by Paula Owens

Geography Resources Who goes to school by boat?

Key Stage 1

About Digimap for Schools Digimap for Schools is an online mapping service for use by teachers and pupils providing easy access to a range of current Ordnance Survey maps including the most detailed mapping available for Great Britain, OS MasterMap, as well as digital versions of Ordnance Survey's famous paper maps, the Landranger and Explorer series. Also included are street level maps showing street names and road-atlas style maps. Maps can be printed as PDF files at A3 or A4 size with an individual's own map title and name included with the scale bar and school name and address. Search tools include postcode, place name or national grid reference and maps can be moved to centre on any chosen location within Great Britain. Map keys are available for each scale map to explain the symbols used within the map. Maps can be annotated with symbols, lines, areas, text and can be saved to be reused during another session. Digimap for Schools is a subscription service. Schools purchase a subscription for 12 months access to the service. Details on subscriptions can be found at http://digimapforschools.edina.ac.uk/subscribe.html. Terms of use of the service can be found at http://digimapforschools.edina.ac.uk/termsofuse.pdf. For further information or to give feedback on our resources, contact the EDINA Help Desk on 0131 650 3302 (Mon- Fri 9-5) or email edina@ed.ac.uk.

About the Author: Dr Paula Owens

Paula worked for many years as a primary teacher and Deputy Head and is currently a freelance consultant, author and trainer specialising in primary geography and sustainable schools. She is also employed two days a week by the Geographical Association as Primary Curriculum Development and Primary Geography Quality Mark Leader.

Paula has worked with government agencies and NGO’s to develop curriculum materials and provided INSET in National and European contexts. She is co – editor of the award winning series ‘Geography Plus: Primary Teachers’ Toolkit’ and leads an online network of ‘Geography Champions’ to support primary teachers.

Geography Champions network http://geographychampions.ning.com The Geographical Association www.geography.org.uk

© EDINA at the University of Edinburgh 2012 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Digimap for Schools Geography Resources Ref No: 4 Title of Activity: Who goes to school on a boat? Level: Key Stage 1 Context: Living on an island, travel to school Location within GB: Scilly Isles: Bryer and Tresco Knowledge / Skills: Reading and interpreting information from a map / Measuring distance/ Adding annotation to a map. Link to Curriculum: travel and transport, locating and describing places, using geographical vocabulary, Island home. Scottish Curriculum For Excellence: (Social Science Outcomes: People, Place and Environment): 1-13b, 2-14a, 2-09 a

Note to Teacher The amount of independent work children are able to manage will depend on their familiarity with the software and experience of using maps in general. The step by step tasks are not meant to be read alone by children but as a guide for you the teacher to demonstrate with the whole class and / or direct individuals as appropriate. Each activity has several ideas within it that you can tailor and adapt to suit your class and children. The aim of the pack is to:

• Support you in developing the use of Digimap for Schools in the classroom across the primary age range

• Develop the skills of your pupils in the use of the full suite of tools that is currently available

• Suggest some ideas for developing mapping across the curriculum • Save you time and provide inspiration!

The contexts for the learning include both ‘physical’ and ‘human’ geography, and will explore different scales of mapping from the school grounds to locations in England, Scotland and Wales.

Digimap for Schools Geography Resources

Activity Investigating how children who live on an island travel to school. Where are the Scilly isles? How do people get there? What is Bryer like and where do children go to school? Pupils use maps to explore and annotate information as they answer these questions.

Introduction The Isles of Scilly are a clustered group of 150 islands known as an archipelago. They can be found approximately 45 kilometres off the SW coast of Cornwall, mainland England. People get to the islands by boat, plane or helicopter. On the small island of Bryer, the few children who live there travel daily to the neighbouring island of Tresco by boat to attend their nearest school. There are two main quays on Tresco: one on the East and one on the West side of the island. The eastern quay is further from Bryer yet leads directly to the school whilst the western quay is much closer to Bryer, yet further from the school. Pupils usually travel directly to the eastern quay on Tresco to go directly to the school except in bad weather when the nearer quay is used. Digimap for Schools enables pupils to ‘explore’ these islands at different scales, appreciating their landscape, size and location.

Main Activity This activity involves sharing Digimap for Schools maps first with the class using an interactive whiteboard (IWB). Pupils could then work individually or in small groups to investigate further and create their own maps: use your knowledge of your class to select appropriate individual tasks for them to do from the list below. There are some suggested images to support these activities and help pupils imagine what these islands are like. You may also set this activity up by watching the Adventures of William Whiskerson available on BBC Class Clips. http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/ Recap with children how they get to school then pose the question: who might go to school by boat? Gather suggestions. Introduce the term ‘island’ if pupils are unfamiliar with this and discuss what an island is. Explain that you are going to investigate how children who live on the island of Bryher, one of many islands in the Isles of Scilly, get to school and where their school is. Ask pupils if they have heard of this place and where they think it might be. Take suggestions as to how they can find out using Digimap.

