Lesson video

Hi there.

Welcome to this geography lesson.

My name is Ms. Roberts, and I'm here today to take you through a really exciting lesson in which we're going to use digital maps, special digital maps called a GIS, a geographic information system, to help us to identify different types of landscapes that we can find in North and South America.

By the end of the lesson today, you will be able to use a GIS, a geographic information system, and you'll be able to use it to investigate different types of landscapes in North and South America.

So are you ready and excited to get started? Good job.

Let's go.

So we're going to begin with looking at some keywords.

These words are really important words for you to understand because you'll hear them a lot today, and not only will you hear them a lot.

I would like you to be able to use them yourself too.

That's what's important, and that's why they're keywords, because they're words that you should be using when you talk about using a GIS.

Our first keyword is something you've already heard today, and that's GIS.

That's the abbreviation for geographic information system.

A geographic information system contains lots of digital maps and digital features, and they allow us to investigate geographical patterns.

There is a particular GIS called the Geography Visualiser that you are going to be using in this lesson to investigate landscapes of North and South America.

Our next keyword is biome.

Can you say biome? Good.

A biome is a large area, an area or a space that within that area the plants are very similar.

The wildlife, the animals, are very similar, and the average climate that is experienced in that area is very similar as well.

So we call that area with all those similarities a biome.

Finally, we have landscape.

Now when we talk about a landscape, we're talking about an area and the features of that area, and they could be natural things like the hills and rivers that we see in the landscape, or they could be human-made things as well, like the buildings and the roads, things that have been constructed.

We have two parts to today's lesson.

Firstly, we are going to think about how we can identify different biomes using a GIS.

So that's the first thing.

Let's identify these biomes.

Later we're going to investigate those landscapes using the GIS.

So let's begin with our first part of the lesson and think about identifying different biomes.

A GIS, like the Geography Visualiser that we're using, contains digital maps and lots of information which helps us to investigate geographical patterns.

This is a screenshot from the Geography Visualiser.

What do you think this map is showing? Take a couple of moments now just to have a good look at this screenshot.

What do you think this map is showing us? Did you notice in the top right corner there we have something called a legend? The legend, or the key as it's sometimes referred to, tells us what everything on the map represents.

It gives us the information that we need to know to be able to interpret that map.

This legend tells us that this map in particular is showing us where volcanic eruptions have taken place.

Those eruptions are represented by the triangles that you can see on the map.

The basemap, which is a layer, the bottom layer, the basemap of this image, is a satellite image of the world.

It's a satellite picture of our whole world, and a layer has been added on top of that to show us those volcanic eruptions.

It's using this layering function that we can really begin to see explanations for patterns, and you'll be doing this yourself shortly.

Before we do move on to look in the visualizer in more detail, let's have a quick pause for a check on our learning.

Is it true or false to say that a layer is a background map on a GIS? Hmm.

Did you say false? Good stuff.

It is false.

A layer isn't the background map on a GIS.

So now could you maybe try putting into words a reason why this is false? What can we say? Did you have ideas like this? A basemap is the background.

The basemap is what we start with.

So in that volcanic eruption screenshot, we had an image of the world, a satellite image.

That was our basemap.

The basemap shows us things like countries, rivers, roads, however detailed that map may be.

A layer is a selected amount of specific information that we then apply on top of the existing basemap, and those layers can add extra information that we need to see.

So in that screenshot we were looking specifically at volcanic eruptions.

Now the Geography Visualiser is a free-to-access GIS that you are going to be using yourself to investigate biomes in North and South America.

So before you try to do an activity using the visualizer, let's watch a video that's been prepared by another of the Oak Academy teachers, Mr. Schofield, who's going to show you all of the interesting things that we can do with the GIS.

<v Instructor>We're going to use the Geography Visualiser</v> to identify some features of different landscapes that we can find in North and South America.

Now if you've not used the Geography Visualiser before, there's some important little tips that we can use to help us move the map around and to zoom in and out.

So to move the map around, or pan the map as we call it, what we can do is we can hold the left button down of our mouse, and then we can drag the map.

So we've got what we want in the middle of the screen.

So in this case, we've got North and South America now in the middle of the screen.

To zoom in and out, I can either use the scroll wheel of my mouse, so that's the middle wheel between the two buttons, and I can zoom in by rolling it forwards and zoom out by rolling it backwards.

