Lesson video

Hello, my name is Ms. Chorekdjian.

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

I will be guiding you through our lesson.

We're going to do some great learning together.

Let's get started.

Welcome to today's lesson from our unit called "Around the world in 80 days: What have we learnt about our world?" Today's lesson is called "Environmental geography: Focus on North and South America." Your learning outcome for today will be to reflect on and discuss the landscapes, environment and physical features of North and South America.

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

This links back to previous experience you might have of geographical inquiry, map work, fieldwork, and critical thinking.

You might have also reflected on geography as a subject and discussed the value of learning geography.

You might have also discussed how geography helps us to understand the world and how it works.

And you might have used your geographical knowledge, skills, and data to investigate different places.

Here are the keywords.

Let's practise saying them using my turn, your turn.

Physical features.

Physical features.

Landscape.

Landscape.

Wilderness.

Wilderness.

Natural resources.

Natural resources.

Good job, everyone.

Let's find out what these keywords mean.

Physical features, a physical feature is natural and has not been formed or made by humans.

Landscape, a landscape is an area and its landforms and features that can be seen when viewed from another place.

Wilderness, a wilderness is a place or area that is in its natural state and where there are few people and no farming.

Natural resources, natural resources are those that come from Earth without human influence and can be used for human needs.

Good job, everyone.

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

Here are the learning cycles that we will work through together in today's lesson.

First, we'll be looking at landscapes in North and South America, and then we'll be thinking about what a wilderness area is.

I'm really excited to start today's lesson.

I hope you are too, let's begin.

In this lesson, we're going to be exploring the continents of North and South America.

Where are North and South America located? Pause the video here and see if you can spot them on this map.

Were you able to find North and South America? North America is all of that area that's located in orange, and then South America is the area that's located and represented as that grey colour.

Well done if you were able to locate them.

What do you know about these continents already? Pause the video and discuss that with a partner.

Perhaps you can name some famous landmarks in these continents.

Maybe you know some interesting facts about one of the countries in North or South America.

You might even know the names of some of the countries and cities.

Well done if you were able to talk about what you know about these continents already.

Here's a closer look at North and South America.

North and South America are joined by Central America, which is part of North America.

This is the bit called Central America and you can see it joins the two continents of North America and South America together.

North and South America are bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

There's the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

North America is the third largest continent in the world by area.

It includes the huge island of Greenland in the north, the islands of the Caribbean, and the sub-region of Central America.

Canada is the largest country in North America by land area.

So you might have said some of these facts when you were talking about what you know about North and South America already.

South America is the fourth largest continent in the world by area.

It is made up of 12 countries, including Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile.

Brazil is the largest country in South America by land area and population.

It's time for a quick check here.

Sort these countries into North and South America.

Pause the video now.

How did you get on sorting these countries into North and South America? Did you say that Canada, Belize, and Greenland are all in North America, and that South America contains Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador? Good job, everyone.

Well done if you got that right, you can give yourselves a big thumbs up.

North and South America have a diverse range of physical landscapes.

These are landscapes that are natural and have not been built by humans.

A physical landscape is made up of a collection of physical features.

What physical features are there in these continents? Can you name any? Pause the video here and answer this question.

Did you remember any of the physical features that are in these continents? There's a photo there of the Grand Canyon, which is located in North America, so you might have said that.

We're also going to be learning about a few more throughout this lesson.

There are many different and magnificent physical features in North and South America.

There are mountains, glaciers, beaches, and waterfalls.

These are all beautiful, magnificent physical landscapes and landscapes that have not been built or made by humans.

Can you think of any more examples? Pause the video here and answer this question.

Good job, everyone, if you were able to explain and think about more examples of physical features.

It's now time for a quick check here.

Which of these are not physical features? You can select two answers.

A, waterfall; B, bridge; C, mountain; or D, road.

Pause the video here and complete this check.

How did you get on? Did you say bridge and road? That's correct, bridges and roads are made by humans, so that means that they're not physical features because they're not natural.

Well done, everyone, if you got that right.

Glacier Bay National Park is located in the state of Alaska in the north of the USA.

There you can see it located on the globe.

It is home to more than 1,000 glaciers, so you can see that this is a magnificent and beautiful physical landscape.

The Andes form the longest continental mountain range in the world.

The mountains stretch along the western edge of South America, so there again you can see it located on the globe.

