BBC website "LANDSCAPES UNLOCKED"
Take to the skies above Northern Ireland with a bird's eye view of our local landscape, zooming in on areas of geographical and historical importance.
Explore the beauty of our country and discover how it has been sculpted by nature and by man.
CLICK ON THE BUTTONS.
This site from BBC Northern Ireland Learning aims to make the breathtaking aerial footage from the Sky High series available online, and to enhance the photography with a specially-commissioned narrative that encourages a deeper geographical understanding of the Northern Ireland landscape, and explores the physical, social and economic geography of this place.
The resource is split into two levels. The EXPLORE section will be of interest to a general audience: the aerial footage explores our rural and urban landscapes and areas of local importance. A detailed map highlights the six counties of Northern Ireland, and as users zoom in on a specific place, the Sky High clips play along with an explanatory narrative. The 'journey' of each clip can be traced in real time on the accompanying map, and co-ordinated text flags up the salient points of information. Each clip is supplemented by links to related content, such as BBC Newsline pieces: these highlight the effects of natural and cultural influences on the landscape.
The FOCUS ON section explores geographical themes at a deeper level and is aimed at Key Stage 3 students taking Geography (Environment & Society) in Northern Ireland schools. Local geography teachers have extracted sequences from the aerial footage which illustrate key geographical concepts and curricular outcomes. The detailed maps not only provide navigation through the resource, but also reinforce mapwork skills and help students develop a sense of place. With a more in-depth look at geographical features, this section also helps students understand the physical processes of landscape development and the inter-relationships between physical and human environments.
Five topics - mountains, lakes and rivers; coasts; ecocystems; economic activity and land use; and settlement - are explored through a combination of archive footage, explanatory text, maps and quizzes. Animations help explain more complicated geological processes, such as coastal erosion and the formation of ox-bow lakes; while complementary news footage has been selected to make the issues real, and to promote debate and discussion about the conflict between social, economic and environmental needs at a local level. The quizzes will test the students' knowledge of what they have learned.
Downloadable teachers' notes provide suggested activities and schemes of work, and highlight the relevance of this site to the KS3 Environment & Society Curriculum.
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