Lesson video

Hello geographers, it's Mr. Robertson here and I'm delighted to be with you for the final lesson in our field work inquiry unit, local area, what needs changing, what an enjoyable time I have had taking you on this journey, and I'm really looking forward to finishing with our lesson on future changes.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to suggest and argue for preferred change in the local area using sources of evidence.

We have five key words for this lesson.

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

Are we ready? Our first key word is purposeful.

Fantastic, our second key word is preferred.

Brilliant, our third key word is futures.

Absolutely, our fifth key word is presentation.

Brilliant, and our final key word is evaluate.

Brilliant geographical speaking there geographers.

Let's find out what these words mean.

So something that is purposeful is done on purpose to achieve an aim, something that is preferred, is liked or wanted more than the other options.

Futures are periods of time that are yet to come.

A presentation is a talk that gives information about something and to evaluate is to form an opinion or judgement on something after considering it carefully.

As usual, all of these keywords are going to come up in our lesson and we're gonna understand how to use them as we go through the lesson.

So, we are at the end of this unit of work.

You have planned and carried out a field work inquiry, and now we're going to begin to evaluate our inquiry and see what we found out.

This lesson has three parts.

First, we're going to reflect on our findings.

Then we're going to think about presenting an inquiry, and finally we're going to evaluate our inquiry.

Are you ready, let's go.

Do you remember our geographical field work inquiry cycle? Over the course of this unit, we've carried out a full geographical inquiry.

We asked some questions and found out what a really important issue was in our local area.

We decided what our key inquiry questions were going to be.

We decided what data we were going to collect and the field work skills and types that we would use to find that data out.

We carried out a risk assessment to make sure that what we did, we did really safely.

Then we did our active field work, we went out and we collected the data.

Once we'd done that, we presented our data.

What busy geographers we've been.

So now we're at the part of the inquiry where we're beginning to reflect on our findings.

Can you remember what your initial inquiry questions were for your field work inquiry? Do you want to pause the video, talk to your geography buddy and remind yourselves what it was.

So the example inquiry questions that I was looking at was about litter in my local area of Whitley Bay.

My three questions were, where is there a litter problem in our local area? Why is there a litter problem in our local area and what can we do to help resolve the issue? As with any issue, we want to think about what it is, where it happens, what the causes are, and what could be done.

So a successful inquiry cycle will provide us with the information to answer these questions.

Here are the results, the findings from my inquiry into a local area.

The question I was asking was, where is there a litter problem in my local area? Using the data that we collected, I can see that there was a problem with litter along Park Road on the day of the field work.

You can see if you remember in the circled area, that's Park Road, we can see that there was only one bin on that road and there was a lot of litter.

Remember of course that at different times of the day or year, there may have been different amounts of litter.

But when we carried out this inquiry, that was the amount of litter that we found.

The next question that I asked was, why is there a litter problem in my local area? And the data showed when we looked at where the litter was found, and we compared that to the distribution of bins, we could see the data showed there was more of a litter problem in areas where there aren't in enough bins.

We can see clearly in the park there are four bins and very few pieces of litter, whereas along Park Road there was only one bin and lots of pieces of litter.

So this pattern suggests that there's more litter where there aren't enough bins.

And the third inquiry question we asked was, what can we do to help resolve the issue? Now we want our inquiry to be purposeful.

We want it to come up with some different options so we can try and make a difference because we don't just want to find out about an issue.

We want to see what we could do to help improve it.

So here are some possible suggestions.

We could get more bins for the area.

We could replace some of the current bins with larger ones.

We could educate people to take their litter home.

We could promote the value of caring for our environment and we could do a litter pick.

All of these options would allow us to think about trying to solve the issue and make it better.

I wonder which ones of those you think would be most sensible for this inquiry.

So let's check our understanding so far.

The question is this, which actions would help to change the litter problem that we discovered in our local area? Could we A, do a litter pick, B, make it against the law to litter.

C, replace existing bins with larger ones, or D, put bins in areas without any.

Pause the video and have a think.

Brilliant thinking Geographers, yes, we could do a litter bit, couldn't we? Because that would help remove litter where it was found at the moment.

We could replace existing bins with larger ones because that might stop them getting overflowing and we could put bins in areas where there currently aren't any.

All of these things would make a difference.

It's hard for us to make it against the law to litter because that's something that has to happen at a government level.

Let's think about our question after we've chosen our inquiry questions and we've carried out our fieldwork data, we want to use this information in a purposeful way and make recommendations for change.

Here are two situations where we could make some purposeful recommendations for change.

Look carefully at those two photographs.

What recommendations could you make here that would help improve the situation in these areas? Tell your geography buddy about what you think.

Pause the video and I can't wait to hear what you've said.

