Lesson video

Hello, my name is Ms. Derakhshan.

I'm so excited to be learning with you today.

I will be guiding you through our lesson.

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

Let's start our learning.

Welcome to today's lesson from our topic, UK region.

Why is the late district a national park? Today's lesson is called Our National Parks.

You'll be learning to locate and label our national parks on a map and explain what a national park is.

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

This links back to previous learning you might have done on what mountains and lakes are, as well as some learning about physical and human features of the UK.

You might have also had some experience of using and annotating ordinate survey maps.

Here are the key words that we'll be using throughout our lesson.

Let's practise saying these words and do my turn, your turn, and then we'll look at what they mean together.

Protected.

Protected.

Natural environment.

Natural environment.

Landscape.

Landscape.

Working landscape.

working landscape.

Good job, everyone.

Let's go through the definitions of what these keywords mean.

Protected.

If something is protected, it is kept safe from harm.

Natural environment.

A natural environment is a place that has not been changed by humans.

Landscape.

A landscape is an area and its land forms and features that can be seen when viewed from another place.

Working landscape.

working landscapes are landscapes that are used for farming or forestry.

Good job, everybody.

We'll be learning more about these keywords throughout our lesson.

Here are the learning cycles that we will be working through together today.

We will start by defining what a national park is.

It's important to know what they are before we start looking for them.

Then the second part of our lesson today, we'll be locating which national park is near you.

Are you ready to start your learning for today? Fantastic.

Let's begin.

You might have been to a national park before or you might even be able to name one, but do you know what they are? Pause the video and talk to your partner.

What are national parks? How did you get on? Did you say that national parks are large areas of land that are protected by law for the benefit of the nation? That's true.

They are beautiful landscapes for everyone to enjoy and to appreciate.

They were originally established by the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act.

That's an act of parliament that creates a new law or changes an existing law.

Have you ever been to a national park before? This is a photograph of Eryri National Park, Snowdonia in Wales.

You can see here that the landscape is stunning and beautiful and it makes you feel that sense of awe and wonder just being there.

You might also feel really connected to nature as well.

Use this photograph as a stimulus to talk about national parks and whether you have visited one before.

Turn to your partner and tell them if you've been to a national park and if you can remember the name of it.

Pause the video now.

Great, I hope you had a really good discussion there and you're so excited and keen to learn about national parks.

Glad that some of you might have visited a national park before.

And if you haven't, hopefully this lesson will inspire you to go out and visit and explore our national parks.

They are beautiful and absolutely stunning.

Let's find out more about national park.

National Parks UK define national parks as world-class landscapes with the power to inspire everyone.

They've been designated on behalf of the entire nation because of their special qualities.

Here's the photo of the Lake District National Park, which is in England.

As you can see from both of the photos of the national parks that I've shown you, the landscapes are stunning and beautiful.

Funded by central government, all national parks in England and Wales have two main purposes.

The first one is to conserve and enhance natural beauty, wildlife, and cultural heritage.

When we conserve something, we protect it from harm and enhance means to keep improving the quality of something.

Our cultural heritage is all of the special things that have been left to us from previous generations.

You can see a lovely image there of Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire Coast National Park.

Now that we've talked about the first purpose of national parks in England and Wales, let's have a look at what the second main purpose is.

To promote opportunities for understanding and enjoyment of national parks by the public.

If we promote something, we support or encourage it.

Because they are special, they are protected by law.

For example, you need special permission to build in a national park.

Routes and national parks may be signposted to help visitors and there's usually a visitor centre where national park employees can give information and advice to anyone who's visiting.

So let's have a quick check here.

What is the main purpose of national parks? A, conserve natural beauty; B, enhance wildlife; C, promote opportunities for the public to enjoy the special qualities of national parks; or D, to serve the exclusive use of rich people? Pause the video there and answer that question.

How did you get on? Did you remember that national parks have two main purposes? The first is to conserve natural beauty and enhance wildlife.

So you should have selected options A and B for that one.

And the second purpose was to promote opportunities for the public to enjoy the special qualities of the national parks.

National parks are meant to be enjoyed by everyone and not just the wealthy.

Fantastic, so now we really understand the main purposes of the national parks.

National parks are working landscapes, as well as being environments of outstanding beauty and value.

You can have a look at another picture here from the Yorkshire Dales National Park, which is in England.

Again, all of these parks are beautiful landscapes.

They are breathtaking and they do give you that sense of awe and wonder.

There are lots of livestock farms in this park.

National park employees work to protect the natural environment, encourage visitors, and support local communities.

This is a visitor centre from The Sill in Northumberland National Park.

Visitors can learn about the national park and take part in lots of educational activities.

Did you know that there are 15 national parks across the UK? Each one is a protected landscape because of its special qualities.

There are 10 national parks in England, three national parks in Wales, and two in Scotland.

There aren't any in Northern Ireland, so our map here is just of Great Britain.

