Lesson video

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

Today's lesson is continuing with our topic, Europe.

How diverse are its landscapes and places? And we're going to be continuing to investigate Europe and I can't wait to get started.

So let's put on our geography caps.

Let's put on our explorers rucksacks, and let's get ready to go.

In today's lesson, you will be able to describe key features of the human geography of Europe, and use atlas maps to identify spatial patterns.

We have three keywords today, so we're going to start by me saying the keyword first, and then I would like to hear you saying it back please.

Are we ready? Our first word is land use.

Fantastic.

Our second word is human features.

Absolutely brilliant geographers.

And finally, spatial patterns.

Amazing, fantastic geographical vocabulary.

Let's find out what these words mean, shall we? So land use is the function or purpose of a particular area.

A human feature is something that humans have made or built, and spatial patterns show the links between where things are located.

That's our keywords, we're going to be learning about these today and hopefully by the end of the lesson you will be able to explain what they mean.

Our lesson today about human features of countries in Europe is in three parts.

So in the first part of the lesson we're going to be investigating land use in Europe.

In the second part of the lesson, we're going to be investigating human features in Europe, and in the final part of the lesson we're going to be asking the question, what spatial patterns are there in Europe? So geographers, are we ready to go? Let's go.

So across the whole continent of Europe, which we've been talking about in previous lessons, about 80% of the land area has been changed by human activities.

That's a huge amount, isn't it, 80%, but what might these human activities be? What are the things that humans are doing that have changed the land area of Europe? I'd like you to put on your geographical thinking caps and have a think about that.

Perhaps talk to the person next to you.

So pause the video and have a discussion.

Wow, I've heard some fantastic ideas there.

Thank you very much.

Aisha has also been thinking about it as well and she's come up with some ideas.

She says, "Perhaps the land could be used for housing, industry, farming or leisure activities." Are those the sort of things that you came up with? Well done if you were on the right track.

So many people live in Europe.

and much of the land of course is used for building.

You might remember in a previous lesson we discussed different types of settlement.

There are two photographs here we can see a tiny village in the Alps on the left, and on the right is an enormous city, and you might remember from a previous lesson that that is a photograph of the city of Copenhagen in Denmark.

What settlement do you live in where you are? As well as buildings, land is also used to build transport systems to connect different places in Europe.

People need to get from one place to another, and so there's a variety of different transport systems that could help connect places.

For example, in the photograph we can see a motorway exchange.

Lots of cars coming across, going after different parts of that settlement and elsewhere in the country.

We might also have railways and airports as well to connect different places to each other.

As well as building and transport a lot of Europe's land is used for farming.

Of course people need to eat, and so land is used to grow crops or provide grazing as well.

The climate of Europe is so diverse.

If you remember we talked about in a previous lesson the temperate climate across the majority of Europe but also a Mediterranean climate in the south of Europe.

Different crops grow in different regions depending on the climate that suits them.

As well as this lands used for grazing animals such as cattle and sheep.

I wonder if you've ever eaten anything that was grown in another European country.

You might want to talk to the person next to you and discuss this.

Have you had some vegetables from different parts of Europe? Have you eaten meat, if you eat meat from different parts of Europe? I wonder what different places you've eaten food from.

Okay, let's check our understanding of what we've learned so far.

Think back to one of the earlier slides.

What percentage of the land area of Europe has been changed by human activities? Is it A, 20%? Is it B, 60% or is it C, 80%? Pause your video.

Have a think.

Good luck geographers.

Okay, let's see who was right.

It is 80%, well done if you remembered that.

The vast majority of the land area of Europe has been changed by human activities.

Another land use alongside buildings and transport, and farming is mining.

Look at that photograph, isn't that extraordinary? That is a photograph of an enormous copper mine in Sweden.

There are many minerals and other materials in the earth's crust that have lots of different uses in our lives.

These minerals include iron, coal, copper, and gold.

These materials are fundamental to everything we do.

We might use coal for burning in power stations, although we're trying to use less of that now.

Other materials such as copper might be used in wiring in technology, iron have used in the manufacture of steel to making materials, so mining is a really important part of Europe's land use.

A lot of land is used for producing energy, and there are many different ways of producing energy.

In the top right you can see a power station that is powered by oil and gas.

