Module 1: Developing an understanding of place

Key Focus Question: How can you use the local environment to develop pupils’ understanding of maps and place?

Keywords: local environment; maps; group work; symbols; investigation; game

Introduction

Most pupils have some understanding of the area in which they live. They know the quickest way to their friends’ houses or the local market. When developing their understanding of place and, in particular, their mapping skills, it is always important to start with what pupils know before you move on to what they don’t know. This gives pupils confidence, because you are using what they already understand.

Building on what your pupils know about the physical features of their home and school environments, ensure you move on to more formal mapping of their local surroundings. This provides a meaningful context to explore the symbols used in mapping. The activities in this section will help you encourage your pupils’ skills in observation and help transfer their knowledge into formal symbolic representations.

You will also develop your skills in using group work in your classroom.

Key Focus Question: What different activities can you use to explore why people settle in particular places?

Keywords: resources; case study; group work; settlements; debate; questions

Introduction

Every day of our lives we use resources of all kinds and as the population of the world increases there is great pressure on many of these resources.

As a teacher exploring these ideas with your pupils, it is important to start by finding out what they already know about the resources in their own environment. It is then possible to plan how to extend their knowledge and engage them in thinking more deeply about the issues. The Case Studies in this section show how some teachers explained these ideas and will help you think about what you will do in the activities.

From ancient times to the present, human settlement patterns have been influenced by the availability of usable natural resources. Food, water and shelter are basic human needs, and have thus determined the ability of a society to flourish or fail in its existing environment. Ancient communities such as Egypt developed in river valleys, which ensured access to food and drinking water, and also provided transportation routes for trade. However, the protection and wise use of these resources ultimately determined a population’s ability to thrive and sustain life for future generations.

Egypt is the oldest of all African kingdoms. It had a big influence on the cultures of Europe, Asia and Africa. But why did the ancient Egyptians settle where they did?

Almost 84% of Egypt is desert. The other 16% of land is next to the NileRiver and this where most Egyptians lived. Farmers did not have to worry about overusing the land because each year the NileRiver flooded the farming land and made it fertile again. It was so fertile that farmers harvested two to three crops a year.

As its name suggests, Zambia’s Copperbelt Province was once the copper belt that girded the fortunes of this southern African nation’s prosperity. But over-dependence on this raw material has turned those fortunes into economic and environmental hardship.

The vast copper mines in Zambia once attracted waves of African migrants – from far and wide – in search of employment. But the oil shocks of the 1970s, coupled with the eventual crash in global copper prices, soon exposed the country’s fragile economic growth base, casting the economy into a downward spiral that ended with a near total collapse of its mining industry by the end of the 1990s.

The economic and social impact of the copper belt’s changed fortunes was dire as scores of mine workers were suddenly unemployed with no immediate options of alternative livelihoods. Many turned to the exploitation of natural resources for survival.

Conservation agriculture

WWF is working with the government to promote appropriate land-use planning and setting up forest management schemes with communities living adjacent to protected forests so as to prevent further opening up of protected forests for cultivation.

‘Working with the government will help with efforts to lobby against future de-gazetting of protected forest areas in the future,’ stressed Gumbo.

At the same time, WWF is partnering with the French agriculture research agency, CIRAD, to promote conservation agriculture methods among local farmers in the copper belt, with a view to increasing their yields while conserving the environment.

While conventional agriculture is mainly characterised by intensive tillage, which has contributed to significant soil degradation through the loss of organic matter, conservation agriculture offers a range of soil management practices that minimise effects of erosion and degradation. This includes minimal soil disturbance (no tillage), permanent soil cover and crop rotations.

‘The main objective of this system of agriculture is to increase productivity in order to secure food in households throughout the year and to enable farmers to trade sufficient surplus to meet other financial needs,’ said Frederic Baudron, a CIRAD agronomist who has been working with WWF on integrating conservation agriculture into Miombo’s conservation programme.

Among those WWF hopes to convince to switch to conservation agriculture are charcoal producers, who also practise conventional subsistence farming. Many of these farmers have turned to charcoal production to bridge the gap in their incomes so that they can pay such basic needs as healthcare, school fees, clothing and food.

