Year 4 · People, settlements and resources
Describe and understand key aspects of human geography, including types of settlement and land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals and water
Lesson overview
Describe and understand key aspects of human geography, including types of settlement and land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals and water
Key learning points
This lesson at a glance
Words to know
Scroll down — the lesson carries on below
Watch & discover
Part 1 of 19
Watch first
Compare busy cities, in-between suburbs and quiet countryside.
Do it for real
The practicals below use what the film shows, with a full method you can follow at home.
In a nutshell
Describe and understand key aspects of human geography, including types of settlement and land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals and water
What you already know
Part 2 of 19
Before we start
You know what land use means and can read a map key.
Key words
Part 3 of 19
Key words
Learning cycle
Part 4 of 19
Learning cycle 1 of 2
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Explore the idea
Part 5 of 19
Learn
A hamlet is a handful of houses. A village has perhaps a shop and a school. A town has many shops and services. A city is bigger still, usually with a cathedral or university, and huge cities running into each other are called conurbations.
Explore the idea
Part 6 of 19
Learn
Early settlers wanted fresh water, land they could farm, wood or stone to build with, and somewhere defendable such as a hill or a river bend. Later, settlements grew where routes crossed, where a river could be bridged, or where a harbour sheltered ships.
Quick check
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Quick check
Quick check
Part 8 of 19
Quick check
Reset break
Part 9 of 19
Pause
Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.
Learning cycle
Part 10 of 19
Learning cycle 2 of 2
A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.
Explore the idea
Part 11 of 19
Learn
In most towns, shops cluster in the centre, housing rings around it, and industry sits near main roads or railways where lorries can reach. Parks, schools and hospitals fit between. A land-use map of your area shows this pattern clearly.
Explore the idea
Part 12 of 19
Learn
No country has everything it needs, so places trade. The UK imports bananas, coffee and much of its fruit, and exports things like machinery, medicines and cars. Energy comes from gas, nuclear power and increasingly renewables: wind, solar and hydro.
Quick check
Part 13 of 19
Quick check
Quick check
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Quick check
Investigate evidence
Part 15 of 19
Evidence 1 of 1
mapHistoric town plan and modern street map, 1900 and present day
1900: a market square, a railway station, a mill beside the river, fields on all sides. Today: the mill is flats, the fields are housing estates, a ring road loops round the edge.
Comparing two maps of the same place is how geographers show change over time.
Think like a historian
Name two ways the town has changed, and suggest one reason the settlement grew where it did in the first place.
Source: Historic map collection and modern street mapping.
View the archive record ↗Common mix-ups
Part 16 of 19
Common mix-ups
Challenge round
Part 17 of 19
Game · Sort it
Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.
True
Not true
Mastery quiz
Part 18 of 19
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Lesson round-up
Part 19 of 19
Lesson round-up
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Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?
Ask LunaDo the work
This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.
Flooding on the River Calder
The town of Harbrook sits where a steep valley opens onto a flat floodplain. In December 2015, 120 mm of rain fell in 36 hours onto ground that was already saturated. The river rose 2.4 m in five hours, and 380 homes and 54 businesses flooded. Two roads and the railway closed for eleven days.
Geographers pointed to physical causes — steep slopes, impermeable rock, heavy rainfall — and human causes: moorland drained upstream, new housing built on the floodplain, and drains designed for smaller storms.
Since then the town has planted 40 hectares of woodland upstream, built leaky dams in small streams, and raised flood walls to 1.8 m. In the storm of 2020 the peak river level was 0.3 m lower and 40 homes flooded, not 380.
Written for Good Learning Co.
Reading questions
Source for this lesson
Use this for the source work task below.
A 1900 town plan compared with the same town today
mapHistoric town plan and modern street map, 1900 and present day
1900: a market square, a railway station, a mill beside the river, fields on all sides. Today: the mill is flats, the fields are housing estates, a ring road loops round the edge.
Comparing two maps of the same place is how geographers show change over time.
Source: Historic map collection and modern street mapping.
View the original record ↗Case study notes
WritingWrite the place, the facts and the figures from this lesson so you can revise them later.
Half a page
Explain answer
WritingAnswer in full sentences, giving causes and effects. Use one figure or place name as evidence.
8–10 sentences
Map or sketch
DiagramDraw the map, cross-section or field sketch with a key, title and labels, then photograph it.
1 map with a key
Data work
Working outPlot your figures as a graph on paper and write one sentence about the pattern.
1 graph + 1 sentence
Saved as you type.
Part 1 of 19 · Watch & discover