These are fossil fuels.

Of course nowadays Europe is trying to transition to use different sorts of energy as well.

And so we can see some wind turbines there to harness the power of the wind.

You could see some solar panels in a field there to harness the power of the sun.

And finally in the bottom right we have geothermal energy.

Geothermal energy uses heat energy from inside the earth.

So these power stations could put pipes down into the ground and take that naturally occurring heat and use it to heat houses and create power.

And so we've got a wide diversity of ways of producing energy in Europe today.

Land is also used for building factories to make all sorts of different things such as cars, chemicals, and electronic items. Factories create the enormous amounts of materials and things that we need to help our lives.

I wonder if you have any factories in your locality, what do they produce? Have you got any near your school or are they further away? Again, take the opportunity to talk to the person next to you.

Do you know if you have any factories and what might they produce? Another important land use is forestry.

Forests cover more than a third of the land area of Europe.

That's a lot, isn't it? Were you surprised by that amount? We don't have as much forest in England and the UK, but other parts of Europe such as Poland, still have ancient forests covering a large part of their land area.

People have changed a lot of the forests and some of them have been planted by people, and nowadays, because of climate change, people are thinking more about planting forests to help capture carbon and also to create more of a great habitat for the wild creatures we find on our continent.

Okay, let's see what we've learned from that section.

You could see four photographs here.

Each of those photographs links to a particular type of land use that we've been talking about.

I'd like you to think about which land use do those photographs show.

Okay, geographers, let's put our human geography thinking caps on, pause the video, and see what you think.

What did you do? Well, let's see.

Excellent.

That photograph there in the top left is about roads.

We could see a motorway interchange there, and so roads and transport are an important part of our land use in Europe.

The next photograph, do you remember that was the copper mine in Sweden.

So mining is a very important land use in Europe.

Next we had a photograph of a factory, and finally farming.

So well done geographers, if you could spot those different land uses in Europe.

Okay, let's draw all of this learning together in this task.

On your screens you can see a spider diagram.

In the middle we've got the words Land Use In Europe, and there we have six different legs of the spider, and six different bubbles.

I'd like you to think about everything we've learned so far.

Can you think of six different ways in which the land is used in Europe? What I'd like you to do is label each leg of the spider with a different land use.

Thinking about everything we've learned so far.

Off you go geographers, and I look forward to seeing what you've done.

Brilliant geographical thinking everybody.

Here are some examples of things you might have thought of.

So you might have thought about forestry.

Did you remember that statistic that over a third of Europe is used for forests? You might have thought of farming, producing energy, mining, building, and industry, and maybe you thought of some other use that isn't on this.

Well done for those who've completed it, you are really getting to grips with understanding how land is used in Europe.

The next part of this lesson, we are going to be investigating human features in Europe.

Let's go.

So Europe, as we've started to establish, has diverse human features.

It's a very mixed continent, lots of different things happening in lots of different places.

What do we mean by human features? Let's remind ourselves.

So human features are things that have been built by people such as towns, cities, roads, farms, and railways.

And they are separate from natural features which have been formed by nature.

Okay, let's check if we understand this word human features.

There's a list here, which of the following are human features? I would like you to select two answers.

Are they A, mountain, B, canal, C, bridge, or D, glacier? Pause the video.

Have a think.

Oh, I can hear those geographical cogs wearing there.

So our first answer is a canal.

Absolutely, because a canal is created by humans, isn't it? To transport materials or nowadays for leisure as well.

And C, a bridge, because that's built by humans to allow things to go over a river, or a gorge, or maybe another road.

So both of those are human features.

The mountain and the glacier are natural features, aren't they? Because they are formed by nature.

We've talked about this in a previous lesson.

As Atlas maps often show a large area, there isn't space to include all of the features.

There is so much going on isn't there in terms of what land is being used for.

So an Atlas map can only show the most important features.

Look at this map on your screen.

I wonder if you know where it is in the world.

So geographers, it's showing the north of Italy, isn't it? And some other countries such as Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia.

Jun says, "The human features I can see on this map are city names and major roads." He's absolutely right, isn't he? If you look carefully, you can see the cities of Turin and Milan in Italy or Bern and Zurich in Switzerland and also some major roads that connect the cities together.