‘Poverty and food insecurity resulting from poor agricultural practices lead farmers to increase their dependence on natural resources,’ added Baudron. ‘That is why farmers will look for income-generating activities based on surrounding natural resources, such as charcoal burning.’

Subsistence farmer inspects a maize crop about to be harvested. Copperbelt Province, Zambia © Frederic Baudron

According to WWF, promoting conservation farming will not only improve farm productivity, but will contribute to the reduction of habitat loss. The permanent soil covers will also reduce erosion and protect the Kafue River from silting, an objective which is very much a focus of the Miombo Ecoregion programme.

Another part of the Miombo project is to help set up a local council, consisting of key stakeholders in the region, that will agree on land and water uses. WWF views the establishment of such a river catchment council as an important step to negotiate with downstream beneficiaries of environmental goods and services from the copper belt. ‘People who live here must see the value in becoming stakeholders and guardians of their own resources,’ stressed Dr Chambwera. ‘By sustainably utilising the natural resources that are available to them, rural livelihoods in the copper belt can be improved.’

Adapted from: Panda Organization, Website

Key Focus Question: How can you make the study of the weather more open-ended and activity based?

Keywords: problem solving; weather; group work; patterns; observations; brainstorming

Introduction

For many people, watching the weather is an important part of everyday life. For example, farmers need to be able to judge the best time to sow their crops and fishermen need to know when to set out to sea. The weather patterns are different across Sub-Saharan Africa and rainy seasons and sunny periods will vary. Encouraging your pupils to observe the changes and patterns – however small – will help them understand the link between the weather, people and their environment.

In this section, you will use group work to develop pupils’ cooperative and thinking skills. You will plan practical activities to encourage interaction between pupils.

Making a wind vane to measure the direction of the wind

You will need:

• a straight pin
• a piece of card
• a straw
• scissors
• pencil (with eraser)
• tape

Do this:

1. Cut the point and tail of an arrow out of a piece of card.
2. Tape them onto the ends of the straw.
3. Push the pin through the middle of the straw.
4. Stick the pin into the eraser of the pencil. Make sure the straw can turn freely.

Adapted from: Galaxy Net, Website

Making an anemometer to measure the speed of the wind

An anemometer is a device that tells you how fast the wind is blowing. A real one will be able to measure this accurately. Your model can give you an idea of how fast the wind is blowing, but will not be as accurate as a manufactured anemometer.

You will need:

• scissors
• four small paper cups (e.g. drinking cups)
• a marking pen
• two strips of stiff, corrugated cardboard – the same length
• a drawing pin
• a stick
• some clay
• a watch that shows seconds

Do this:

1. Cut the rolled edges off the paper cups to make them lighter.
2. Colour the outside of one cup with the marking pen so you can see it each time it spins around.
3. Cross the cardboard strips so they make a plus (+) sign. Stick them together and mark the middle.
4. Stick or pin the cross to the top of your stick through the middle point.
5. Blow on the cups to make sure the cardboard spins around freely on the pin.
6. Place the modelling clay on a surface outside, such as a wooden fence, a wall or a rock. Stick the sharpened end of the pencil into the clay so it stands up straight.

To measure wind speed:

Using the watch, count the number of times the coloured cup spins around in one minute. You are measuring the wind speed in revolutions (turns) per minute. Weather forecasters’ anemometers convert this speed into miles per hour (or kilometres per hour).

Key Focus Question: How can you raise pupils’ awareness of the issues of resources and pollution in the environment?

Keywords: environment; group investigations; fieldwork; resources; global warming; pollution

Introduction

Developing an appreciation in your pupils of their local environment and the need to preserve and protect it is important if they are to understand their responsibility to care for their environment as a whole. This section aims to help you to structure lessons and activities that will link care of the local environment to worldwide problems of pollution and weather change. To support your pupils, you should read about environmental issues as this will provide ideas for lessons and keep you up to date on key ideas.

