Lesson video

Hello geographers, it's Mr. Robertson here, and I am delighted to be learning with you today.

In today's lesson, we are going to be continuing with our journey to learn more about rivers.

And we're going to be finding all about rivers in the UK.

So as usual, do we have on our geography caps? Are we ready with our packed and waterproof explorer rucksacks? And are we ready to go and explore some rivers? Let's go.

By the end of this lesson you are going to be able to locate different rivers in the UK on a map.

And describe the features found along the River Severn.

We have three key words today.

I will say the key word first and then I would like you to say it back.

So we have source.

Absolutely fantastic.

We have mouth.

Amazing.

And finally we have River Severn.

Brilliant, so let's find out what these words mean, shall we? So the source is the start of a river.

The mouth is where a river meets the sea.

And the River Severn is the longest river in the UK.

As we go through this lesson, you will meet all of these words and by the end I know you will know exactly what they all mean.

So our lesson today is all about rivers in the UK and it's part of our wider topic Rivers: What's special about them? So in the first part of the lesson, we're going to be asking this question, how can we locate rivers in the UK? And the second part of our lesson, we're going to be asking the question, what features can be found along the River Severn? So let's go with our first learning cycle.

If you look carefully at the map on the screen, you can see a map of the United Kingdom.

And on that map we can see lots of blue lines and all of those blue lines represent some of the biggest rivers in the UK, that isn't every river in the UK.

'Cause the UK has hundreds of rivers that cover all of its land area.

But these are some of the most important.

And as geographers, when we draw rivers on a map, we draw them as a blue line and you might be able to see that many of these rivers begin in the land and end up draining into the sea.

As we've talked about in some of our other lessons.

Now as we've learned about in some of the previous lessons, the UK's rivers start in high land and flow to the sea or ocean.

On your screen here we've got a physical map of the UK and you can see there's a key in the top right hand corner.

You might want to pause the video now and talk to the person next to you.

Hmm, how do we know which parts of the land are higher or lower? Pause the video.

Have a think.

Oh, brilliant, you may have noticed that the key shows the height of the land.

The highest land is in the brown and orange colours, whereas the lower land is in the green colour.

So the source of a river where the river begins is in an area of high land.

The arrow here is pointing to part of the UK called the Pennines, which is a very high region of hills that goes through Yorkshire and Lancashire and many rivers begin there.

So we'll find a source of different rivers in a place like that.

Whereas the mouth of the river where it flows into the sea is in much lower land.

That arrow is pointing to the river Humber, which comes out now near the city of Hull.

And you can see it's colour coded in greens because that's an area of a low land.

So rivers rise they're sources in high land and the mouth is often in low land.

Let's just check our understanding geographers.

So the source of a river can be found in A at the sea B in an area of high land, or C, where two rivers join together.

Which of those is it? Pause the video and have a think.

Geographers I could see those river brains were whirring and absolutely right, it's B, the source of a river is in an area of high land.

Well done if you've got that correct.

Okay, let's think a little bit more about rivers.

So as we've already said, there are rivers across the UK and many of these rivers are tributaries to bigger rivers.

We met the word tributary in some earlier lessons.

I wonder if you can remember what they mean.

If you can remember what the word tributary means, whisper it to that person next to you.

I can hear some great whispering.

Yes a tributary is a river that meets another river isn't it? Well done.

Now it's very likely that there are some rivers close to where you live.

Can you think of the names of any rivers that are close to you? Again, whisper to each other.

Any rivers close to you? A lot of rivers I'm hearing from all over the country how exciting that we can think of a river that's near us.

Now you might not know the name of the river, it might be quite a small river, but I'm sure you can think of one can't you? Now some of the rivers in the UK have special names and they have made a big difference to the land around us and they make a big impact on the places we live.

In the photograph we can see a very famous river.

I wonder if you might know which river that is.

It's a very big city.

Lots of bridges across it.

If you look very, very carefully, we can see an amazing building in the middle just by what the bridge which looks like it's all lit up.

St.

Paul's cathedral.

I wonder which river it is? I think some of us might already know.

Yes, it's the River Thames that runs through London, one of the most famous rivers in the UK.

Often if we watch television or films we see James Bond flying along the River Thames or helicopters or adventures happening or aliens crashing and Doctor Who having to rescue London from its clutches.

So many towns and cities in the UK are built next to rivers.

Why is that? Well, river valleys are often good places to build settlements because on either side of a river you have the floodplain and that flat ground is easy to build on.

It also provided a source of water and it could be used to transport people and goods to buy and sell.

So for all of those reasons many settlements in the UK today we find are near rivers.

And of course London on the enormous River Thames, a really huge floodplain to let a big city grow up and a really important place to trade with the rest of Europe and around the world.

Okay, let's just check our understanding geographers, true or false, many towns and cities in the UK are built near a river.