A wonderful thing about a digital Atlas map is that we can zoom in closer to see more human features.

Of course as we zoom in we can see more detail.

So this enables us to see things like smaller towns, and the road links between places.

Jun says, "The human features I could see on this map are city and town names and the roads connecting them." Now if we look again, we can see the city of Milan.

We could see that before, but now we can see it in more detail, can't we? So we can see that to the north of Milan, we've got a town called Monza.

To the left we've got Novara or to the east we've got Brescia, and to the south we've got Genoa.

And we can also see that a road, the A7 connects Genoa and Milan so we can see more detail and learn more information about what it's like.

Okay, let's think about this then.

We've got two circles here, and we've got a list of human features.

What are human features again? Absolutely, features created by humans rather than natural features.

So we have a city, a house, a major railway line, a motorway, a playground, and a single track road.

I'd like you to think which of those features would be shown on an atlas map of a country.

Bit of a hint here, remember an atlas map show the most important features, and which of those would not be shown? Can we sort them into shown and not shown? Yes, we can geographers.

Pause the video and have a go.

Okay, geographers, let's see if you were right.

A city, yes, that would be shown because it's a major human feature.

A house, that wouldn't be shown on an atlas map because it's much smaller, isn't it? And not as important.

A major railway line connecting cities, yes, that would be shown because that's a really important feature.

A motorway, again, that's a very large road, isn't it? An important road, so that will be shown on an atlas map.

A playground, well, they're important, but they're not that important compared to major cities and railway lines, so it probably would not be shown.

And secondly, a single track road, that's a much smaller road maybe connecting a village or in a town, an unimportant road.

So that would not be shown on an atlas map.

Fantastic geography skills if you managed to sort those correctly.

Okay, geographers, let's try and put some of these skills into practise.

We are going to be using a digital atlas map and we're going to be trying to locate some of the human features we've talked about.

I'd like you to use a digital atlas map of the country of Italy and you're going to try and answer these questions using it.

Number one, what is the capital city of Italy? Number two, can you name three major cities in Italy? Now remember a major city is a large important city.

Three, can you name three towns in Italy? So towns are smaller than cities, so they won't be as large on your digital atlas map.

Four, can you name either two towns or two cities in Italy that are connected by a railway? So find out what a railway looks like.

And can you look to see two places that are connected by them? I've named two towns or cities in Italy that are connected by a motorway.

So again, find a motorway.

They often have a letter and a number by them.

And see if you could find two places that are connected together.

And finally, number six, name a city in Italy that has an airport located nearby.

So you might need to use your digital atlas map key.

Okay, geographers a real chance to do some geographical investigating.

I'm looking forward to seeing your results.

Pause the video and off you go.

Well, what a lot of fantastic investigating you've done? So let's look at some possible answers.

What's the capital of Italy? Rome, absolutely right if you managed to find that out.

So major cities in Italy.

Well you might have suggested places such as Bologna, Milan or Naples, but there are many others you could have found as well.

Name three towns in Italy.

Well we might have found Bergamo, Parma, Pescara.

Again, fantastic if you found those.

If you didn't, I'm really interested to see what else you found out.

Two towns or cities in Italy that are connected by a railway.

One example might be Florence and Pisa, but there are many others as well.

Name two towns or cities in Italy connected by motorway.

You might have had a Rome or Naples.

And a city in Italy with an airport nearby.

An example is Milan.

Well done if you have managed to find some answers for those, great geographical investigating.

For the final part of this lesson, we're going to be answering this big geographical question.

What spatial patterns are there in Europe? Let's go.

Let's think a little bit here.

We know there are different types of atlas maps.

For example, we've looked at physical maps and they show physical geographical features such as relief, IE, how the landscape changes in height.

They also show things such as major rivers and mountains.

On your screens you could see an example of a relief map of Europe.

The highest land is shown in kind of a yellow or purple colours, and the lowest land is shown in green.

And that's really helpful because it enables us to see which parts of Europe have high land and mountains, and which parts of Europe are quite low lying.

We can also use maps images to show human features such as settlements and transport routes.

Look at this incredible image.

I think this image is just magnificent.

It's an image of Europe at night.

