Lesson video

Hello, welcome to this geography lesson.

My name is Miss Roberts, and I'll be your teacher today.

I'm really excited that you've chosen to join me for this lesson because I love traveling.

I love going on holiday to different countries and experiencing new things.

This lesson is going to help you understand how we can use digital maps to plan a trip to a different time zone.

Are you ready to get started? Me too.

Let's go.

By the end of today's lesson, you are going to be able to use something called a GIS.

That's a geographic information system, and you're going to use that to investigate the differences in time and climate between your home place and a country in a different time zone.

Let's begin by looking at some really important keywords for this lesson.

Now, these keywords are things that you are going to hear a lot during the lesson today, and they're words that I would really like you to be able to use yourself as well.

Our first keyword is GIS.

You've already heard this.

A geographic information system is a digital map system.

It's an online set of data, and it allows you to look at various different types of maps and see and understand geographical patterns that they show us.

A layer is a part of that GIS.

It's a part of the digital map system, and it's when you layer one map on top of another.

A time zone is an area of the world that uses the same time.

So in one area it will all be the same time; in another area, it will all be the same time.

Those areas are called different time zones.

There are two parts to the lesson today.

First of all, we are going to think about how a GIS can show us time zones around the world, and then later we are going to think about how a GIS can help us to plan a trip across those time zones.

So let's make a start and begin by thinking about how a GIS can show us time zones.

When we travel on holiday to a different country, we need to do some preparation first.

We don't just wake up one morning and think, "I know, I'll go off to a different country today." What would you like to know? What do you think we need to know before we travel to a new place? Izzy says she would like to know about the time difference, and Jun says that he would want to know what the weather would be like.

I think they're both very reasonable things to need to know about.

We have to know about the weather so that we can pack the right clothes with us.

We don't want to pack our winter woolens if we're going somewhere nice and warm.

And it is very useful to know about the time difference, so we know what time it will be when we arrive there, and we know what time it is at home if we want to contact our friends and family.

A geographic information system is a type of digital map that geographers can use.

And we can add, view, and compare information within a GIS, and that can help us to understand places better.

This picture is a screenshot from a GIS called the Geography Visualiser, and that's the GIS that we are going to be using today.

There are lots of different buttons and features on a GIS.

For example, the button that I've highlighted here is a button that we can click to add layers on top of maps to provide us with more information.

So if we look at the second screenshot that I've just added, you can now see the same map, but it has more information.

It has lots of circles added to it now, and those circles represent major cities around the world.

So we have added that layer on top of the original world map that we could see.

Before we move along, let's have a quick pause here at this point to check on our learning so far.

Here is a multiple-choice question for you.

Can you tell me what GIS stands for? Is GIS a geographic information system? A geographic information service? Or a geographic information survey? Hmm, choose one.

Did you choose option A? Well done.

It's a geographic information system, GIS.

We're going to look at how we can use a GIS like the Geography Visualiser to look at the time zones of different places around the world.

Another of the Oak Academy teachers, Mr. Schofield, has recorded a video for us to show us how to do just that.

Over to you, Mr. Schofield.

<v Mr. Schofield>In this video,</v> we are going to use the Geography Visualiser, which is a geographic information system, to look at different time zones around the world.

Now, a few basic things about the Geography Visualiser in case you've not used it before.

First thing is, you may need to move the map around.

So to do this on my mouse, I can hold the left button of the mouse around and then drag the map to a different part; we call this panning.

So you can see now that India is in the center of the screen, and I can again click on the left side of the mouse and drag back, so the UK is roughly in the center.

The other thing that's really important to be able to do is to zoom in and out because we might need to investigate at a more local scale.

So I can use the scroll wheel of my mouse to do this.

So there's zooming in and zooming out.

But I can also, on the left-hand side, use these zoom out and zoom in buttons, and that allows me to zoom in so we can look at the world at different scales.

Now, at the moment, we have a satellite image of the world, but we've also got the borders of the countries on the map.

So we call this an imagery hybrid map.

And this is a type of basemap.

And a basemap is a background map or satellite image.

