Lesson video

Hi there.

I'm Ms. Roberts and I'm here today to take you through this lesson, which is from our new unit of work all about coasts.

In this unit, we're going to be exploring exactly what shapes life at the coast, what happens there, what can we see there, and how do humans interact with our coasts? Today's lesson focuses particularly on the UK's coastline.

By the end of today's lesson, you are going to be able to explain what the coast is, and you will be able to describe how we use the coastline in the UK.

I'd like to start by going through some very important keywords.

These geographical terms are words that you're going to hear frequently during the lesson, and they'll be very useful to you when you're talking about the UK coastline.

Coastline is our first keyword.

The coastline is the boundary between the land and the sea or the ocean.

So where the land and the sea meet, that's the coastline.

Some coastlines have a beach.

You're probably familiar with what a beach is.

A beach, technically speaking, is an area of land.

That area of land is located between two tide marks, and beaches can be made up of different materials such as sand, mud, or stones.

Now, not all coastlines have beaches.

Some of them have cliffs.

You may have seen cliffs before.

They are very tall, vertical rock faces.

And the final keyword for today is to do with human activity at the coast, and that is tourism.

Tourism is when people travel to a different place from where they live and they go there for a short visit or a holiday.

So we're not talking about relocating to a new place; we're talking about visiting somewhere for a short amount of time.

The lesson today is split into two parts.

First, we're gonna ask ourselves, what is the coast? And then later in the lesson we're gonna be exploring how we use our coastlines.

Let's get started.

We've just been talking about what the coastline is.

You can see a picture here of part of the coastline of the UK.

In the UK, you might be interested to know that there is nowhere that is any further than about 112 kilometres from the coast.

So none of us actually live very far from the coast at all.

As we have just been saying, a coastline is a place where the land that we can see here meets the sea, and so this bit in the middle where they meet, that's the coastline.

Here are two more pictures of coastlines, but they look quite different.

This is because our coasts can be made up of different material, and this all depends on lots of different things, including exactly where our coasts are located.

Some parts of our coastlines are beaches that can be made of sand like the one you can see here, that beautiful golden sand.

Other beaches can be made of smooth, round pebbles and stones, and we call this type of beach material shingle.

The UK coastline has both sandy beaches and shingle beaches in different places.

Other parts of the UK coastline don't have beaches at all.

Take a look at these two photographs of coastlines.

Again, these are both in the UK, and again, they are very different.

Some coastlines can just be made of lots and lots of rocky outcrops, like the picture on the left.

Other coastlines can have cliffs, like the ones you can see in this photograph.

So, have you been paying attention? Let's try a quick question.

Is this true or false? All coastlines have sandy beaches.

Make your choice.

Have you decided? This statement is indeed false, but can you say why? Yes, it's false because not all beaches are made of sand.

Coastlines can have sandy beaches, but they could also be made of shingle, those smooth rocks and pebbles we looked at before, or a coastline doesn't have to have a beach at all.

Some of them can just be very, very rocky and others can have cliffs.

Take a look now at this map of the United Kingdom here.

You can see that the United Kingdom or the British Isles is made up of two large main islands.

There are also many hundreds of smaller islands all around the mainland, and this all makes up the coastline of the UK.

We are surrounded in the UK by oceans or seas.

You can see these on the map.

We are surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the Irish Sea, and the English Channel that you can see on this map.

How long do you think the UK coastline could actually be if we were to measure it in kilometres? How big do you think the UK coastline is compared to other countries that are very famous for their beaches like Spain or France? Take a look now at this map of Europe.

We can see the United Kingdom there and we can see lots of other European countries that also have coastlines.

The coastline of the United Kingdom that we have just looked at, so all of our islands, that entire coastline is approximately 12,429 kilometres, so about 12 1/2 thousand kilometres.

That's a very extensive coastline.

It is actually longer than many other European countries, even those that you may think would have a longer coastline.

Let's look at some examples from the map.

Let's start with a country very close to the UK.

France has a coastline of 3,427 kilometres.

Italy in the south of Europe, famous for its very beautiful coastlines, has a coastline of about 7,600 kilometres, so still not as long as the UK.

How about Spain? Spain is very popular with tourists because it has such long and beautiful beaches.

Their coastline must be very long.

The Spanish coastline is in fact shorter than Italy.

It's about 4,964.

So as you can see, our coastline may appear small, but it is in fact very extensive indeed.

Quick question, which of these countries has the longest coastline? A, Spain; B, the United Kingdom; or C, Italy.

