Case Studies
What is a Designated Landscape?
Learners at the school wanted to find out more about the local area. As the school is on the edge of Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, the teacher decided to use this activity. The learners were working within progression steps 3 and 4.
What trail can we develop?
The school explored this activity with Years 4, 5 and 6. All learners were working within progression step 3.
How do we use energy?
A school in north Wales embarked on the exploration of energy and forces with learners working within progression steps 2 and 3. They followed the activity, adapting some tasks to align with local interests and developments.
What is pollution?
The school used the activity on Tirlun but supplemented it with work on map scales and scaling, as well as looking at global issues through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
How has Wales inspired people?
The school in the Ystradgynlais area was encouraging learners to explore what ‘cynefin’ means to them and how artists make use of this in their work. This key activity supported the class in their studies and helped the teachers structure the activities undertaken by the learners.
Myths and legends
The two Year 6 classes in the school used the ‘Myths and legends’ Key Activity on Tirlun to supplement their cross-curricular topic, exploring myths in and around the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley National Landscape.
What decisions would you make as a leader in the world?
Learners enjoyed constructing greater understanding of the terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’. Most had a good grasp of the terms and could use them correctly when speaking.
How are different areas regenerated?
The school decided to use this activity over a whole term. Learners were highly engaged with the opening video - What If All Humans Suddenly Disappeared From The Earth? – so the teacher extended their learning through a series of ‘What if?’ enquiries on thoughts from the video, for example – ‘What if all the plants died?’ and ‘What if we all became vegan?’ and ‘What if the Earth stopped turning?’.
How are different areas regenerated?
Year 6 used the activity on Tirlun as a basis for exploring the history of the school and the Cardiff Bay area. Learners decided to talk to friends and family, contact the council and research on the internet. They also looked for clues on the school building and within the school grounds.
How can we conserve biodiversity?
Learners, working in progression step 3, investigated the meaning of ‘biodiversity’ before assessing the biodiversity of their school grounds. The teacher had come across The National Education Nature Park programme from the Natural History Museum.
How can we conserve biodiversity?
Learners enjoyed finding out about biodiversity and looked in the school grounds for a wild area they wanted to study and develop ideas for how it might be improved. The area they selected was at the side of the bike shed which had been untouched for many years. They carried out identification of organisms that lived there and, away from Tirlun, looked at how best to estimate the number of organisms of different species in the area.
How can we welcome others to our world?
As a precursor to studying tourism in Geography GCSE, the teacher used aspects of the activity ‘How can we welcome others to our world?’.
Explorers and Expeditions
A school in north Wales explored this activity with learners working within progression step 3. They used all the tasks in the activity, adding new tasks to extend and develop learning and create a whole-term theme inspired by the resource.
Exploring the Preselis
The school initially used the activity on Tirlun. However, learners wanted to find out more about a local tourist attraction, Castell Henllys Iron Age Village.