And you can see at this bottom toolbar it says "basemaps." And if I want to change the basemap, I can click on this, and I can choose from lots of different background maps, different basemaps.

But I don't want to do that right now.

What I would like to do is I would like to add some data onto this map, and I would like to add the data or information about the different time zones of the world.

Now we call this a layer of data, and there's two places in the Geography Visualiser that I can find layers of data.

I can click on this "Add layer," and there is lots of different options for me to choose, or I can choose on this "Open map" in this bottom toolbar, and that will give me lots of different maps that have already been curated with a data layer on it.

In this video, I need to use this "Open map" button.

So I'm going to click on this with my left button, and you can see lots of different maps, different layers of data that have now appeared.

If I scroll down, I'm using the scroll wheel of my mouse, but I could use this handle, I can come to the bottom, and you can see there's lots of different layers.

You can see there's a layer showing the cities around the world, for example, here.

But we need this layer where it says "Time Zones." So if I click on this, there's a number of things that happen.

First of all, you'll see there's lots of yellow lines on the map, and they are the time zones of the world, and we'll look at those in a second.

But the other thing you'll notice is the basemap is no longer a satellite image.

It's actually a kind of white map with the countries on.

Now, the reason it's changed that is it's much easier to be able to see the time zones if it's on a white background.

So rather than change the basemap back to a satellite image, I would just keep it as it is 'cause they're much easier to see this way.

So we can see these yellowish lines running down the map now, and this is showing the time zones around the world, but at the moment, it's difficult to know what they mean.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to drag to the UK in the middle.

I'll zoom in a little bit.

And I'm going to click on an area just somewhere within the UK, and you'll notice that this whole area, which is all of the time zone, has been highlighted in turquoise, and it doesn't matter if I zoom out or zoom in, it's still going to be highlighted in this sort of turquoise color.

And we can see it says zero: "The local time here can be calculated by adding or subtracting zero hours to the Greenwich Mean Time." And the Greenwich Mean Time is the time we have in the UK.

Greenwich is in London, and it is a time that is used internationally to work out what the time is around the world.

But that means that we don't really need to do anything to Greenwich Mean Time, 'cause it's the time that we use.

But if I choose a different place, if, let's say, I click on Finland here, you'll notice that all of a sudden we've got a different area which has been highlighted, and then it says two: "The local time here can be calculated by adding or subtracting two hours to Greenwich Mean Time." So that means if I want to know what the time is in Finland, I need to know what the time is in the UK.

So let's say it's one o'clock in the afternoon in the UK, and I can add two hours to this to know what the time is in Finland.

So two hours onto 1:00 in the afternoon would make it 3:00 in the afternoon in Finland, 3:00 p.

m.

So that's what's happening if we're going towards the east of the UK.

What happens, let's say, if I click on Greenland here, you'll see that now this area of land is highlighted, and you can see that it says minus three.

So, "The local time can be calculated by adding or subtracting minus three hours to Greenwich Mean Time." So that means that if it's 1:00 in the afternoon in the UK, then it's going to be 10:00 in the morning, 10:00 a.

m.

, in Greenland, and in wherever it's highlighted on this area.

So the east of Brazil, for example, will be the same, also into Argentina.

So there are a few things to note about this map.

Generally, the time zones run from north to south, kind of marked down lines of longitude around the world, but it's not perfect, is it? Because it kind of takes into account country boundaries.

We have some countries, let's say the United States, whereas if you look at it, there is different time zones across the country.

So, depending on where you were in the United States depends upon the time.

So countries aren't always in the same time zone, especially if they're really wide across the world.

So they're stretched really far from east to west.

Now there are some exceptions.

There are some countries that you may be able to find where you would expect there to be different time zones, but there's actually not.

<v ->Thanks, Mr. Schofield.

</v> I really liked how we could see so clearly on the world map the different time zones that went all around the world, and how we could really easily work out what the time is in different places.

So were you listening to how we could do that? Take a look at this screenshot, and let's have a check on our learning.

If it's 1:00 p.

m.

in the UK, what time will it be in Lithuania? This is a country further east from the UK in Europe, and it's highlighted on this map.