Or I can use these buttons here where it says Zoom in, a little plus button, and a minus button, which is Zoom out.

Either of those will work.

Now at the moment what we have on the screen is a satellite image of the world, but on top of that we've also got the borders of the countries and the names of some countries and some key cities.

And we call this map an imagery hybrid map.

So it's kind of a mix between a satellite image and some information that they put on the map to show us where the countries are.

And this is a type of basemap.

A basemap is a background map on a GIS, a geographic information system.

Now if you look at the bottom toolbar, on the left-hand side, I can click on Basemaps, and I can choose from lots of different basemaps, but for now actually imagery hybrid is good for our purposes.

So what I would like to do is I would like to choose four places in North and South America in different parts of North and South America, maybe equal distances apart.

And we want to investigate them.

We want to find out what it's like, maybe what could we expect there.

What plants would we expect there? What wildlife would we expect there? We want to find that sort of information out.

So the first thing I've got to do is choose where I'm going to investigate.

So to do this, I'm going to go to the bottom toolbar, and I'm going to click on Sketch.

And when you click on Sketch, a popup menu will come up, and we can click on one of these symbols.

And what that means, I can now put these symbols where I like on the map.

And I'm going to choose four places that we can then investigate roughly equal distances apart.

So I'm going to start right in the north, so I'm going to click here.

You can choose somewhere else if you like, but I've chosen here, which is actually in Alaska, which is a state in the United States, which is quite strange 'cause it's not linked to the rest of the United States.

I'm then going to come down.

I'm going to choose somewhere that looks quite different, and I can tell it looks quite different by just looking at the satellite picture and seeing that it just looks different.

It's a different color.

So I'm going to click somewhere on the United States-Mexico border just here.

And again I'm going to then move the map down by holding the left button down and dragging it.

I'm going to choose somewhere again quite different.

Can see that that's in Brazil.

And I'm going to come right to the south of South America, and I'm going to click on a fourth one.

So I've now got four different points on the map that I can now investigate.

I'm now going to close this popup menu 'cause I don't need any more symbols on my map.

And what I would like to do is I would like to know what sort of biomes these four places are.

Now, a biome is like a huge ecosystem where the plants and the animals and the climate is quite similar over that area.

So to find that information out, I need to add what we call a layer of data.

So what that means on a GIS is we've collected the information over geographical space, and then we've turned it into a map.

And I can add this layer of information by adding a layer at the bottom.

So if I click on this Add layer on the bottom toolbar, I'm going to scroll down.

I'm just using the scroll wheel of my mouse, but I can use this handle on the right-hand side.

And what I'm looking for is this bottom one where it says World Biomes - Elementary.

So where it says add, there's a little plus button.

I can add that.

And you'll see on this bottom toolbar now that it now says 2, and that means there's two layers on the map.

One layer is just the little symbols I've put on, but the other layer is this information about where the world biomes are.

I'm going to close this down now.

This is a choropleth map, which means we use colors to show information.

Now at the moment we might not know what all these colors mean, but if I click on legend, it tells me what they mean.

So the orange area's a desert.

This light green is grassland.

This light blue is lake.

I can even click on an area, and it will tell me what this biome is.

So it says this biome is taiga, which is like boreal forest, coniferous forest.

Now you may have noticed that our points, our symbols, have disappeared.

So there's a little trick to help us here to see them again.

If I click on Map layers, I need to move this sketch, which is our symbols, back up to the top 'cause that will bring it to the top of the display.

So if I bring this to the top, you can see they all come back again, and I can see where my points are.

So I can zoom into this area, and I can click on this area where my point is, and it tells me the biome.

So this is tundra, which has a cold climate, frozen soils, and it's treeless.

So we'd expect quite a blank area, but we can look at what that might look like later, but we know that this is tundra.

I can scroll down and look at my next place, and I can click on it, and it tells me this biome is desert.

This orange area is desert.

So I think we might know what that means.

It's going to be a hot desert, so I would expect not much vegetation.

I would expect it to be quite sandy.

I can scroll down.

I can click on this, and it tells me it's tropical forest, so, tropical rainforest.

I'm gonna go all the way to the bottom, and I've clicked in this area here.