You can see here on the map of Great Britain where each of these national parks are located.

Have a look and explore this map with your partner before we go through it together.

Have a look at these 15 national parks.

Pause the video now.

Great, I'm sure you had a good time exploring those national parks together.

Let's go through them and make sure that we know exactly where each one of these national parks are.

We'll start together in the north and work our way south.

Right at the top of the UK in Scotland is the largest national park, the Cairngorms. Our second Scottish National Park is Loch Lomond and The Trossachs.

Those are our two Scottish national parks.

Can you locate them? Pause the video now and locate our Scottish national parks.

Good job, I'm sure you located both of those Scottish national parks.

Well done.

Now let's move on into England and locate the next 10 national parks.

First we have Northumberland followed by the Lake District.

Then we have the North York Moors and the Yorkshire Dales.

Moving into the middle of England we have the Peak District, the Broads, and then along the South Coast we have the South Downs, New Forest, Dartmoor and Exmoor.

Pause the video and see if you can locate those 10 national parks that are in England.

Good job, I bet you could locate all 10 of those national parks in England.

Fantastic.

So we've worked through the national parks that are in Scotland and we've worked through the national parks that are in England.

It's now time to move across into Wales and look at these three national parks.

First we have Eryri, also known as Snowdonia.

Then we have Pembrokeshire Coast, and finally we have Bannau Brycheiniog, also known as the Brecon Beacons.

Pause the video here and locate the three national parks that are in Wales.

Good job, everyone.

I'm sure you had fun locating those 15 national parks across the UK on our map of Great Britain.

Remember that this is only a map of Great Britain because there are no national parks in Northern Ireland.

Good job, everyone.

Let's continue with our learning.

Are you ready to find out some more facts about national parks? Nearly a 10th, that's 9% of Great Britain is a national park.

That's a lot of land that is a national park.

The first national park was the Peak District created in 1951.

This is the Peak District here.

You can see it located on the map with that arrow.

The largest is the Cairngorms in Scotland at 3,800 kilometres squared.

Here it is up here in Scotland.

So you can see that both of those places have been located on our map of Great Britain.

And as you can remember, there aren't any national parks in Northern Ireland.

So that's why we've just used a map of Great Britain here.

So it's now time to have a quick check.

Let's see if you can remember any of those facts about the national parks.

I'd like you to match the fact to the correct national park.

Which was the first national park and which one was the largest national park.

Your choices are the Cairngorms National Park and the Peak District.

You can pause the video here and think about your answer.

How did you get on? Did you remember that the first national park was the Peak District, which was created in 1951? And the largest was the Kang GOs in Scotland, which is 3,800 kilometres squared.

Well done if you correctly identified them both.

I'm going to give you another thumbs up.

Good job, everyone.

You're doing really well learning these key facts and information about our national parks.

It's now time for task A.

What I would like you to do is to use this map to help you label all 15 national parks of the UK.

Label them carefully because we'll be using this map in the second part of today's lesson.

Good luck and off you go.

Pause the video and complete task A.

Well, geographers, how did you get on? Have you correctly labelled all 15 national parks? Let's check our maps by reading each national park together, starting in the north and working our way south.

Once we go through this, if you've got them correct, that's great, leave them there, but if you've got any that are labelled incorrectly, I'd like you to stop the video and label them correctly because we'll be using this map for task B later on in the lesson.

So it's really important that you locate all of these national parks correctly.

Great, let's start right in the top of the UK, in Scotland.

The largest national park is called Cairngorms. Then our second Scottish National Park is called Loch Lomond and The Trossachs.

So make sure you've located those two Scottish national parks correctly and pause the video and correct them if you haven't.

Great, let's move down into England now.

The next national park is Northumberland.

Then we have the Lake District, followed by the North York Moors, and then the Yorkshire Dales.

In the middle of England we have the Peak District, the Broads, and then finally along the South Coast, we have the South Downs, New Forest, Dartmoor, and Exmoor.

So make sure you've located all of those 10 English national parks correctly and if you haven't, pause the video and make those corrections.

Remember I said that we need this task so that we can complete task B together.

Fantastic.

Once you've done that, let's check our national parks that are in Wales.

Remember there's three national parks in Wales.

First we have Eryri, which is also known as Snowdonia.

Then we've got the Pembrokeshire Coast, and finally we have Bannau Brycheiniog, which is also known as the Brecon Beacons.

So just double check that you've located the Welsh National Parks correctly.

And if you haven't, you can make those corrections right now.

Good job, everyone.

You've done some fantastic learning.

It was really tricky to remember all of the names and the locations of the 15 national parks across the UK, but you've worked through it so well and I'm sure you worked together with your partner to help them if they hadn't quite located them in the right place.

Good job, everyone.

Well done if you've got all of those correctly.

You can give yourselves another thumbs up.

That's fantastic learning for today.

Let's continue with our lesson.