Aconcagua is a mountain in the Andes.

With a height of 6,961 metres, it is the highest mountain in the Americas.

So there we've learned about the Andes Mountain Range and then Aconcagua which is the highest mountain in the Americas, so that means both the continents of North America and South America.

Many tourists visit the Caribbean islands in North America each year.

There you can see the Caribbean islands located on the globe.

These islands are famous for their beautiful beaches and coastlines, so that's why they attract a lot of tourists, because the scenery is beautiful.

Iguazu Falls are a collection of waterfalls of the Iguazu River.

The waterfalls are shared by Argentina and Brazil, so there you can see them located on the globe.

The name Iguazu comes from the Indigenous term for great water, and you can see that those waterfalls are absolutely magnificent.

They form wonderful physical landscapes.

It's now time for a quick check.

What is the name of the highest mountain in the Andes? A, Aconcagua; B, Denali; C, Everest; or D, Kilimanjaro.

Pause the video here and answer this check.

How did you get on? Did you remember the name of the highest mountain in the Andes? It was Aconcagua, that's correct.

Well done if you got that right, you can give yourselves another big thumbs up.

It is now time for Task A.

What I would like you to do is to research an example of a landscape in North or South America and complete the table below.

Types of physical features, the country or countries where it is located, and then an interesting fact about that landscape.

Pause the video now and complete Task A.

How did you get on with Task A? Here's a completed example.

I looked at the Grand Canyon.

The type of physical features it has is a steep-sided river valley.

The country where it's located is the United States of America.

And an interesting fact about it is the canyon is 277 miles long and reaches a depth of more than one mile.

So that's one example of what I've completed, but you could have completed many other different examples of places in North or South America.

Good job, everyone.

You can give yourselves a big thumbs up there.

It's now time to move on to the next part of our lesson.

We're going to be thinking about what a wilderness area is now.

Many of Earth's natural landscapes have been changed by humans.

People might change landscapes by growing crops, building houses, factories, and roads.

So there's an example of that image there showing you how this landscape has been changed due to the building of roads.

Extracting or removing natural resources to use, such as wood, oil, and minerals.

Can you think of any other ways that humans might change the landscape? Pause the video and answer this question.

So humans might build other things apart from houses, factories, and roads.

They might build big shopping centres, they might build visitor attractions linked to certain areas to promote their landscape, and they might do other things as well.

Good job if you were able to say some of the other ways that humans can change the landscape.

Wilderness areas are wild, natural areas on Earth that have not been developed by people.

They don't have human features such as roads and buildings.

Very few places on Earth are completely untouched by humans.

Here's a photograph of the Amazon River and the Amazon rainforest.

They're located in South America.

Wilderness areas are found on every continent, so you can see here the wilderness area that's found in the continent of North America and then the area that's found in the continent of South America.

Here's the Arctic tundra in Alaska, United States of America, and the boreal forest in Canada, and here's the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.

Some areas of North and South America are still largely undisturbed by people, so that means that they've got areas of wilderness.

It's time for a true or false check here, so you've got to think really carefully about whether or not this sentence is true or false.

There are people living everywhere in North and South America.

Pause the video here and answer that question.

How did you get on? Did you say false? That's correct, there aren't people living in areas of wilderness.

Let's justify our answer now and explain why it's false.

Although most places have been developed by people, there are still some areas of wilderness.

Or B, nobody lives above the Arctic Circle.

Which of these justifies why that statement is false? Pause the video now and answer this question.

How did you get on? Did you say A, there aren't people living everywhere in North and South America? And that's because although most places have been developed by people, there are still some areas of wilderness.

Good job, everyone.

Well done if you got that right, you can give yourselves another big thumbs up.

Torres del Paine National Park is protected areas of mountains, glaciers, lakes, and rivers in southern Chile.

Although Torres del Paine is a popular tourist destination, there are still some parts that are mostly untouched by people.

Boreal forests cover large parts of Northern Canada and the state of Alaska in the USA, and you can see them there represented by that green colour on the map.

Boreal forests are also found in several other countries, including China, Norway, and Russia.

The northernmost parts of North America, Canada, Greenland, and Northern USA, are covered by Arctic tundra.

There is very little rain and snow and temperatures remain below freezing for most of the year.

The Amazon rainforest spans eight countries and one overseas territory in South America.

It is the largest rainforest in the world.