By investigating issues such as pollution in real-life situations and by conducting experiments, your pupils will enjoy learning, as they are actively involved in activities that have meaning for them.

Water pollution

Pollution is caused by:

• sewage and fertilisers;
• silt and other sediments (deposited rocks that build up in layers);
• organic material such as leaves and grass clippings.

Water consumption and use

Global water consumption rose sixfold between 1900 and 1995 – more than double the rate of population growth – and goes on growing as farming, industry and domestic demand all increase. 70% of the water used worldwide is used for agriculture. Much more will be needed if we are to feed the world’s growing population – predicted to rise from about 6 billion today to 8.9 billion by 2050.

It is not just us who need water, but every other species that shares the planet with us – as well all the ecosystems on which we, and they, rely.

Disease

More than five million people die from waterborne diseases each year – ten times the number killed in wars around the globe.

Climate change

Climate change will also have an impact. Some areas will probably benefit from increased rainfall, but others are likely to be losers. We have to rethink how much water we really need if we are to learn how to share the Earth’s supply. While dams and other large-scale schemes play a big role worldwide, there is also a growing recognition of the value of using the water we already have more efficiently rather than harvesting ever more from our rivers and aquifers. For millions of people around the world, getting it right is a matter of life and death.

Equipment:

• three saucers, labelled 1, 2, 3
• soil
• three maize seeds
• water
• paraffin

Method:

On a Monday, set up three numbered saucers, each with its own maize seed buried in some soil.

Put water on saucers 1 and 2, and paraffin on saucer 3.

Each day for a week, put water on 1, do not put anything more on 2, put paraffin on 3.

Predictions:

What do you believe will happen to the seeds over the next five days?

Observations:

Conclusions:

Article 1

Global warming is causing a set of changes to the Earth's climate, or long-term weather patterns, that varies from place to place. As the Earth spins each day, the new heat swirls with it, picking up moisture over the oceans, rising here, settling there. It is changing the rhythms of climate that all living things have come to rely upon.

What will we do to slow this warming? How will we cope with the changes we've already set into motion? While we struggle to figure it all out, the face of the Earth as we know it – coasts, forests, farms and snow-capped mountains – hangs in the balance.

Greenhouse effect

The ‘greenhouse effect’ is the warming that happens when certain gases in Earth's atmosphere trap heat. These gases let in light but, like the glass walls of a greenhouse, keep heat from escaping.

First, sunlight shines onto the Earth's surface, where it is absorbed and then radiates back into the atmosphere as heat. In the atmosphere, greenhouse gases (GHGs) trap some of this heat, and the rest escapes into space. The more GHGs are in the atmosphere, the more heat gets trapped.

Scientists have known about the greenhouse effect since 1824, and have calculated that the Earth would be much colder if it had no atmosphere. This greenhouse effect is what keeps the Earth's climate habitable. Without it, the Earth's surface would be an average of about 60 °F cooler. Humans can enhance the greenhouse effect by making carbon dioxide, a GHG.

Levels of GHGs have gone up and down over the Earth's history, but they have been fairly constant for the past few thousand years. Global average temperatures have stayed fairly constant over that time as well, until recently. Through the burning of fossil fuels and other GHG emissions, humans are enhancing the greenhouse effect and warming Earth.

Scientists often use the term ‘climate change’ instead of global warming. This is because as the Earth's average temperature climbs, winds and ocean currents move heat around the globe in ways that can cool some areas, warm others, and change the amount of rain and snow falling. As a result, the climate changes differently in different areas.

Aren’t temperature changes natural?

The average global temperature and concentrations of carbon dioxide (one of the major GHGs) have fluctuated on a cycle of hundreds of thousands of years as the Earth's position relative to the sun has varied. As a result, ice ages have come and gone.

However, for thousands of years now, emissions of GHGs to the atmosphere have been balanced out by GHGs that are naturally absorbed. As a result, GHG concentrations and temperature have been fairly stable. This stability has allowed human civilisation to develop within a consistent climate.