Pause the video for a moment, look at all the information that that screenshot provides, and when you are ready, I will give you the answers.

Ready? Did you remember to read the information on the visualizer? It says that the local time here can be calculated by adding or subtracting two hours to Greenwich Mean Time.

So we need to add two hours to find the time in Lithuania, which will be 3:00 p.

m.

Well done.

Try this true or false question: Is it true or false to say that time zones change as we travel north to south across different lines of latitude? Is that true or false? This is indeed false, but can you give us some reasons why? Maybe you had some ideas like these: Time zones change as we move from east to west across different lines of longitude, not latitude.

So that statement was a little bit muddled up, wasn't it? This is time now for you to use the visualizer yourself.

This is a free-to-access online GIS.

You can access it on the same device that you are watching this from now, and we've put the link there for you to open it.

I'm going to go through the instructions with you now, but remember, you can come back and check these instructions again at any time, especially when you are using a system that you may not have used before.

So this could be brand new to you.

Click on the link to open the visualizer.

Click on "Open map" in the bottom toolbar when you have opened the visualizer, and then you can scroll down to select the world time zones layer.

You may need to click on a second page of map layers to find it because there are a lot of options of different layers that the visualizer can provide.

Then I would like you to use that time zones layer to work out the time in these different countries when it's 1:00 p.

m.

in the UK.

There are three different countries for you to look at: India in Asia, Bolivia in South America, and Mongolia, which is also in Asia.

When you've done that, I would like you to find at least one country which is spread over different time zones and write down the name of it, please.

Finally, have a good look around the map and think about what you notice.

You found a country in 2A which has lots of different time zones because it's wide and stretched far from east to west.

Can you find another country like that that doesn't have those time zones? Pause the video now.

Don't forget, you can come back to the instructions if you need to, and when you are ready, I will have some examples ready for you.

Good luck and enjoy the task.

All done? Your time zones map probably looked like this one here.

We kept the white background, and then you have the yellow lines there from north to south showing us all those different time zones.

You should have located India, Bolivia, and Mongolia, and worked out their times.

If it is 1:00 p.

m.

in the UK, then in India it is half past 6:00, in Bolivia it is 9:00 a.

m.

in the morning, and in Mongolia it is 9:00 p.

m.

in the evening.

For part two, I wanted you to name one country which is spread over different time zones.

Now, you could have chosen the USA, which was the example that Mr. Schofield showed us in the video.

You may also have noticed Russia as well.

Antarctica does also have many time zones.

You might have chosen that one, but Antarctica isn't a country; it's a continent.

So that wouldn't fit our criteria here.

For part B, I asked you to look for other countries which look that they might have had different time zones; they're stretched far enough, but they don't have a different time zone.

You might have said China, for example.

China is a huge country in Asia, but it's all in one time zone.

We're going to move into the second part of the lesson today now, and we're going to think about using a GIS to plan a trip.

I love planning trips; it's one of my favorite things.

So let's see now how we can use a GIS to help us do just that.

As well as a time difference, when we are planning a trip or a holiday, we need to know lots of other things about the place that we're visiting, especially about the weather.

Remember, at the start of the lesson, Jun said it was what he wanted to know about.

So why do you think it would be important for us to know about the weather in a location? Did you have an idea like Lucas? We need to know what clothes to pack, don't we? We need to know if we are taking waterproof coats and heavy boots, or if we can take our flip-flops and our swimming costumes.

In the GIS, in the Geography Visualiser, you can use the "Add layer" button again to look at different types of information, and this means that we can investigate lots of different geographical features about places.

So the "Add layer" button is the plus button, if you remember, in that bottom toolbar.

Aisha and Sofia are talking about using the visualizer to add layers.

Aisha says, "You can add more layers onto the map by selecting the 'Basemaps' button." Sofia says, "You can add more layers onto the map using the 'Add layer' button." Who is correct? Aisha or Sofia? It's Sofia.

Well done, Sofia.

She says that we can use the "Add layer" button.

That's got the little plus symbol, so you want to add more information by putting on another layer.

We can use the Geography Visualiser to add layers that include temperatures around the world and rainfall around the world.