People have lived in the Amazon rainforest for thousands of years, but there are still some parts that have not been explored.

It's time for a quick check here.

In which of these two countries is tundra found? You can choose two options.

A, Brazil; B, Greenland; C, Jamaica; or D, USA.

Pause the video here and complete this check.

How did you get on? Did you say Greenland and the USA? That's correct, those are two countries where tundra is found.

You can give yourselves another big thumbs up.

It's time for another check.

Where is Torres del Paine National Park located? A, Argentina; B, Brazil; C, Chile; or D, Ecuador.

Pause the video now and answer this check.

How did you get on? Did you say C, Chile? That's correct, that's where Torres del Paine is located, in Chile.

There aren't many places in the world that have been completely untouched by people, and these areas of wilderness are getting smaller and smaller.

It is thought that about 17% of the Amazon rainforest has already been lost.

It's an area roughly the size of France, so that's such a large area to lose.

Why is the Amazon rainforest getting smaller? Pause the video now and answer that question.

The Amazon rainforest is being lost, so that means it's getting smaller, for lots of different reasons.

Some of the reasons include logging, so that means cutting down the trees and using them as building materials, hydroelectric dams, cattle ranching, mining, growing crops, urban development, wildfires, and climate change.

So you can see that there's a lot of different reasons why the Amazon rainforest is being lost, and most of them are because of human activity.

The Earth's remaining wilderness areas are also being impacted by climate change.

For example, rising temperatures are thawing North America's Arctic tundra landscapes, and that means that the ice there is melting.

This affects the plants and animals that live there.

Many people around the world are taking action to protect the Earth's remaining wilderness areas.

They're doing it by making new laws to protect wilderness areas, tackling climate change, and campaigning for people in power to do more.

Some places are also being restored so that they turn back into the areas of wilderness that they used to be.

So you can see there's a lot of people taking action to try and protect the Earth's remaining wilderness areas.

It's time for a quick true or false.

The Amazon rainforest is getting smaller.

Is that true or false? Pause the video now and answer that question.

Did you say true? That's correct, so now let's think about justifying our answer and explaining why the Amazon rainforest is getting smaller.

Is it because A, the Amazon rainforest is being lost mostly because of human activity such as logging, cattle ranching, urban development, and mining? Or B, the Amazon rainforest is being lost because of natural causes and wildfires? Pause the video here and justify your answer.

How did you get on? Did you say A, the Amazon rainforest is getting smaller because the Amazon rainforest is being lost mostly because of human activity such as logging, cattle ranching, urban development, mining, et cetera? Good job, everyone.

Well done if you are able to get that right, you can give yourselves another big thumbs up.

It's now time for Task B.

What I would like you to do is to research one of the remaining areas of wilderness in North or South America, and then I'd like you to complete a fact file about it.

So I'd like you to include the type of wilderness area, the country or countries in North or South America where it is found, a description of it, why it is under threat, and then actions that people are taking to protect it.

Pause the video now and complete Task B.

How did you get on with Task B, geographers? Here's an example of a completed fact file.

The type of wilderness area I've chosen to focus on is the boreal forest.

The country or countries in North or South America where it is found include Northern Canada and the United States of America.

A description, "Boreal forests are one of the world's largest land biomes.

Winters here are long and cold with lots of snow.

Most of the trees are conifers such as pines, spruces and larches.

Conifers keep their leaves all year round and grow better in this cold climate.

Animals living in boreal forests include bears, caribou reindeer and moose.

Many of the birds living in these forests migrate to warmer climates during the very cold winters.

Boreal forests have also been home to Indigenous peoples for thousands of years." Why is it under threat? "Large parts of the boreal forests in Canada and USA are still wilderness areas, but much of the forest further south has been affected by human activities.

Some of the forest has been lost because of logging.

Other land uses such as building hydroelectric dams, mining, and oil and gas extraction, are also disturbing these wilderness areas." Actions that people are taking to protect it.

"People are taking action in different ways such as creating protected areas, managing forests in sustainable ways, and encouraging companies to only use products from forests that are managed responsibly." Maybe you could share your learning with others to help raise awareness of this issue.

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

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

There is a range of magnificent physical features in North and South America.

North and South America have some large areas of wilderness that are home to many different plants and animals.

People interact with the environment in North and South America.

This can have positive and negative consequences.

You've been fantastic today.

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

I'll see you next time for more geography lessons really soon, bye-bye.