Occasionally, other factors briefly influence global temperatures. Volcanic eruptions, for example, emit particles that temporarily cool the Earth’s surface. But these have no lasting effect beyond a few years.

Now, humans have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by more than a third since the industrial revolution. Changes this large have historically taken thousands of years, but are now happening over the course of decades.

Why is this a concern?

The rapid rise in GHGs is a problem because it is changing the climate faster than some living things may be able to adapt. Also, a new and more unpredictable climate poses unique challenges to all life.

Historically, Earth's climate has regularly shifted back and forth between temperatures like those we see today and temperatures cold enough that large sheets of ice covered much of North America and Europe. The difference between average global temperatures today and during those ice ages is only about 5 °C (9 °F), and these swings happen slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years.

Now, with concentrations of GHGs rising, Earth's remaining ice sheets (such as Greenland and Antarctica) are starting to melt too. The extra water could potentially raise sea levels significantly.

The climate can change in unexpected ways. In addition to sea levels rising, weather can become more extreme. This means more intense major storms, more rain followed by longer and drier droughts (a challenge for growing crops), changes in the ranges in which plants and animals can live, and loss of water supplies that have historically come from glaciers.

Scientists are already seeing some of these changes occurring more quickly than they had expected. 11 of the 12 hottest years since records became available occurred between 1995 and 2006.

Article 2

Article 2 looks at the impact of global warming in Africa.

The African continent is a rich mosaic of ecosystems, ranging from the snow and ice fields of Kilimanjaro to tropical rainforests to the Saharan desert.

Although it has the lowest per capita fossil energy use of any major world region, Africa may be the most vulnerable continent to climate change because widespread poverty limits countries’ capabilities to adapt.

Signs of a changing climate in Africa have already emerged: spreading disease and melting glaciers in the mountains, warming temperatures in drought-prone areas, and sea-level rise and coral bleaching along the coastlines.

The following show some related events:

• Cairo, Egypt – Warmest August on record, 1998. Temperatures reached 41 °C (105.8 °F) on August 6, 1998.
• Southern Africa – Warmest and driest decade on record, 1985–1995. Average temperature increased almost 0.56 °C (1 °F) over the past century.
• Senegal – Sea-level rise. Sea-level rise is causing the loss of coastal land at Rufisque, on the south coast of Senegal.
• Kenya – Mt Kenya’s largest glacier disappearing. 92% of the Lewis Glacier has melted in the past 100 years.
• World ocean – Warming water. The world ocean has experienced a net warming of 0.06 °C (0.11 °F) from the sea surface to a depth of 10,000 feet (3,000 m) over the past 35–45 years. More than half of the increase in heat content has occurred in the upper 1,000 feet (300 m), which has warmed by 0.31 °C (0.56 °F). Warming is occurring in all ocean basins and at much deeper depths than previously thought.
• Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda – Disappearing glaciers. Since the 1990s, glacier area has decreased by about 75%. The continent of Africa warmed by 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) during the past century, and the five warmest years in Africa have all occurred since 1988.
• Kenya – Deadly malaria outbreak, summer 1997. Hundreds of people died from malaria in the Kenyan highlands where the population had previously been unexposed.
• Tanzania – Malaria expands in mountains. Higher annual temperatures in the UsamabaraMountains have been linked to expanding malaria transmission.
• Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, Seychelles Islands – Coral Reef bleaching. Includes Seychelles; Kenya; Reunion; Mauritius; Somalia; Madagascar; Maldives; Indonesia; Sri Lanka; Gulf of Thailand [Siam]; Andaman Islands; Malaysia; Oman; India; Cambodia.
• Kenya – Worst drought in 60 years, 2001. Over four million people were affected by a severely reduced harvest, weakened livestock and poor sanitary conditions.
• Lake Chad – Disappearing lake. The surface area of the lake has decreased from 9,650 sq mi (25,000 km²) in 1963 to 521 sq mi (1,350 km²) today. Modelling studies indicate the severe reduction results from a combination of reduced rainfall and increased demand for water for agricultural irrigation and other human needs.
• South Africa – Burning shores, January 2000. One of the driest Decembers on record and temperatures over 40 °C (104 °F) fuelled extensive fires along the coast in the Western Cape Province. The intensity of the fires was exacerbated by the presence of invasive vegetation species, some of which give off 300% more heat when burned compared to natural vegetation.