Is that true or is that false? Pause the video.

Have a think.

Of course geographers.

It's true, isn't it? We just looked at the map.

There are many towns and cities built near a river, but why is it true? Can you remember what we said about what made a river an attractive place to build a town or city? Was it A, rivers are always in flat areas of land.

Or B, rivers can be used for transporting people and goods.

Again, everyone, pause the video.

Have a think which of those answers is most likely.

Absolutely geographers it's B isn't it? Rivers can be used for transporting people and goods.

A is not quite true, rivers are not always in flat areas of land are there.

Think about the source of the river being in higher land.

Rivers at the lower part of their course might be in flat areas, but that statement is not quite true.

Well done geographers, if you've got that correct.

So we're going to be thinking particularly in our next lesson cycle about the River Severn.

But we want to be thinking about how we know where to locate it.

So the River Severn is the longest river in the UK.

It is 220 miles long.

That's a really long river, isn't it? Wow.

It flows through Wales and England.

So it actually goes through two countries in the United Kingdom.

We can see a close up photograph of part of the River Severn there.

And I think we might have looked at this photograph in one of our earlier lessons as well.

You can see the river, it's really quite big there, isn't it? So we're lower down in its course.

We can see a town built on the side and we can see some defences to help it be protected from flooding with the embankments there.

Let's move on to think about a different river.

So the River Thames is a river that flows through southern England.

It's the longest river which flows entirely in England and is 215 miles long.

So it's just a bit shorter than the River Severn.

But the River Severn flows through Wales as well.

And as we saw in some earlier photographs, the River Thames flows through London.

Here we can see a closeup of the River Thames and we can see its source and we can see it flowing through the towns of Oxford and Redding and Slough all the way through London.

And then it comes out in the Thames Estuary.

You can see the set town of Southend in Essex, which is near the mouth of the River Thames.

And again, that's the photograph we looked at earlier, the River Severn flowing through central London with some of the very famous bridges, which the River Thames is named after.

And maybe you've been to London and maybe you've walked along one of those bridges and seen the River Thames yourself.

Let's just check our understanding then.

Where is the River Thames? Hmm? Look at that map of the United Kingdom.

Can you remember some of the facts we learned about the river, where is it? Pause the video.

Have a think.

Excellent geographers, there it is in southern England.

Flowing out through London, the River Thames.

Congratulations if you got that right.

Those are not the only two famous rivers in the United Kingdom.

We also have the River Tay, and that's the longest river in Scotland.

It's 119 miles long.

So again, quite a lot shorter than the River Severn or Thames, it's known for salmon fishing.

Here we can see a photograph of the River Tay.

Now look at that beautiful clear water.

You can see it's a really clean water.

So exactly the sort of water that fish like salmon would like to live and breed in.

And so it's a beautiful unpolluted river and people love to go there and fish for salmon.

Now can we remember where the River Tay was? Hmm? Which country in the UK was it in? I wonder if we can work out which it was.

Pause the video and have a think.

There it is up in the east of Scotland we can see the River Tay and think of those beautiful salmon swimming through it.

Well done if you got that one right geographers.

And finally, the River Bann is the longest river in Northern Ireland.

It is 80 miles long, so it's a lot shorter than the other rivers we've looked at.

But Northern Ireland is a much smaller place than England or Scotland.

It is also known for salmon and eel fisheries.

Eels are an amazing creature with an incredible lifecycle.

And like the salmon, they come up rivers to breed.

We can see a picture here of a salmon.

And this salmon is on its way back to its original grounds where it grew up and it's going upstream and often if they come to waterfalls they have to leap outta the air and keep swimming upstream so they can breed, really amazing, beautiful creatures.

And eels do a similar thing as well.

Okay, let's check our understanding.

You've got four rivers, we've been introduced to, the River Tay, the River Thames, the River Bann and the River Severn.

Where are these found? We've got just in England, just in Scotland, in Wales and England and in Northern Ireland.

Pause the video, which of those rivers would you match to which countries in the UK? Good luck.

All amazing work geographers.

I think we've really got these rivers sorted, haven't we? Yes.

The River Tay was in Scotland.

The River Thames was in England.

The River Bann was in Northern Ireland, and the River Severn was in both Wales and England.

Brilliant, if you managed to successfully match those rivers.

Okay, we're gonna put all of this together in our practise task.

We've been learning all about rivers and where they're located in the United Kingdom.

I'd like you to use either an atlas or a digital map and I'd like you to locate and label the following rivers on the UK map, the River Tay, the River Thames, the River Severn, and the River Bann.

We've talked about all of these rivers.

Use your atlases to really carefully and accurately mark them.

You might want to use a blue line to show where they are, and label it in neat handwriting.

If you manage to do that.

You might also want to locate and label the closest big river to where you live.