Have you chosen? It is of course the United Kingdom.

We've just seen how comparatively longer the UK coastline is.

So based on everything we've heard so far about the UK coastline and what our coastline looks like, let's try a learning activity.

There are some statements for you to read in the table.

First I would like you to decide whether each statement is true or whether it is false, and then when you have read all of the statements, I want you to go back to the ones you decided were false and rewrite them to make them correct.

Pause the video now and then come back when you finish the task and we will look at the answers together.

Ready? Okay, good.

Let's start by going through the statements together and seeing if they are true or false.

A coastline is formed where land meets the sea.

Yes, that is absolutely true.

Coastlines are made of beaches.

What did you decide? That can be true, but it's not always true, so that statement's false.

Beaches are only made of sand.

Some beaches are made of sand, but not all of them, so that's false as well.

The United Kingdom is a nation made of many islands.

This is definitely true.

We saw on the map how we have two main large islands and then hundreds of smaller ones all around our coast.

The United Kingdom has a very short coastline.

No, it does not.

We looked at the map of Europe and we saw how long our coastline is compared to other countries.

And finally, everybody in the UK lives no further than 112 kilometres from the coast.

That is in fact true.

I wonder how far the closest coastline is to where you live.

Let's look at the second part of the activity together now and rewrite those false statements.

Okay, so we begin with this one.

The statement said that coastlines were made of beaches.

What it should say is that coastlines can be made of beaches, rocks, or cliffs.

Then we had the fact about beaches being made only of sand.

Beaches are not always made of sand.

Beaches can be made of sand, but they can also be made of pebbles and stones that we call shingle.

And then finally we had the sentence about the coastline of the UK being very short.

We know that it is not.

The UK has a very long coastline of 12,429 kilometres.

This is longer than some other European countries.

Well done.

So we're now going to move into the second part of today's lesson and think about how we use the coast.

So this is all about humans and how we interact with the environment in coastal areas.

About 5.

3 million people in England and Wales live in our towns, cities, and villages that are located along our coastlines, and there are a great many different reasons why people are attracted to live in coastal areas.

What reasons can you think of? I'm going to share some of my ideas with you now.

One of the main reasons that people are attracted to live in coastal areas is because they are simply such beautiful places to live.

They have stunning, relaxing views of the ocean and of the shoreline, and sunsets and sunrises can be beautiful to look at.

People also live there for the clean air.

If you think about the amount of cars in cities and how much buildup there is of air pollution, the air in coastal areas is much cleaner.

People need to make an income wherever they live, and in coastal areas, a lot of people generate their income through something called tourism.

We mentioned tourism earlier.

Tourism is part of the visitor economy.

People can also make their living through fishing for fresh food and seafood.

Here are some fishing boats moored up at a harbour at a place called Folkestone in England.

Fishing is one of the most important industries in coastal areas of the UK.

It provides both locals and tourists with a source of fresh food from all the lovely fish that they catch at sea.

And the fishing industry is a vital source of jobs and income or money for the people that live in the coastal areas.

Here's a photograph of another fishing port in the UK.

This is Tenby in Wales.

The UK traditionally has a very strong fishing industry.

So tourism and fishing are the two main economic activities that are happening at the coast.

Let's stop for another quickfire question.

Is this true or false? In the UK, many people are attracted to live in coastal areas.

This is of course true.

It's true because as well as being beautiful and clean places to live, there are many opportunities for people living at the coast to have jobs and make their income, for example, through the tourism industry or through fishing.

Let's think some more about the tourism industry now.

Tourism, as we have said, is one of the most important industries in coastal areas.

It's part of the visitor economy, and this is because visitors come to these places, and when they are there, they spend money.

What do they spend their money on? They spend it on places to stay, like hotels and campsites.

They spend it on the food they eat, so when they go out to eat in restaurants.

They spend it on the activities, the things that they do when they're there, and they spend it on being entertained.

All of these things provide jobs in many different ways, and all of those jobs help the local people to earn money.

We are going to look at one particular coastal resort now as an example.

This is a place called Blackpool.

Blackpool is in fact one of the busiest coastal resorts in England.

It's located on the northwest coast by the Irish Sea, and in 2022 it received 22 million visitors or tourists to the area.

That's a lot of people coming to the area to spend their money.

Blackpool became popular a long, long time ago.

It actually started to gain popularity during the time of the Industrial Revolution.

So when cities were becoming bigger and noisier and dirtier, people found that they would like to go to the coast for a break to escape from the city.