And actually if you look at this, it's kind of separate to everything else.

It says, "This biome is rock and ice." So we'll have to have a look at what that might look like later on.

So we've used a layer of information, a layer of data, to tell us about the biomes of our four different location.

So we're able to start finding things out about these places and investigating the characteristics of these different landscapes.

<v ->Thanks, Mr. Schofield.

</v> What a really clever idea to be able to pin those four locations and then move around that entire continent and look at the different biomes.

How interesting.

Okay, so before we move on to a little activity where you'll get to have a try with the visualizer, let's just pause for a brief check on our learning.

Here's a multiple-choice question.

"Which of these buttons.

." These buttons are all found on the visualizer that you've just seen the video of with Mr. Schofield.

"Which of these buttons would open up a key showing what the different colors or symbols mean?" Is it A, the Map layers, B, Add layer, or C, the Legend? It's C.

Legend is another word for key, and we mentioned that on the screenshot earlier, didn't we? A legend or a key helps us to interpret a map by showing us what everything represents.

Now task A for this lesson is an opportunity for you to use the Geography Visualiser, so you will need to be on the internet to do this.

You can do this on whatever device you're watching this on now.

And remember that you can come back and look at the instructions on this slide at any time, so it's okay to need to check on what to do each step along the way, especially when something is new.

And when you've done that, you can spend some time dragging the map around.

Make sure that you've got North and South America in the center of the screen.

So when you've opened the world map, move it across so that you put South and North America in the middle of your screen.

When you've got North and South America sat in the middle of your screen, then it's time to really dig in and start investigating.

So begin by clicking on Sketch in the bottom toolbar, and from there, select the point symbol in the popup menu.

The point symbol, we've got an example of it there for you.

Then choose four places, any four places of your choice, but what I would like you to do is make sure that they are fairly evenly spaced between North and South America, so roughly about the same distance apart.

So you'll have two in North America and then two in South America.

Add a point in each place.

When you've done that, you've chosen your locations to investigate, you can click on Add layer.

From there, choose World Biomes - Elementary from the popup menu.

When you've selected World Biomes, then you can go to each of those four locations you've chosen, and you can discover what the biome is.

You can identify the type of biome in that location.

I wonder if they'll all be the same.

Why don't you have a go on the visualizer now and find out for yourself? And remember, you can come back here to check the instructions at any time.

When you're ready, and you've investigated some biomes, come back and I will have an example ready to show you as well.

Okay, all done? Good job.

Okay, so you should have had a map that looked like this, and you may have identified some of these biomes as well.

In the far north of North America, there are some coniferous forests called taiga, not to be confused with the stripey wildcat.

Taiga is a type of forest, and it's also called the boreal forests.

We also have a desert biome in North America there.

You can see that on the orange area on the map there.

Moving into Brazil in South America, we have tropical rainforests.

And then very far down in the bottom of South America here, this fourth location is actually a grassland biome.

So we can see that we have got very cold taiga regions.

We have very hot desert regions.

We have tropical, luscious rainforests, and we have grasslands, very diverse and different landscapes across North and South America.

We're going to move into the second part of our lesson now.

Now that we've identified those biomes, we're going to investigate the landscape some more using the Geography Visualiser.

The Geography Visualiser allows us to be able to look at some satellite and aerial imagery.

These are essentially photographs taken from above, taken from great heights above, actually, taken by satellites in space or from drones or planes flying high in the atmosphere.

2D images like the one you can see here on the left, it helps us to identify things like vegetation, human settlements, large rivers.

We can see things like that in a 2D image.

The visualizer, however, lets us take things a step further by providing a 3D environment for us to explore.

It makes these aerial images into a 3D situation that can really help us to understand and see those shapes and the heights and the depths of the landscape around us.

Later you'll be having a look at both 2D and 3D images on the visualizer.

For now, let's pause for a brief check on our learning before we continue.

Here is a true-or-false question.

"A 2D aerial image makes it easy to see the shape of the land." Is that true, or is that false? This is false.

Now, can you tell me why it is false? It's false because 2D images are taken directly from above, and so for that reason it's difficult to see the hills and the valleys because it all seems flat in a 2D picture.

However, a 3D environment, a 3D image, makes it much easier for us to actually visualize and see the shape of the landscape around us.

