think more about barriers and what barriers mean.

Barriers are things that are stopping or getting in the way of our settlement growing.

Barriers to settlement growth could include things like rivers, historical sites, or land not being suitable for buildings, so if if the land is too steep or unstable.

All of those things can be barriers to the settlement growing, so let's have a look at them in more detail.

Rivers, the River Ver runs through St.

Albans, meaning there's not been much growth to the southwest because the river is there, so that's the barrier that's stopping the growth.

There it is, you can see that on the map.

Historical sites, so the Roman walls, hypocaust, and Verulamium Roman Town to the west of St.

Albans have halted any new building in this direction as those are protected historical sites, and you can see them there.

It's now time for another check.

Which of these could be barriers to growth in St.

Albans? A, a historical site, B, flat land, or, C, a river.

Pause the video now and complete this check.

How did you get on? Did you notice that the correct answers were A, a historical site and C, a river? So, both of those could be barriers to growth in St.

Albans.

Good job, I'm going to give you another thumbs up.

Fantastic, so it's now time for task C.

What I would like you to do is to annotate the map of St.

Albans to show how the local area has changed.

You can use arrows to show which direction the settlement has grown in, and you can label any barriers to growth that you notice there as well.

Pause the video and complete this task.

Great, how did you get on? Here are my answers.

St.

Alban's has grown from a village into a city.

It has grown further in different directions because of natural and human features.

And you can also see that I've drawn on the arrows to show the direction of growth as well.

I've labelled the barriers to growth, so Roman historical sites have prevented growth to the west, and I've also labelled the river there because that acts as a natural barrier.

Well done, that was really tricky learning, but you've done so, so well today, give yourselves a thumbs up.

You should be really proud of all the learning that you've completed.

We've now come to the end of our lesson.

Today, we've looked at measuring settlement change in our local area.

You've done some excellent geographical thinking today.

Let's go through a quick summary of all the learning that we've completed together today.

Historical maps can be used to investigate and measure settlement change over time.

Maps can be used to find our settlement's current size and measure how it has changed.

Geographical knowledge helps to explain why some parts of the local area have grown the most or the least.

I hope you've enjoyed investigating how we can measure settlement change together.

You've been fantastic today.

See you soon for more geography lessons soon, bye.