• Adapted from original source: http://www.climatehotmap.org

Key Focus Question: How can you help pupils explore similarities between different people and different places?

Keywords: research; cultures; places; environment

Introduction

When teaching social studies, you are confronted all the time with questions of human diversity and commonality.

This section looks at how you can help your pupils compare lifestyle and economic practices across different contexts and cultures. This will help to develop important social studies thinking skills for you and your pupils.

Samfya

Samfya is a town located in the Zambian province of Luapula, and an administrative district. The town is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Bangweulu, on the longest stretch of well-defined shore of that lake (the northern, eastern and southern margins of which are marshy). Samfya has a few guesthouses and a number of white sandy beaches which are used for recreation, although the lake does have crocodiles.

In addition to local government offices and branches of national agencies, Samfya is a commercial and fishing centre, as well as a centre for transport by boat to islands and other areas of the lake. Its hinterland includes farms and some timber plantations.

Samfya district

Most of Samfya district is lake, swamp or floodplain. It covers Lake Bangweulu and the Bangweulu swamps, except for the northeast corner, which lies in Chilubi district of Northern Province. The only extensive dry land is along its western edge where it borders Milenge and Mansa districts. There are numerous inhabited islands in the lake and swamps, as well as peninsulas almost entirely surrounded by water, such as the Twingi peninsula.

Roads

Samfya is on a tarred road opened in 1983 to link the Luapula Province to the Great North Road at Serenje. This includes the longest bridge in Zambia, the Luapula Bridge in the far southeast corner of the district near where four districts meet: Samfya, Mpika, Serenje and the Congo Pedicle, part of DR Congo. Gravel roads also connect Samfya to Twingi, Kapalala and Lubwe.

Mongu

Mongu is a town in western Zambia, and the capital of Western Province, Zambia and Barotseland. It lies a few kilometres from the Zambezi River, to which it is connected by canals.

Mongu is semi desert and sandy. It takes about 6 to 8 hrs to drive to Mongu from the capital Lusaka. It lies by the Barotse Plains, which in the wet season are flooded by the Zambezi right up to the town. It is also home to a cathedral and a water tower, while the Litunga (Lozi ruler)'s summer and winter palaces lie in separate locations nearby. The winter palace is home to a museum, while the Kuomboka ceremony marks the court's transfer between them. Mongu is home to the Lozi (or Barotse) people, who speak a dialect of the (South African) Sotho language.

Among the several shopping places and social places, the town has a large market and an airport. Mongu Airport is mainly used by the Zambian Airforce and the United Nations to transport Angolan Refugees back to Angola. Mongu is known for basket and carpet weaving. It produces the best mango and fish in the country, especially the tiger fish. Mongu is also the major rice growing region of Zambia.

Adapted from original sources: Wikipedia, Website

What is education for sustainable development?

Sustainable development is an integral part of citizenship that will enable pupils to:

• understand that despite physical, material and cultural differences, there is a lot that connects us with the wider world;
• think critically and challenge injustice and inequalities;
• identify, respect and value diversity;
• develop a concern for and commitment to environmental issues and sustainable development;
• be willing to act to make the world a fairer and more sustainable place;
• take responsibility for their actions.

Both citizenship and ESD provide great opportunities for active, pupil-centred learning styles from which pupils get a sense of their role as global citizens. Such an approach to learning includes lessons that explore distant localities and environmental issues. Exploring the local community and then communities further afield will help pupils to expand their thinking about how different communities and cultures can be and how the same problem can be solved in many ways, and provide new ideas to try and test. ESD also explores ways to be more self-sufficient. This means making best use of the resources around you but not using them all up. Thinking about ways you can replenish or replant will ensure continuity. It means using only what you need.

Local resources are not everlasting but have a limit unless we try to share and use these wisely and replace, where possible, what we use.