Year 2 - Geography
Year 2 - Geography
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Introduction
At Eastfield we aim for our children to develop an understanding and curiosity for the world. We use Collins Connected Geography scheme to ensure children receive a structured but ambitious curriculum. Vocabulary and talk play a central role within geography teaching and learning so our pupils' can talk like geographers.
Why don't penguins need to fly?
Why don't penguins need to fly?
Keywords we used:
adaption continent equator ice sheet iceberg polar tropical
We began our unit of work by reading the story 'Where is Home Little Pip?' This opened up the children's thinking to which continent the penguin chick lived on.
We then watched some videos to find out more about Antarctica. We generated vocabulary to describe the landscape, weather and how we would feel if we were there, including hostile, windswept and extreme. Look below to see more of the words that we came up with.
We were amazed to discover that Antarctica is actually the largest desert on Earth! We can now explain that this is because it is very dry. We know that the ice sheets have built up through years of snow settling in layers.
We learnt about the features of a penguin's body and how they are adapted to survive in Antarctica. We then used maps and their keys to identify another desert - the Sahara desert in Africa.
We realised through watching another video that the Sahara and Antarctica were both extreme places to try and survive. We identified how camels are suited to life in this environment.
We really enjoyed our Topic Day where we compared Antarctica to the Arctic. We created passports for ourselves and Peter the Polar Bear to provide the opportunity for us to remember what we had already learnt. We used maps and the North/South Poles webcams to discover that beneath the ice in the Arctic is the Arctic Ocean, whereas in Antarctica there is land! We explored the life of Polar Bears and played the food chain game.
We then considered the following question: Why are there no Polar Bears in Antarctica? We plotted a route through North and South America and investigated whether a Polar Bear could travel this journey. After researching the agriculture and temperatures in the different countries, we realised that this would not be a suitable journey for a Polar Bear. Read our explanations below!
How can we persuade people to join us in tackling the causes of global warming?
How can we persuade people to join us in tackling the causes of global warming?
Keywords we used:
We began our unit by exploring a variety of photos to see what they were showing and what we thought they might have in common. Can you notice anything that they are all representing?
We discovered that all the photos were showing ways that people can be environmentally friendly, or eco-friendly. We learnt that this means doing things that are good for our planet, Earth. You can read our explanations below.
There was lots of challenging vocabulary in this unit of work, but we persevered and learnt what the words meant! One of the phrases was...carbon footprint. We now know that this means the amount of carbon dioxide that gets put into the atmosphere by human activity. We also know that we all need to make our carbon footprint smaller so there are not too many greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
We labelled diagrams to help us understand why we need some greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - to keep Earth at a suitable temperature - but also what happens when there are too many greenhouse gases caused by activities such as burning fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas) and using vehicles.
We has a super volunteer who helped us too! We used our coats to demonstrate how the greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere are making our world get warmer. We discussed the negative effects that this can have on both animals and humans.
Read our posters below to learn more about the negative effects of Global Warming and what steps we can all take to try and improve this situation. To learn even more, why not watch one of the videos below too?
Why does it matter where our food comes from?
Why does it matter where our food comes from?
Keywords we used:
We began our unit by looking at this photo of different foods. We had to think about what they all had in common. Some children thought that they all had milk in them, and others agreed by saying that they were 'dairy foods'. Were they correct?
YES! All the foods contain milk and are called 'dairy foods' or 'dairy produce'.
We learnt a new word, which was agriculture. This means growing crops and raising animals. We watched the following video to help us understand how farmers collect the milk from cows.
We then learnt that in the United Kingdom, there are many dairy farms in a county called Devon. We explored some photos of the countryside and labelled the physical features.
We noticed that there was lots of grass pasture for the cows to eat! We started to discuss what kind of weather would allow this to happen. We looked at some data and used our maths skills to compare the numbers.
After learning about where we get our milk from, we started to explore where some of our fruit and vegetables come from. We discovered that in the UK, we have to import our bananas because they grow in countries with a tropical climate, whereas the UK has temperate weather. We also learnt that export means when we sell produce to other countries that we have grown or produced here. We looked at maps to explore different shipping routes and located the UK and Costa Rica.
We watched the video below and found out exactly how bananas are grown on a plantation, prepared and shipped to the UK! We drew the different stages of harvesting, taking the cableway to the packing plant, washing and inspecting, packing into boxes and shipping.
The final food produce that we learnt about was sugar. We were amazed at what happens to a sugar beet plant in order to extract the sugar! We then estimated how many teaspoons were in certain items of food. We talked about how we need some sugar to keep our bodies healthy and the problems of eating too much of it.
We finished our unit by summarising our learning in an explanation of how and why farming is different around the world. Take a look at what we wrote!
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