And this can all help to inform us to better prepare for our trips.

So Mr. Schofield has recorded another video for us, telling us all about how to do just that.

Over to you, Mr. Schofield.

<v Mr. Schofield>In this video,</v> we are going to use the Geography Visualiser to help us plan a trip to a different country.

So, at the moment, I've got the imagery hybrid basemap on the screen.

You might have the map showing the different time zones, but let me show you how to get back to there if you're not sure.

So, at the bottom, as before, we click on the "Open map" button on the toolbar, and we scroll to the bottom, and you can see the time zones.

And once I click that, we'll see the basemap go back to a white basemap with the country borders on, and you will see the yellow lines showing the different time zones will appear on the map.

And I'm going to just drag it so the United Kingdom's roughly in the middle, and we know it works.

So currently, we've got one map layer, which is one layer of information, essentially, one layer of data, which is the time zone data on the map.

But we want to add some other layers because I want to find out a little bit more information about the country that we are going to go to.

So the way I'm going to do that is I'm going to come to the bottom toolbar, and where it says "Add layer," I'm going to click on this, and you can see there are lots of other layers of data that I can now add to the map.

So if I scroll down, I can do that by using the scroll wheel of the mouse, or I can drag this handle.

You'll see that there's one here saying "Global Rainfall 1981 to 2010." And I'm going to click on the add button here, and you'll notice that where it says "Map layers" on the toolbar is now gone to number two, and you'll probably see that the map color has changed as well.

But I want to add another layer on, the global temperature layer.

So I'm going to add that as well.

And you'll notice it's now gone to three on the map layers.

That's saying I've got three layers of data on the map, and once I've done that, I can close this menu off, this pop-up menu off, and you can see that the map's a different color.

Now, if I click on the map layers, it will show me the three layers of information I've now got on the map.

This little tick box here, where it says "Toggle visibility," allows me to either show the layer or not show the layer.

So if I untick that, you can see it's just got the world time zones on the map.

So let's look at each of these layers in turn.

First of all, we've got the world time zones, and we know that if we click on the UK, for example, it's going to highlight anywhere within the same time zone as the UK in a nice turquoise color, so it gives us the time.

I can untick this, and you'll see the lines will disappear.

But let's have a look at what happens if I click the temperature button.

The map changes color.

Now, to understand what those colors mean, I could tick the legend button, and it shows what those temperatures mean.

You know, so yellow is very, very hot.

Dark reds is very cold.

But that's just an average through the year.

I think for us, a more useful thing to be able to do is if I just zoom in, click on somewhere in the UK, what will pop up is a bit more of a detailed look.

So it tells us the temperature, the average temperature in each month of that place.

So in July, for example, it's 16 degrees C at this point in the center of the UK.

So that's a really good way of showing what the temperature is like all the way through the year.

I'm going to click on the map layers again.

Let's untick the global temperature and click the rainfall.

And again, I can click on the legend, which shows the blue is really high precipitation, high rainfall.

And the sort of yellowy color.

Let's go down to an area that's gonna be very yellow.

That's very, very dry, not much precipitation or rainfall at all.

Remember, precipitation is rain, but it also includes things like snow and hail.

It's all water coming from the sky.

But again, if I click.

I'll click in roughly the same place.

You can see that a graph, a bar chart, has appeared, and it gives us the rainfall or the precipitation, but if I'm talking July, that's all gonna be rainfall really.

It gives us what that is through each month of the year.

So it tells us that the rainfall in July is just under 57 millimeters in this central point of the UK.

Now with these layers, I can now look at another country, if I was going to visit it, and find some information out.

So I'm going to go back to the map layers.

I think I'm going to tick just on the world time zones, and I'm going to choose a place around the world that I want to visit, and I want to investigate what it's going to be like.

And I'm going to go to Brisbane, which is on the east of Australia.

Let's start with the time zone.

I can click on this, and it tells me that it's 10.

I need to add 10 hours to Greenwich Mean Time to tell me what the time's going to be.

So that means at 1:00 p.

m.

, 1:00 in the afternoon in the UK, is going to be 11:00 p.

m.

, 11:00 at night in Brisbane.