Brilliant thinking geographers.

So these are some of my ideas.

I've said that in this image we can see there is a bin, but it's overflowing with litter.

I would recommend removing the existing bin and replacing it with a much larger one and making sure it was emptied on a regular basis.

Let's look at the second photograph.

In this image we can see litter on the street, but no bins.

I would recommend putting a bin in this location.

Are these similar to your recommendations? Fantastic if they were, what we are doing here is thinking of a really practical recommendation that will address the problem that those photographs show.

Second part of our lesson today is going to be presenting our inquiry.

Let's go.

So now we have gone all the way through the inquiry circle.

We've got as far as reflecting on our findings.

The next thing we need to do is to communicate our findings so we can think about how we can improve our local area in the future.

It's really important in a geographical inquiry that we communicate what we found out so we could share this information with others and all of the data and evidence we've gathered will be really helpful for making our case much stronger.

This is a really important question.

At this stage of our inquiry, how can we make sure this inquiry is useful? Because when we carry out a field work inquiry, we don't want to just gather the data and analyse the data, but we want to be able to make recommendations to help address some of the issues it raises.

We might want to ask the question, what are the possible probable and preferred futures? So a possible future is that the levels of litter improve, stay the same or get worse, and those are all possible futures.

A probable future is that the litter levels will fall if more bins are provided.

So in other words, if we put more bins into the local area, people will use those bins and therefore the litter levels will be falling and that's a probable future.

The preferred future is that the litter issue will be resolved by a combination of more bins and a change in people's behaviour around littering because we don't just want to put in more bins so people can not drop litter.

We want people to think about their actions as well.

So they realise that dropping litter is not a good thing.

It makes an area look ugly.

It can cause dangers to wildlife.

And so we want people to think twice about dropping litter and make the right choice by putting litter into a bin.

So once we've decided what we want our preferred future to be, what next steps could we take to change our local area for the better? I'd like you to talk to your geography buddy now, we've gathered all this information and data.

How could we help to make a difference? Who might we speak to about this to try and get change in our local area? Pause the video and have a think.

Oh, I could see some really interesting powerful conversations going on there.

You might have thought of some examples like this.

We could write to the local council and show them our evidence and then ask for extra bins.

We could show the evidence of the litter that we found and ask them to provide some extra bins.

We could invite a counsellor to come and visit us.

A counsellor is someone elected by the local community who represents them.

We could present our suggested solutions to them.

Counsellors have authority and power and they might be able to go back and take those recommendations forward.

We could write to local businesses and ask them to fund new bins.

Local businesses won't want there to be litter in their local area and they might be prepared to make a donation so there could be more bins to reduce the amount of litter.

All of these are possible ways in which we can help create change in our local area.

Let's just check what we've learned about so far.

Think of this question.

How can our inquiry help to change our local area? Is it A, that we really enjoyed our field work? B, we have evidence of the issue or C, we have recommendations for a preferred change backed by evidence.

Which of these make more sense? Pause the video and have a think.

Great thinking geographers.

Absolutely, B.

Now we have done our inquiry, we have some evidence of the issue and you've got evidence of the issue in your local area.

We also have recommendations for a preferred change backed by evidence.

You have started to do some thinking about what you would like to happen in your local area and the evidence makes your case much stronger.

So our next task is going to be about presenting our inquiry.

I would like you to choose one of the next steps and present the evidence you have collected to someone in your community who could enact this change.

So remember, my field work inquiry was about litter, and so I've got three options, I could write to the local council to explain our evidence and then ask for extra bins.

I could invite a counsellor to come and visit my school and then make a presentation of the suggested solutions.

I could write to local businesses and ask them to fund new bin provision.

Of course, you might be doing a different inquiry and so it might not be about litter, but whatever it is that you are looking to change, could you do one of the following? Could you write to your local council and explain the evidence you found? Could you invite a counsellor in and present what you found out and some of your suggested solutions? Or could you write to some local businesses and could they fund some of the solutions that you come up with? This is a real chance in geography to bring all our ideas together and try and make some changes for the better.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the results of what you've done.

So you've done an enormous amount of great work there.

Did your presentational letter explain what the inquiry was? Did you set out what it was you were trying to find out? Did you remember to include all of that data that you collected and use the evidence from any maps, charts, graphs, photographs or diagrams that you created? That evidence is going to be really important to help persuade people in power that change is needed.

Did you conclude with your preferred recommendations based on the evidence that you had collected? If you've managed to do this, then well done.

You've completed a successful and purposeful inquiry, and I really hope that the people you've spoken to listen and come back to you and realise that you are doing some fantastic geography and that you are caring about your local area and trying to make a difference.