How do I know it's Europe? Well, look, if I look carefully, I can see the patterns of light, and these lights show areas where lots and lots of people live.

What's giving out those lights do you think? Maybe you have some ideas? Well, it will be things like streetlights, cars, factories, houses, all of them putting out light into the air.

And where there's a great concentration of that light, we can see it shining really brightly.

So for example, we can see almost the shape of Italy, can't we? You might also look at the United Kingdom, and if you look at the south of the United Kingdom, you can see an intensity bright spot, and that will be the city of London.

You might also notice that some areas are darker.

And they're dark because that's areas where not as many people live, because there won't be such a concentration.

There will be far fewer factories, there will be far fewer houses, far fewer cars and streetlights.

And so those areas look very, very invisible.

If we look at the far north of the United Kingdom, we can see that area of the Scottish highlands is very, very dark 'cause very few people live there.

So this image could tell us a lot about patterns in Europe.

We can use this information.

We can compare physical and human maps to help us identify spatial patterns.

Human and physical features on the same map, you can see that most of the towns, cities, and roads are in the flatter parts of northern Italy.

Look at this map, you can see its circles around the city of Milan, which is a very important city in northern Italy.

We can see lots of towns, can't we? And lots of roads, and it makes sense, doesn't it? Because the landscape is flatter.

It's a place where you could build more cities.

If we look just to the south of it, we could see between Genoa and Bologna, there's an area of mountains and we have far fewer settlements there and far fewer roads, because it's much harder to build settlements on the sides of mountains and much trickier to build roads.

Many major cities are built along the coast or large rivers, and that's because rivers provide important source of water.

And of course if you are near to the coast, that's really useful if you want to trade goods with other places and transport things.

This is a photograph of the beautiful city of Rome, which as we know is the capital city of Italy.

It's an ancient city.

The Romans founded it and they built it by the Tiber River because the river could provide them with a source of drinking water, and also a way of moving goods around.

Think about that then.

A true or false question for you here.

Spatial patterns show where things are located.

Is that true or is that false? Geographers, pause your video and think what your answer is.

Amazing, it's false, isn't it? Spatial patterns do not show where things are located.

So what answer makes more sense here? Is it A, we can see spatial patterns on a map, or B, spatial patterns show us the links between where things are located.

For example, that many major cities have been built near large rivers.

Which of those makes more sense? Pause the video.

Good thinking geographers, it's B, isn't it? Because spatial patterns tell us things like links and help us understand what the land looks like.

If we think about that map of northern Italy, the spatial patterns showed us that the major cities were on low lying areas, and there were less settlements in the mountains.

And so patterns help geographers explain why things are where they are.

So we're going to have a go at investigating spatial patterns and finding out what patterns we might find in Europe.

What I'd like you to do is this.

You're going to need an atlas.

I'd like you to locate each of these major European cities.

We have the city of Bonn, the city of Gdansk, the city of Dnipro, and the city of Florence.

I'd like you to find out whether thereby a coast or a river, and I'd like you to find out the name of that river or area of coastline.

Good luck Geographers.

Like to see your spatial pattern investigating.

Pause the video and off you go.

Good luck.

Oh, what a lot of amazing research that you've done here.

Let's see what we found out.

The city of Bonn is found in Germany, and of course it's by a river.

And the name of the river is the river Rhine, which is an incredibly important European river.

The city of Gdansk is in the country of Poland, that's not by a river, but it is by the coast, and it's near the area of Europe by the Baltic Sea.

The city of Dnipro is in Ukraine.

That is situated on a major river, the river Dnipro.

And finally, the city of Florence is of course in Italy, and that's by a very famous river, the river Arno.

Well done if you were able to use your atlas skills to find out where those cities were, and what type of place they were near, whether they were near the coast or the river.

Excellent geographical investigating everyone.

Though, let's summarise our learning today.

We've been thinking about the human features of countries in Europe, and we've learned this.

We've learned that Europe has a diverse range of land uses and human features.

We've also learned the key human features of Europe can be investigated using a wide range of resources, atlases and maps.

And finally we noted that when we compare different maps of the same place, we can notice spatial patterns that help us understand them.

I've really enjoyed learning with you today.

Geographers, you've been absolutely marvellous.

I look forward to learning with you again.

Thank you very much.