So where do you live? Use your atlas, find where you live.

Can you find the nearest big river? Can you use our blue line to accurately mark it and then label it really neatly? Off you go geographers.

I'm looking forward to seeing you putting those location skills into practise.

So hopefully your map will look something like this.

The River Bann flowing through Northern Ireland, the River Tay through the east of Scotland, the River Thames through Southern England and London, and the River Severn through England and Wales.

Well done geographers if you managed to correctly identify and locate those rivers and well done also if you managed to add a river that was near you, fantastic work.

Okay geographers, the second part of our lesson asks this question, what features can be found along the River Severn? Let's go.

So referring back to some previous lessons, we've talked about the fact that there are many natural features that could be found along a river course.

And I've got three photographs here of features that we've looked at in previous lessons.

I would like you to think, can you remember the name of these different features? Let's pause the video, talk to the person next to you.

Which of those features can you remember? Get those geographical vocabulary brains working.

Oh, I can hear some words buzzing around.

I can hear us really reaching back and thinking about our prior learning there.

So yes, the first one is a waterfall, isn't it fantastic? We can see it thundering down over that hard rock there.

Next we have a meander, where the river is bending and curving lower down in its course.

A beautiful meander there.

And finally an estuary where the river meets the sea.

We can see the estuary.

Wow, well done if you're managed to get all of those correct, brilliant thinking.

But of course those are physical features, but there are also human features that can be found along a river like towns and bridges that we can see in this beautiful photograph here.

Look at that lovely clear water.

You can imagine that's full of fish and plants.

Isn't it amazing? Okay, let's just check our understanding.

Which of these are natural river features? And remember, by natural we mean not invented or created by humans A, meander, B, bridge, C, town or D, estuary.

Pause the video geographers, have a think.

Of course, absolutely right.

A meander is a natural feature, isn't it? Formed when the river starts to curve.

And an estuary is a natural feature when a river meets the sea.

Brilliant if you got those right.

Okay, so as we said in our first learning cycle, the River Severn is the longest river in the UK.

It starts its journey in Wales and flows into England.

And you can see it on your maps there.

Here we've got Wales and here we've got the River Severn.

And here we've got England.

Now we've got a more detailed OS map for us to look at.

The River Severn starts its journey in the Cambrian Mountains in Wales.

Here we can see a map of the mountains.

I wonder how we know that this area is mountainous.

Hmm, I wonder if we look carefully, we can see some numbers and we've got a number like 620, 620 metres above sea level, which shows that the lad is very high here.

And we've also got some contour lines, haven't we? Joining lines of equal height.

We see that these contour lines are very close together, showing we've got some high steep lines.

Here we can see it says source of the River Severn, or in Welsh that's Afan Hafren.

So we've got, that's the beginning, the very beginning of the source of the River Severn.

I quite like to go there, wouldn't you? How exciting that would be.

We could see some land above 600 metres.

So we know we're in very high land.

And here we have a photograph.

Look at this seven kilometres from its source.

The river flows over a waterfall called The Severn breaks its neck.

What a dramatic name and what a beautiful waterfall.

I wonder why it's called The Severn breaks its neck? I wonder if it's because the river has just started and then it's starting to flow down some rock in a very dramatic fashion.

And so if you went down there, you might break your neck.

Huh? I don't think I'd want to go down there.

It looks a bit slippery doesn't it? The waterfall is in the upper course of the river, still quite close to the source.

So again, we've got another ordinance survey map here.

We can see that we are in a high area of land.

We're not quite as high are we? Look it's 370, 350 metres.

It was 600 metres earlier, wasn't it? And we can see where the waterfall is.

We've got the blue label there, The Severn breaks its neck.

And I can also tell that this is a very beautiful area.

Can you? Because there's a P for parking.

And some toilets marked and a little picnic bench.

So I expect many people will come here to see that beautiful waterfall and walk around in that amazing landscape in the Cambrian Mountains.

True or false, The Severn breaks its neck is a waterfall close to where the river meets the ocean.

Is that true or is that false? Geographers use your geographical thinking to answer that question.

That's right, geographers.

It's false, isn't it? It's not true.

But why is it not true? Is it, The Severn breaks its neck is a meander close to the source of the river.

Or The Severn breaks its neck is a waterfall close to the source of the river.

Let's think what you can remember geographers.

That's right, it's a waterfall close to the source of the river.

If you remember those maps we looked at, it was only seven kilometres away from the source of the river.

So a long way from where it meets the ocean.

As the River Severn flows downstream, it begins to meander.

So meander is a curb and bend in the river.

And you can see in the circled area there, just north of the village of Crewgreen.

What a great name that is.

We can see the river beginning to meander and you can see those curves appearing.

Let's just check our understanding.