So the final part of our lesson, we are going to evaluate our inquiry and see what we can learn from it for next time.

Evaluation is when we think about the good points and the bad points of our field work inquiry and what we would do to improve it if we were to do it again.

Evaluation is a really important part of the cycle because that's when we can learn some really important lessons which we then can take forward into our next fieldwork inquiry.

Let's just check we understand what this word evaluation means.

Evaluation is A, we ask questions to identify an issue to investigate.

B, we present our data in graphs and tables.

C, we give conclusions to explain what our data suggests.

D, we think about the good and bad points of our field work and suggest how we could have improved it.

Which of those describes what we mean by evaluation? Pause your videos and have a think.

Excellent thinking geographers.

Yes, it's D, isn't it? Evaluation is where we think about the good and bad points of our field work and suggest how we can have improved it.

Well done if you've got that right.

So thinking about your field work inquiry, there may be a range of good points about your field work which allowed you to collect really accurate data.

So for example, Andeep says, we took good photographs to show the type of bin in each location.

So Andeep is really happy with the photograph because that enabled them to gather really great evidence.

Aisha says, by using a map, we could see where in the area had the most bins.

So that was brilliant by Aisha because that meant that when she was analysing her results, she could see very clearly on the map where the bins were.

I wonder what were some really great points about the fieldwork inquiry, which you carried out.

As well as good points, there may be a range of bad points which made your data less accurate and that's absolutely fine because in every field work inquiry there will be things we can do better next time.

Laura says, we didn't walk around a very big area and that's means that her data might be a little bit limited, so maybe next time she might want to increase the size of the area we walked around.

Alex says it rained and the data sheet got wet and hard to read.

So Alex might need to think of a solution next time and so that the results don't get all wet and messy.

It's really important to think carefully about those things which weren't so good, so you can make some really good learning for the next inquiry you carry out.

As we said, the bad points may help you think about how you could improve your field work if you were to do it again.

Sofia says we could keep our sheets in a plastic wallet to keep dry.

What a great idea, Sofia, because that means that if it's raining, you've got some protection, haven't you? And you're not gonna lose any of those really important results.

Jun says we could walk around a bigger area next time.

That's a great idea, Jun, because if we do that, you'll be able to gather more data and you might get more variation and spot different patterns.

I wonder what points you think you could improve in your field work inquiry.

Let's just check what we mean when we say we are evaluating our field work inquiry.

Which of these makes sense? Evaluation of a field work inquiry, A, only goes through the bad points about the field work.

B, gives a summary of the key findings of the field work.

C, weighs up the good and bad points of the field work and suggests how the study can be improved.

Which of these make sense? Pause the video, have a think.

Ah, fantastic geographers, it's C, isn't it? Evaluation of a field work inquiry weighs up the good and bad points of the field work and suggests how the study could be improved.

B, summarising the key findings is an earlier part of the field work cycle, isn't it? So we're going to do the final task of this unit of work.

We're going to evaluate the field work inquiry that we've undertaken.

I'd like you to discuss the field work inquiry you did with your partner.

I'd like you to think, what were the good things about your study, which made your data accurate? What were the bad things about your study, which made your data less accurate? And what are the things you would do to improve the study if you were to do it again? Okay, geographers, let's do some evaluation of our field work inquiry, pause the video, and off you go.

Wow, I've had so many great ideas, so many ways of improving it.

Let's hear some examples here.

You might have said something like, we showed where each photograph we took was on the map, which is really helpful and really clear.

You might have said, I think we didn't cover a large enough area, so maybe you felt your data wasn't accurate enough and next time, you might need to do it slightly differently.

So for example, you might have said, if we did the field work again, we could break up into teams so we could cover a larger area.

So that's a really practical solution, isn't it? To increase the reliability of the data, you could have a larger area with working in teams. I bet you've come up with some fantastic evaluation too.

Some really amazing things that went well, some things that perhaps went less well, but also some great things you will do next time.

Geographers, you've been amazing.

You have completed an entire field work inquiry.

You've set questions, you've thought about the data you're going to collect, you've collected the data, you've analysed it, you've acted on that analysis, so it's purposeful.

You've made recommendations, and you've sent those recommendations to people who could make a difference, and you've evaluated it all at the end to think what went well and what could do better next time.

Wow, what an incredible amount of fantastic geography.

Let's just summarise what we've learned today.

Field work data can be used in purposeful ways, such as making informed recommendations for change.

We can think about possible, probable and preferred futures in our local area.

An effective inquiry cycle evaluates how useful it has been and what the next steps might be.

I've absolutely loved working on this unit with you.

It's brilliant that you've been able to take part in some active field work, and I really hope you've learned some important lessons that you can take forward in the rest of your life.

Thank you.