Okay, that's useful information I'd like to know before my trip.

What about the temperature? So I'm going to untick the time zone.

I'm going to click on the temperature, and I'm going to click somewhere near Brisbane.

And let's say I'm going in July.

Now, if I find July on here, well, July temperature is just over 14 degrees C.

So, if I travel from the UK in July, it's actually likely to be a bit cooler than the UK.

That's because it's their winter when it's our summer.

So it's going to be a little bit cooler in July.

And let's say I'm going to untick this, and let's tick on the rainfall.

And if I click on here, if I'm clicking on Brisbane, I'd say the rainfall's going to be.

It'd be slightly less but quite similar, I would say, in July to the rainfall that we get in the UK.

So you can see that by using a GIS with lots of layers of information, layers of geographical data, we can actually investigate places, and it helps us plan trips and find out about places all the way around the world.

<v ->Thanks for showing us all those really useful features</v> of the Geography Visualiser, Mr. Schofield.

Let's check if you were listening carefully to all of that information.

What is this GIS screenshot showing us information about? Is it time zones, rainfall, or temperature? Choose one.

Ready? It's rainfall.

Yes, this is the pop-up information about rainfall from the Geography Visualiser.

Now it's time for task B of this lesson.

This is your opportunity to plan a holiday.

I want you to imagine a summer holiday in around July of the year when the weather's nice and warm here in the UK.

I want you to choose a country that you would like to visit.

And then use the Geography Visualiser to investigate what the time difference, the rainfall, and the temperature will be there between where you live in the UK and where you are going to visit.

I want you to use these instructions and fill in this table.

So we've got the time in the UK and the temperature where you live, and the rainfall where you live.

Fill in that data using the visualizer, and then fill in the same data for the place that you want to visit.

Here are the instructions for how to do that using the visualizer.

Don't forget, you can come back and check these instructions at any time if you're not always sure how to get from one stage to the next.

You're going to begin by opening the time zones layer in the visualizer.

If you don't already have that open, you can click on "Open map" to get there.

Click on "Add layer" to that map in the bottom toolbar, and add the "Global Rainfall 1981 to 2010" option.

You can also add the "Global Temperature 1981 to 2010" option.

Then click on "Map layers" and make only temperature visible.

Zoom in to where you live in the UK and click on the map to show you the temperature.

Then go back to "Map layers," click to make sure that rainfall is visible, and then click where you live again, and you will see the rainfall for July where you live.

Repeat this for the place that you want to visit in the world, add map layers, and then toggle the visibility for rainfall and temperature, and you'll be able to make those comparisons for there as well.

So pause the video now.

Take your time, open the visualizer, have a good look around, use all the features, find that information for your hometown in the UK and wherever in the world you would like to visit.

I wonder which location you are going to choose.

Pause the video now, and when you come back, I'll share an example answer with you.

Okay, well done.

Are you ready? Let's have a look at an example.

Perhaps yours was similar.

This pupil from Oak Academy wants to go to Australia, to a place called Brisbane.

Where they live in the UK in July, it is Greenwich Mean Time, and it is on average 15.

9 degrees Celsius, and it has a rainfall of about 56.

9 millimeters, so nearly 57.

In Brisbane in Australia, which is very far away, it is 10 hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.

Notice it says "+10 hours." It's got an average temperature that's slightly cooler, actually, in July.

It's about 14.

2 degrees Celsius there.

And the rainfall is slightly lower than in the UK in Brisbane, it's about 50.

5 millimeters.

I wonder what the temperatures were like for the location that you chose.

Perhaps you could talk to a partner and make some comparisons between your home in the UK and your two different locations in the world.

I hope you have enjoyed using the Geography Visualiser today to plan a trip or holiday.

Let's have a look at what we can do now.

We can now use digital maps on a GIS to see different time zones around the world.

We can use different layers in a GIS to show temperature and rainfall, and we can use that to investigate different places around the world.

We can also use a GIS to help us plan our own trips and holidays, and compare geographical data for where we live and the place that we are going.

I've had lots of fun today, and I hope you have too.

I will see you again for another exciting geography lesson.

Bye for now.