Many of Blackpool's most famous landmarks like the tramway and the famous Blackpool Tower that we can see in this picture were built a bit later in the 19th century, but it's those attractions that still bring tourists to the town today.

So thinking about tourism, can you answer this question for me? Here are three pictures which all show coastal areas.

Which one of them shows tourism at a coastal area? Is it A, B, or C? It is of course picture B.

Tourism is to do with people visiting coastal areas and picture B is the only one with people.

Photographs are very helpful to tell us about what's happening in an area, but what can be more useful is to use maps.

This is an example of an Ordnance Survey map of Blackpool.

We can use maps like this to identify why tourists might be attracted to a place.

So looking at this map now, can you identify why tourists are attracted to Blackpool? Look at the map.

What features can you find? Use the map symbols to help you.

Let's have a look at the map together.

So one of the first things to notice is the sandy beach.

This is the reason why most tourist resorts at the coast exist, because they have a beautiful beach of some kind for tourists to go and maybe play there or just sit there and relax and look at those beautiful views.

I can also see on this map some human features.

We have things like train stations and roads.

These are access routes.

Places that are tourist resorts need good access for the tourists to get there easily.

There are other features that are to do with giving tourists somewhere to stay, so we can identify a caravan site here.

Then we also have things for tourists to do.

So tourist attractions here include the Pleasure Beach, which is a theme park.

There is also an ice rink marked on the map and a pier.

So we can see from the map there that there are lots of reasons why tourists are attracted to a place like Blackpool.

Thinking about the features that attract tourists to Blackpool, can you answer this question? Which human features attract tourists to Blackpool? Pause the video and make your choice.

Are you ready? Did you spot that there was more than one answer there? The correct two answers are a funfair and hotels.

A funfair is something for tourists to do to be entertained and enjoy themselves, and hotels provide accommodation for visitors to stay.

It wouldn't be correct to choose sandy beach here because a beach is not a human feature.

A beach is a natural physical feature of a coastline.

Let's put this knowledge about tourism to use by completing another learning activity.

For this task, I want you to use the map of Blackpool that we have been working with.

I want you to annotate the map, that means to label things on the map, and I would like you to write a report to explain why tourists are attracted to this coastal town, Blackpool.

In your report, you should explain how local people living there earn their income from tourism.

You can use all of your learning from this lesson, but you can also use things like the internet, books, even talking to people who know about Blackpool, or other sources of information to do some extra research which you can then include in your report.

Pause the video here, take your time to complete your report, don't forget to annotate the map, and then when you come back, I'll share some examples with you.

All done? I hope you enjoyed researching all about Blackpool.

I've been to Blackpool several times.

It really is a great place to be.

I'm going to share some example answers for this task with you now.

So beginning with the report, first we've inserted a nice photograph here of Blackpool which shows off some of the attractions, including the trams and the world-famous Blackpool Tower.

The written part of this report says: Blackpool is a town on the northwest coastline of England beside the Irish Sea.

It has lots of attractions for tourists to visit including the Blackpool Tower, which has a circus inside it! There are many hotels for tourists to stay in and they can visit the beach or go to the fun fair, museums, the waterpark, restaurants, or take a ride on a tram along the seafront.

People living in Blackpool can earn a living through tourism by providing many of those services to the tourists.

To accompany my report, I have provided the map and I have annotated these features.

I have the beach where tourists can play.

I have tourist attractions.

These are places for visitors to go to and for people to work at.

They include the Pleasure Beach and the ice rink as two examples.

I have also annotated access routes through railway stations and main roads.

And finally, I have labelled some accommodation, which in this particular case is a caravan park.

Accommodation is really important in coastal areas because tourists need somewhere to stay.

Accommodation also provides lots of jobs for local people, from maintenance of these accommodations to the booking and ordering, to cleaning and to customer service.

So we've explored how maps and photographs can help us to identify lots of different features of a location.

This does bring us to the end of the lesson today, so let's review what we've learnt.

We know that coastlines are where the land meets the sea.

We know that the United Kingdom is a range of different islands, and each of those islands has their own coastline, which all go together to make up the coastline of the UK.

We know that some parts of coastlines have a beach, whereas other parts have cliffs, some may have rocks.

And we know that the coastline has many uses for humans.

For example, fishing and tourism industries are very prevalent at the coast.

I hope you have enjoyed today's lesson, and join me again next time to find out some more about exactly what shapes life at the coast.

Bye for now.