Now that we've located and labelled our national parks on a map, we can now investigate which national park is near you.

So now we know the location of all of the national parks across the UK.

We can work out how close the nearest national park is to our school.

So for example, my school is in Birmingham.

To find out which national park is closest, I can use a map or an atlas that has a scale or I can use a digital map measuring tool.

Let's go through a worked example together.

Most maps have scales.

We can use the scale on a map to work out how big things are in real life because if you're going to draw or represent an area, you can never draw it the actual size it is.

So a scale helps us work out exactly how big something is.

We can measure something on the map using a ruler and compare it to the scale.

This will help us work out how big the distance is.

So on this map, a five centimetre distance would mean that the actual distance in real life would be 200 kilometres.

And I know that it's in kilometres because there's a little km just underneath the scale.

Let's have a little check here.

It's time to answer these two questions.

What is the closest national park to Exeter? And the second question is, what is the closest national park to Glasgow? Pause the video now and complete this check.

Great, everyone, how did you get on? Did you answer Dartmoor as being the closest national park to Exeter? Good job.

Well done if you did.

And did you answer Loch Lomond and The Trossachs as being the closest national park to Glasgow? Fantastic.

Good job if you did.

You can give yourselves another thumbs up.

That is great learning for today.

Great, so let's think about now the closest of the national parks to my school, which is in Birmingham.

We've got three national parks, which I think might be the closest.

It looks like the Peak District, Bannau Brycheiniog, and Eryri might be the closest to my school.

You can see them all located here on this map.

Remember that this is just a map of Great Britain because there aren't any national parks in Northern Ireland.

I'm going to use Digi maps to measure the distance from my school to each of these national parks.

And I'll show you how to do each one as a worked through example.

I'll start with the distance from Birmingham to Eryri National Park.

You can see that I've used a purple line to measure the distance between the two places.

The distance from Birmingham to Eryri National Park is approximately 160 kilometres.

The distance from Birmingham to Bannau Brycheiniog National Park is approximately 120 kilometres.

You can see again that it's represented there on the map with that purple line.

The distance from Birmingham to Bannau Brycheiniog is 40 kilometres closer than to Eryri National Park.

Let's keep going and look at the third national park.

But the distance from Birmingham to the Peak District National Park is approximately 90 kilometres.

That is 30 kilometres closer than Bannau Brycheiniog, and 70 kilometres closer than Eryri, making the Peak District the closest national park to my school.

Let's have another quick check here.

Use this map of Great Britain to answer these questions.

The first one is which national park is the most northerly? The second question is which is the most easterly national park? Look at the compass at the top right of the map to help you.

Remember the mnemonic or that little rhyme to help you.

It's never eat shredded wheat.

The first letter of each of those words is the first letter of the compass directions.

Always start at the top, which is north, and then work your way clockwise to the right to find east.

South is always straight down and west is towards the left.

So let's practise saying that mnemonic together.

My turn, never eat shredded wheat.

Your turn, never eat shredded wheat.

Fantastic.

I'm sure you can use that rhyme to help you answer these two questions.

Pause the video now and complete this check.

How did you get on? Did you answer the Cairngorms as the most northerly national park? There it is located on the map.

And did you answer the Broads as being the most easterly national park? You can see it also they're located on the map.

Well done for completing that check and for using those compass directions to help you work out the answers to the questions.

Good job, everyone.

I'll give you another thumbs up.

That's fantastic learning for today.

It's now time for task B.

So what I would like to do is using the map that you created in Task A, add the location of your school and then use a map or an atlas with a scale or a measuring tool on a digital mapping programme to work out which national park is closest to you.

Then I'd like you to complete the sentence.

I live in, and right where you live, and the national park that is closest to me is, and then locate and write down which national park is closest to you.

Pause the video now and complete Task B.

How did you get on, everyone? Were you able to locate and mark your location on the map? Were you able to measure which of the national parks was closest to you? Did you use the map scale or did you use a digital mapping programme to help you? Well done if you did.

Let's have a look at the example that I've done.

So I live in Birmingham and the national park that is closest to me is the Peak District.

Well done, I'm sure you were all able to locate the national park that's closest to you.

Hopefully, learning about the national parks in this lesson has inspired you to maybe visit one of the national parks that's closest to you.

Well done, everyone, for your learning.

I'm going to give you another thumbs up.

Well done, geographers, you've done some great geography learning today.

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

So what we're going to do is go through a quick summary of all of the learning that we've completed together today.

Nearly a 10th of Great Britain is a national park.

There are 15 national parks in the UK and each one is a protected landscape because of its special qualities.

National parks are working landscapes, as well as being environments outstanding beauty and value.

Maps can be used to learn about the location of the national parks of the UK.

Well done, everyone.

We've learned a great deal today and you've been brilliant.

Thank you for joining me today and sharing your learning with me.

I'll see you next time for more geography Lessons soon.

Goodbye.