Mr. Schofield has prepared another video for us about how to use those 2D and 3D tools in the visualizer.

So he is going to take you through how you can use those tools to understand better what those landscapes in North and South America actually look like.

Over to you, Mr. Schofield.

<v Instructor>In this video,</v> we are going to use the Geography Visualiser to investigate each of our four locations and see what the landscape looks like.

So you can see at the moment we've still got on the layer which shows the different biomes around the world.

We've also got the four different locations shown by each of these symbols.

Now we already know what biomes we can find at each of these locations, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this layer showing the biomes off the map.

Now the way I'm going to do this is I'm going to come to the Map layers button in the toolbar, and where it shows a little tick next to the world biomes, I'm going to untick this.

Now this means I can very easily get this back on by ticking the visibility again, but if I untick it, it just shows us the map without those colors on it.

So the way we're going to investigate each of these landscapes is we're just going to use the basemap.

So we've got this satellite and aerial imagery, and we're going to use this to explore each location and find out what it's like.

So let's start with this point in Alaska.

So I'm going to zoom in now, and I'm going to use the scroll wheel of my mouse, and I'm going to zoom in to look at what this looks like.

We can see the symbol here, and as long as we're investigating in this area roughly where the symbol is, then that's fine.

So it's fine if I'm looking over here, or I'm looking over here.

That's fine.

I'm really interested to see what these are because they look quite strange, don't they? So I can look from the top, and you can see there's lots of white here, and I might be able to guess that this is snow, and it looks like maybe these are mountains.

Now, these long white stretches are actually glaciers, big rivers of ice, so I know that this is a cold area.

But the Geography Visualiser has a really useful tool to be able to investigate this a little bit more, and that is the 3D tool.

So, at the moment, this is looking just from above, but if I click on 3D in the bottom toolbar, it changes it to a 3D view.

Now I can still hold down the left button of the mouse and move it around, pan the map.

I can still zoom in by using the scroll wheel of the mouse or using the buttons at the side.

But I can also, if I go to this "Toggle to pan or rotate in 3D" and click it, rather than it moving the mouse around when I hold the left button down and move the map, it actually tilts the map.

So now I can really see these mountains in a bit more detail, and I can see that, okay, there's these snowy tops.

I can really get a good look at these glaciers and what they look like, and it's a magnificent landscape.

If I want to pan again, I can come back and click this again and move to a different part of the map.

If I want to go back to 2D, I can change that in the bottom toolbar.

So by looking this way, I can really be able to describe the landscape.

So I can see snowy mountains, and I know that these are glaciers, big rivers of ice running down.

There really isn't much trees and vegetation.

I can't really see vegetation at all at the moment.

I can just see these snowy mountains and suppose maybe some grasses a bit lower down.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm now going to add some information to the map.

So I'm going to click on 2D.

I'm going to zoom back out.

And now I can see the symbol again.

And I can zoom right out, and, you know, you can still see the symbol on the map.

And what I would like to do is I would like to put some of my own information onto this map.

So what I can do is I can click on the Sketch button.

If I go to the tools, there's an arrow which says Edit at the end.

If I click on this button, it allows me to actually click on the symbol, and once I do this, I can add some information to the symbol.

So if I click on Add so I now can write something in this title section, I'm going to write, "Alaska," and I know that is in the USA.

So this is North America.

And I'm just going to give a really simple description in here, so, "Snowy mountainous landscape, glaciers in the valleys." Now you can write what you like in here.

I've added this "glaciers in the valleys" here because I know a little bit about glaciers, but if you're not sure about these, that's absolutely fine.

You can just describe what you see in this location.

And then what I can do is even if I come back off this sketch, what happens now is if I click on this button, it actually gives me that information on the map.

Now I can come down, and I can do this for all my locations, so I could click on this one.

And I can click on this one.

I can click on the bottom one.

Now I'm gonna show you one more, but when you do this, you can do this for all of your locations.

So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to zoom in to look at what that looks like on the satellite image and then the aerial image from here.

And you can see on my screen that it's just a sea of green, isn't it? So we can imagine this sort of canopy of the rainforest that we're looking at above.

Now I can change this to 3D.

And again if I toggle to pan or rotate, it will allow me just to look around.