Tasks 1. Working as a class, open Digimap and enter the search term ‘Isles of Scilly’ and

zoom out to show whereabouts the islands are. You could point out Land’s End, the

most extreme westerly point of the mainland of England as many children may have heard of this place.

Zoom to Level 4* using the toolbar and ask pupils children to look carefully at the map, noticing these symbols in particular:

Ask pupils to guess first what they might mean, then, open up the Key and ask children to look for and identify the symbols, reading together what they mean. Use questions to discuss: • How do people get to the islands?

• Where do they fly from and to?

• How long is the ferry crossing?

• Where does it travel from and to?

2. Ask pupils to guess in kilometres how far out to sea these islands are from the mainland. Remind them of the distance some of them travel to school to give them an idea. Then model how to use the measuring tool to measure distance, choosing which points to measure from and to. For example you might measure between the airports, the helipads, or from Land’s End to the nearest island.

Open the ‘Measurement tool’, select ‘Measure distance’ and click and drag from starting point, double clicking on end point to see the distance in kilometres.

3. Zoom into the islands of Bryer and Tresco. Can you find these places?

• Quay at The Town, Bryer,

• Quay at New Grimsby, Tresco

• Quay at Old Grimsby, Tresco

• The school on Tresco which is marked on the map as

Open the Annotation tools and choose one shape to mark the position of the three quays and another for the school.

4. Zoom out again until you can see both islands clearly enough to plot routes that the boats might take to travel between Bryer and the quays on Tresco. Use two different colours to show what you think the route might be between:

• Bryer Quay to Old Grimsby Quay

• Bryer Quay to New Grimsby Quay

5. Discuss how it might feel to go by boat to school every day. What happens in really rough weather?

Add  a  line Select  one  feature  to  

Select  line  colour

Taking it further:

• The Adventures of William Whiskerson is a new series by the BBC showing the travels of an explorer mouse and will be available on the Class Clips section of the BBC website. On one of his adventures, William visits the island of Bryer to meet some children and travels with them by boat to school for the day. Watch the film and see what else you can find out about Bryer and the journey to school. Or, use the film as an introduction.

• Find out where else in GB children might travel to school by boat and make a map to show this.

• Explore the island of Bryer by zooming in to a large map view and use the Key to try and identify the features. What kind of a place is it?

o What is the landscape like?

o Are there lots of houses?

o Do they have any shops there?

• Use a zoomed in view of Bryer to find out more about the place names on the island, or use the printable map provided. Use Worksheet 4 to find some of the more unusual names on the island, like ‘Droppy Nose Point’. Try to think of reasons for some of these names.

• Using the place names of Bryer, write a short story about being shipwrecked there and your exploration of the island.

Additional Resources

Worksheet 4: Exploring Bryer Island

Weblinks: Many of Michael Morpugo’s books such as Why the Whales Came and the Wreck of the Zanzibar are set in the Scilly Islands so reading extracts from these books would help to set the scene. http://www.readingmatters.co.uk/book.php?id=119 Images of Bryer and nearby islands can be found by searching Geograph or Flickr The quay at Southward, Bryer http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2735305 The quay at Bryer http://www.flickr.com/photos/28743559@N03/3143086769/ More general images and information http://www.intocornwall.com/engine/azabout.asp?guide=Isles+of+Scilly

Search for ‘William Whiskerson’ visiting Bryer. You might also like to see ‘Barnaby Bear’ visiting Orkney on Class Clips for another view of island life. http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/ Geographical Association Members can access free photo images of the Isle of Coll in Scotland www.geography.org.uk *There are twelve levels of zoom. Level 1 is when you are zoomed out as far as you can go and Level 12 is when you are as close as you can get. Let pupils practise counting the Levels from 1 – 12, starting from a ‘zoomed’ out view. Remember to count the level you start on as number 1 if preparing to zoom in and from number 12 if preparing to zoom out.

Exploring Bryer island: Worksheet 4 Search term for Bryer using Digimap for Schools: ‘the Scilly Isles’ Use Digimap for Schools to find and explore the island of Bryer by zooming until you can see place names. Can you find these places and guess where they got their names from? Write down or draw your ideas.

1. Watch Hill

2. Heathy Hill

3. Hell Bay

4. Droppy Nose Point

5. Moon Rock

6. Stinking Porth

What other interesting names can you find?

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40000m

Paula Owens

Jan 05, 2012 13:55Scale 1:4000000 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 km

Digimapfor

Schools© Crown copyright/database right 2012. An Ordnance Survey/EDINA supplied service. FOR SCHOOL USE ONLY.

Paula Owens

Jan 05, 2012 14:54Scale 1:10000

Quays on Bryer and Tresco

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Digimapfor

Schools© Crown copyright/database right 2012. An Ordnance Survey/EDINA supplied service. FOR SCHOOL USE ONLY.

Paula Owens

Sample Map Activity 4Jan 06, 2012 19:47Scale 1:10000

Place names on Bryer

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Digimapfor

Schools© Crown copyright/database right 2012. An Ordnance Survey/EDINA supplied service. FOR SCHOOL USE ONLY.