Lesson video

Hi, everybody.

It's Miss Simkin here, ready to teach your next science lesson.

I hope that you are ready to be scientists today.

It's great to see you back here.

So in today's lesson, we are going to be learning about habitats.

And we are going to answer the question: Can a city be a habitat? This is what we're going to do in today's lesson.

We're going to start with our star words and some quick recap, like we always do.

Then we're going to answer the question: What is a city? Then we're going to look at what lives in a city.

And then we're going to look at something called urban green spaces.

And we are going to make our own poster.

At the very end of the lesson, you'll then have a chance to see how much you can remember in your end of lesson quiz.

For this lesson, you are going to need, please, a piece of paper, a pencil, a coloured pencil, and you might want more than one colouring pencil today because we're going to be drawing a poster and you're going to need your brain.

If you don't have any of those things, could you pause the video and go and get them for me now, please? Great.

Okay.

Let's wake up our brain so they're ready to do some learning.

Start with a gentle tap and then shake your body.

Get the blood flowing to your brain.

And finally, three deep breaths.

Great, to get the oxygen flow into our brains.

I feel ready to begin now.

Do you? Let's start with our star words.

I'm going to say them, and then you're going to say them.

Urban.

Rural.

City.

Pet.

Organism.

Great.

Let's talk about what these words mean.

So a city is an area where lots of people live really close together, which means there have to be lots of buildings close together for those people to live in.

Urban and rural are two types of places.

So we use urban to describe things like towns or cities where you have lots of people and lots of buildings.

And we use rural to describe places that are in the countryside, so where there's not as many people and there's not as many buildings.

Can you take a second and think for me, do you live in an urban area, so a city or a town, or do you live in a rural area in the countryside? Just have a think for me, maybe even look out your window and see how many buildings you can see.

Great.

So I live in a city.

I live in an urban area with lots of buildings close together.

And that's the habitat that we're going to learn about today.

Okay.

Our next word is pet.

A pet is an animal that's kept in our home.

So my dog, Charlie, is my pet.

And an organism is any living thing.

So it could be a plant or an animal.

Let's start with some quick recap.

Can you remember our definition of a habitat? Use the picture to help you.

A habitat is the natural.

of an organism.

What's meant to go in that gap? Say it to your screen.

Home! Great.

Now, can you say the whole definition for me? A habitat is.

Great job.

So far, we've looked at rainforest habitats and desert habitats.

So there's a picture of both on the screen.

How would you describe a rainforest habitat? Can you say it out loud? Rainy, humid, and lots of trees.

Good job.

How would you describe a desert habitat? Can you say it out loud? Dry, hot.

When is it hot, during the day or the night? The day.

And cold, when is it cold? In the night.

Good job.

Okay.

Now that we've done our recap, let's start with our learning for this lesson.

What is a city? So here is a picture of an urban area and here is a picture of a rural area.

Have a close look for me, pause the video and can you make a list, you can either say it out loud or write it down of the differences you can see between the pictures? So for example, I can see that there is lots of grass in the rural picture, but there's not lots of grass in the urban picture.

What other differences can you see? Pause the video and make your list.

Great.

So you can see in the urban area that there's lots of buildings, that the buildings are very tall and there's not many trees or grass.

These are some of the things that you might have said.

Whereas in the rural area, we don't have that many buildings.

I can only see two buildings here.

And then there's some buildings back here just in the distance, and back here.

But there is lots of green.

There's lots of grass and lots of trees.

So those are some of the differences that you might have spotted.

So this is a city and it's the habitat that we're going to be learning about today.

We're going to think about what animals live in a city.

We know that lots of humans live in cities and we are a type of animal, but what about any other animals? Can you have a think for me? What organisms can you find in a city? If you live in a city, then think about what you might be able to see, what animals and plants you might be able to see when you walk to school.

If you don't live in a city then maybe you visited a city before.

What animals did you see on your visit? Pause the video and have a think.

Hmm.

So some of the animals you might have come up with were pigeons, seagulls, foxes, squirrels, birds, maybe rats.

There are lots of animals in the city.

We're going to learn about a few more of them today.

Now, did any of you say cats or dogs? Well, you're right.

Cats and dogs do live in a city, but do they count as having a city as its habitat? So think about our definition of a habitat.

It's the natural home of an organism.

Now, pigeons, for pigeons, the city is their habitat because although the city has been built by people, the pigeons have chosen it as their habitat.

Nobody's forced the pigeons to live there.

But what about pets? Do pets have a choice about where they live? No, they don't.

Okay.

They don't count as part of the city habitat because they're not living there freely.

They're not wild animals.

Humans have put them in the habitat, a bit like the zoos.

Remember, zoo animals didn't count, zoos don't count as a habitat because the animals are put there, they're not wild.

Okay? Let's learn about some animals that do count that do have the city as their habitat.

So the first is pigeons.

Now, pigeons live in large numbers in cities.

And almost any city that you visit will have lots of pigeons.