And you can see here that, I mean, it's just miles upon miles of rainforest in all directions.

So if I were to add some information to my map, I can zoom back out, come to 2D.

And if I click on Sketch and then Edit, click on the symbol, and then I can add by just clicking this Add button.

And then you can see that I can add some information here.

So it can write "Brazil" and show where it is.

I can write in "Rainforest." And this time, I'm going to just add a URL, so that's essentially a webpage with a picture.

So I can actually put a picture on here.

So if I add a web address of an image and then close this down, what it means when I click on this symbol.

So even if I zoom right out, I can click on this symbol, and what comes up is it gives me title.

It tells me my description, and I just put "rainforest" in here.

And I've actually put an image of the Amazon rainforest onto my information box.

So it shows that we can actually upload some of our own data onto this GIS, which is incredibly useful, especially if we're wanting to complete some of our own field work and then show that on a map.

And that could be over a huge scale like North and South America or in a local scale around your school.

So we can do this with all four of these points, and we can put a description in, and we can even add images to show what they look like.

And you can see between using layers, for example, the biome layer, and using satellite and aerial imagery, we can really show just what the different landscapes in North and South America look like.

<v ->Thanks, Mr. Schofield.

</v> That was really interesting when you click on the the 3D view, and it's almost like you're walking round in those amazing landscapes yourself.

So before we move on to task B for today, and you have an opportunity to try out the visualizer 2D and 3D tools, let's just pause briefly and make sure that we were all paying attention.

Here are three more buttons that you will see on the visualizer.

I want you to identify which of them allows you to add your own information, your own images or labels to the map.

Is it A, Add layer, B, Sketch, or C, Legend? Pick one.

Ready? Did you choose option B, Sketch? Well done if so.

Sketch is the button that has the popup menu attached where you can add all of those things to it.

Okay, so task B is another opportunity for you to use the visualizer today.

You may still have the visualizer open from last time with your four locations there already saved, which is fine.

If not, when you open up the visualizer, you can put those pins in again.

So first of all, you're going to use that Imagery Hybrid basemap and zoom into any one of those four of your locations.

And when you zoom in, you can then use the 2D and 3D views to have a good look around.

Have a look and see what that landscape actually looks like.

Then you can click Sketch in the bottom toolbar.

You can select the Edit arrow from the popup menu and click on that point symbol.

You can click Add to then put in your own information.

You could give this a title.

You could write a description.

You might even be able to upload a picture like Mr. Schofield did.

I would like you to do that for all four of your chosen locations in North and South America, and that's part one of today's task.

For part two, I would like you to have a discussion with your partner.

Thinking about those locations and all the work that you've done on the visualizer, why is it useful to be able to add your own information to a GIS like you have done today? Don't forget, you can come back to the instructions for part one at any time.

If you pause the video now, then you can work through this, spend some time on the visualizer, complete part two, have that discussion with your partner.

And then when you come back, I will have some examples to share with you as well.

I hope you enjoy the task.

Okay, all ready? Well done.

Well, you should have had descriptions for your point symbols, and they may have looked like this one.

When you've zoomed out, you'll be able to see this description here, which is a description that Mr. Schofield put in for Alaska.

So in your conversations with your partner, did you have ideas like Aisha and Alex did, for example? Aisha says that "adding information to a map on a GIS helps to show you things that are important." I think that's very true.

That's a very good point, things on there that are important that you want to remember, and you can add that information about them.

Alex says, "We could carry out fieldwork and mark where our schools, parks or shops in our local area are found." And that's true as well because although we were investigating a very large area from North to South America, you can also use a GIS to investigate your local area, a much smaller space.

And when you're doing that sort of fieldwork, it can be very useful to add that information to a GIS.

I do hope that you've enjoyed using the visualizer.

It's a very useful tool as a geographer to be able to use a GIS.

So to summarize what have we done today, what can we now say, we can now say that the biomes in North and South America can be identified using the layers tools in a GIS, like the visualizer.

We can use the 3D tool to help us understand what the landscape of that biome looks like.

And finally, we can add our own data into a GIS so that we can use it to present information to others.

What a useful technique that we have explored today.

Hopefully you'll have opportunity to use it again in future for other geographical concepts.

That's all from me today.

I will see you again soon for another geography lesson.

Bye for now.