Where are the meanders on the map? Can you remember what the word meander meant? Can we point? Talk to the person next to you where are the meanders? Excellent thinking geographers.

Where the river is beginning to curve and bend that's a meander.

And we've got a number of different meanders here along the River Severn, haven't we? So this photograph shows a place called Shrewsbury.

And many settlements have been built alongside the River Severn.

And that's because as we've said before, rivers are a really great place people used to want to build settlements by.

Because it was quite flat, they could get a source of water and it was good for trading.

Now of course, over time the river's helped shape the character of the town, but it can also cause flooding.

'Cause the River Severn is a really big river and if there's lots of heavy rain, the river levels will go up and that might cause flooding.

We talked about that in a previous lesson didn't we? We can label some of the features of the River Severn on a map.

So here we have a map of the United Kingdom.

You can see the River Severn, it's the blue line near the border of Wales and England.

We can label the source of the river in the Cambrian Mountains where the Severn begins.

We can label the town of Shrewsbury.

Look at this photograph, look at that amazing, enormous bridge that almost looks like an ocean.

But what we are looking at is the Severn Estuary and the Severn Estuary is formed when salt water from the Atlantic Ocean mixes with fresh river water.

At this point the river is very wide and large.

Bridges have been built for cars and trains to cross.

I live quite near this bridge and I go over it quite a lot and it's a really dramatic bridge.

And the River Severn at this point is absolutely enormous.

Let's check our understanding.

Can we locate the following features on the map? Shrewsbury, the source of the Severn and the Severn Estuary.

Let's think where on the river's course would we mark those three places? Pauses the video geographers.

Let's have a think.

So the source of the river, remember was up in the Cambrian Mountains in the high land.

Shrewsbury is a town that's found along the river course.

Got some meanders in that area.

And finally the Severn Estuary where the fresh river water is mixing with the salt water of the Atlantic as it flows out into the sea.

Congratulations if you got that right.

So the Severn Estuary is over 60 kilometres long.

When the tide is high, the water will become deeper.

'Cause as the tide in the Atlantic comes in, it comes up very, very high.

And at low tide it goes out and it looks very muddy.

And the river seems much, much smaller.

We can see the City of Bristol on one side, that's where I live.

And we can see on the other side the City of Newport in Wales as well.

And lots of big cities and towns are found along the River Severn.

True or false, the Severn Estuary is found near the start of the river.

Is that true or false? Excellent geographers.

It's false, isn't it? The Severn Estuary is not found near the start of the river.

But why is it false? Is it A, the Severn Estuary is a long stretch where salt water mixes with fresh water.

Or the Severn Estuary is the point where the river meets the sea.

Geographers, it's A, isn't it? It's a long stretch where salt water mixes with fresh water because you saw it was 60 kilometres long, wasn't it? So our final practise task is this.

We're going to create a storyboard of the journey of the River Severn.

I'd like you to imagine you are walking along the course of the River Severn.

You're going to start at the very beginning of the river.

Think about what was it like at the very beginning? What was the land like? What kind of features did we find? Then we're going to go along the river until we get to the end of the river.

Can we use some geographical vocabulary like source, mouth, waterfall, estuary? Could you draw what the river might look like at different points? Can you think of a town we looked at, which the river runs through? Could you do some beautiful geographical drawings? Label them and write a sentence under each drawing to describe what it is like and what features you might see at each stage of the journey.

Look forward geographers to seeing your work, work really carefully and accurately, off you go.

Oh wow, what an amazing lot of stuff we've seen.

So you might have had a storyboard which contains some information like this.

You might have said that the River Severn starts its journey in the Cambrian Mountains.

If you'd wanted to look back through the slide deck, you might even have been able to put some of the height of the land.

The Severn breaks its neck is a waterfall, seven kilometres from the source.

So you might have drawn that beautiful waterfall.

You might have gone on to say that the River Severn flows through Shrewsbury.

You might have drawn the town of Shrewsbury.

You might have mentioned the word meander perhaps.

You might have gone on to say that the Severn bridge allows cars to cross the estuary.

And we might have said the Severn Estuary is created when salt water from the Atlantic Ocean mixes with fresh water.

So hopefully you've created a storyboard that tells the story of the River Severn and uses some geographical vocabulary.

Fantastic if you've managed to do all of that.

So we've been learning about what features can be found along the River Severn.

We've learned that the longest river in the UK is the Severn and the largest.

Flowing entirely in England is the Thames.

We've learned that the longest rivers of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland can be found using the pages of an atlas.

We've learned we can use OS maps to identify river features.

And we've learned that the River Severn has features such as waterfalls, meanders, towns, and an estuary on its journey to the sea.

I hope you know a lot more about where rivers are in the UK.

And specifically about the River Severn, and I'm really looking forward to seeing you in our next lesson.

Congratulations geographers.

See you soon.