They like to find bits of food that have been dropped on the floor.

And they like to make their nests on the window ledges or on the roofs of buildings.

Where do they make their nests? Good job.

Another animal that is common in cities, although you do get them in the countryside as well, is foxes.

Now, it's not that common to see a fox during the day in a city, but foxes are quite active at night.

They're nocturnal animals and you'll often see them rummaging through the bins because that's where they find most of their food in cities.

They go through people's rubbish bins.

And even if you haven't seen a fox before, you might have woken up and seen a bin that's been made a big mess of outside of your house or on your street before.

It was probably a fox that did that.

Where do foxes like to get their food? Say it to your screen.

From bins! Good job.

Another animal that lives in the city is a rat.

And cities are full of rats.

Rats live everywhere that humans do.

You might not see them very often, but they are often living in the drains and underneath the pavements or within the walls of buildings.

Where do rats live? So in drains or in walls of buildings.

They can live almost anywhere.

And our last animal that we're going to talk about today is the squirrel.

So again, squirrels can live in the countryside as well, but they're very common in cities.

They tend to build their nests, which are called dreys.

What are they called? My turn, dreys.

In trees.

So although there aren't as many trees in cities as there are in the countryside, there are still trees on most streets and in some parks, and this is where squirrels make their nests.

Okay.

So here is a picture that represents a street in a city.

So you can see a tree, some buildings, and then a rubbish bin on the side.

It's just a quick picture that I drew.

I'm going to put something on the screen, and I want you to tell me which of those four animals would you find there.

So what were the four animals we looked at again? Can you remember? So pigeon, fox, squirrel or rat.

Okay? Which animal would you find here? Say it out loud.

Great! A squirrel.

Squirrels make their nests in trees.

Which animal would you find here by the rubbish bin? Say it out loud.

Great! A fox.

That's where they find their food or most of their food.

What animal would you find here on the top of a building? Say it to your screen.

That's right, a pigeon.

That's where they make their nests.

And what animal might you find underneath the road in the drains? Say it to your screen.

That's right, a rat! Good job.

Okay.

In the next part of our lesson, we're going to learn about urban green spaces.

So we know that cities are full of buildings and people, but there are still green spaces in these urban places.

So here's a picture to show you one.

You can see this big park in the middle of a city.

So parks, meadows, heath, and commons are all types of green space that you would sometimes find in towns and cities.

And they're a really important part.

They're important for lots of animals like butterflies and bees and birds, and also humans.

Humans who live in cities love having green spaces because it's great to go to the park to go do exercise, to spend time outside.

And butterflies and bees and birds love them as well because that's where they make their nests or get their food from flowers.

So it's important that we look after our urban green spaces.

So your final task of the lesson is to make a poster about green spaces.

These are the steps you need to follow.

First of all, you need to choose a title.

So I would start with a blank piece of paper.

It could be lined, it could be blank, but I'd probably start a new page, and I would write my title at the top, either here or here.

So our poster is going to be about saving green spaces.

So you might want to choose your title as save our green spaces, which is what it says on here.

Save our green spaces! So that's the first thing you're going to do.

You're going to make your title.

Posters are best when they're bright and colourful and eye-catching, so you can pause the video and write your title.

Draw your title for your poster for me now, please.

Great.

Step two is to draw a picture of a green space.

So you need to draw a picture of a park or a heath or a common, maybe think about a favourite green space that you like to visit.

So pause the video and draw a picture of that.

That can take up most of your page.

Pause the video and do that now.

Brilliant! Now, the next thing you're going to do is you're going to draw some of the things that find green spaces really useful and need us to save green spaces.

So in your picture, I'd like you to include a picture of a butterfly and a bee and a bird and a human.

So you can draw yourself or another person enjoying the green space.

Okay? Can you draw at least one of these four things and then label it as well? So write next to it, human, bird, bee, butterfly.

Pause the video and do that for me now, please.

Great! If you haven't already, you can go back and add some bright colours to your poster now.

Good job! So just before we end the lesson, can a city be a habitat? Let's think about that question.

So a habitat is a natural home of an organism.

What do you think? Can a city be a habitat? Hmm.

You might think no because a city is made by humans.

It's not natural.

But remember, it can be made by humans as long as the animals, the organisms that live there choose to do it freely, if they live there naturally.

So pigeons, foxes, rats, and squirrels all choose to live in city habitats.

So a city can be a habitat.

Great job today! You have worked really hard and I hope that you are proud of your Save our green spaces posters.

If you would like to share your work with Oak National, so maybe the work you've done today or any of your work from the rest of our habitat lessons, then you can do that by asking your parent or carer to share your work on social media and tagging @OakNational or #LearnwithOak.

They can also tag @Teach_STEMinism and then I will be able to see your work too.

Well done for all of your great learning on habitats.

Just before you go, make sure you do your end of lesson quiz, which is your last one of this unit.

Thank you so much for being such fantastic scientists.

And I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Bye, everybody!.