Geography Resources for Personal Study : Year 7

Geography Resources for Personal Study
Year 7

Making Connections

Resources for geography teaching produced by

B.J.Howard B.Ed [Hons] FRGS

Chartered Geographer Churchill Fellow

Ask yourself "What is my local area like?..how did it get to be like this?.. and what is the difference between this area and other areas?" Even within Castle Point there is a great deal of variation.

For this first section of the workpage you will need a 1:25,000 OS map of Southend on Sea Sheet 175. This is the map of your local area and will give you a good understanding of the features once you have completed all of the ten grid references below. If you have problems understanding four or six figure grid references then visit www.huntertraining.zoomshare.com and click on the 'Navigation' part of the menu; scrolling down you will find help with grid references.

1. 778861 2. 782867 3. 791871 4. 817843 5. 831857

6. 836865 7. 828851 8. 839856 9. 799867 10. 761862

[The answers can be found at.....]

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What you are aiming to do in this practical 'fieldwork' is become a bit of a detective in finding out hidden as well as well-known information about the local area.

Did you know:

There was a 'Battle of Benfleet' between Vikings and Saxons in 894 AD?

Thundersley was said to be named after the Roman God of Thunder and beacuse the locals in early Saxons times heard thunder so frequently.

Canvey Island used to be five islands - or just sandbanks which flooded at high tide.

There is an underground tunnel from Jarvis Hall (784879) all the way to South Benfleet church - apparently once used by smugglers.

That Hadleigh Downs was once known as 'Southdowne' and was raided many times by French pirates.

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The local area around the King John School is part of Thundersley and Hadleigh; we have already mentioned how Thundersley got its name (above); Hadleigh means 'heath clearing' in Saxon Old English, literally an area of heath or rough land in a clearing in the woods.

Hadleigh from 2,000 metres up. The 'heath - clearing' could still be seen as trees and meadow in the north west of this image in 1970 when this photo was taken

The woods would have been part of 'Great Wood' or what is now known - at this end of the Wood - as 'West Wood'. It was a very dense and valuable wood.

Quite a large part of the local area from the Benfleet Road to north of Rayleigh Weir used to part of a deer park; it was here that King John would come from London four days travel away by 'road' to hunt deer. John's hunting lodge or one of them and probably the main one - was on the site of the present King John School.

SETTLEMENT EXAMPLE 1:

The only settlement here was the village of Beomflete (present day South Benfleet) centred around the St.Mary's church - but for over 400 years the church was wooden and not stone. Beomflete means 'wooded creek'; the woods - and extension of Shipwrights Wood and Jervis Wood now to be seen looking west from Shipwrights Drive - grew right the way down to the creek's edge which gave its name to the village.

Beomflete had everything a village and its villagers needed: a sheltered site, a south facing aspect, a hill to defend in times of attack - upon which the church was built, deep valleys for finding streams for water supply which were fast flowing, timber from trees for building material, fuel, and food, and wild animals in the wood and forest: boar (wild pig), deer, and later in Norman times rabbits. There were fish in the creek and huge amounts of shellfish on the sands. Beomflete was indeed a paradise to live in!

Resource 1. Sketch Map of our Home Area: South East Essex

An aerial photograph of King John School and Hadleigh taken from 2,000 metres up on 26th Sept. 1970

The draft working copy of a land-use map of part of south east Essex. Sheet 175 Explorer Ordnance Survey was used for this study.

Squares are OS grid Key: RED: residential (housing) BLUE: industry including factories and oil refinery BROWN: farming GREEN: opencountry, woods and leisure areas PURPLE: retail (shops)

Patterns from the land use map (above):

"Housing has a pattern of of straight lines. Land-use is 'chunked'; farming is near open country. Most of Benfleet is mixed land-use - unlike Southend. Most farming is next to industry. A large amount of housing appears next to a large amount of industry on Canvey Island." Georgia Terry 7.09.

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Measuring Distance Exercise for 7.01

Sheet 175 (Explorer) Southend on Sea & Basildon

Measure the distance in cms and mm and convert into metres and kilometres :

A From: Chalkwell Rail Station (8585) to

a) the church with a tower at 841858 (just east of the 'Liby')

b) to the church without a tower or spire at 812868

c) to Leigh on Sea rail station

B From the 71 metre spot height in 8188 to Hadleigh Church (with spire) in 810870

C From Sayers (801869) to the church with tower 819868

D From the 78m spot height in 7987 to the 4m spot height at 804858

E From the 4m spot height 804858 to the pond at 796862

Answers will be posted on this website on 14th December.

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Exploring England

Resource 2. The British Isles

Key tasks and information to improve your understanding of 'Exploring England' unit:

1. Where do you live in England in relation to London? Norwich? Wales? Cornwall? Scotland? Northrn Ireland?

2. You need to understand the word 'region' - we live in the south east corner of the county of Essex, which is at the southern end of the region East Anglia. We are also linked to the region of Greater London.

Resource 3. ESSEX

3. Find out what the word 'conurbation' means. We have sixof these outside Greater London.

4. We as a country have been 'populated' by people from other countries - throughout the whole of our history - so immigration is nothing new.

5. Key words:

population density urban rural industry manufacturing labour

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Settlement

Our town: South Benfleet from the air : September 1970

We cannot separate the units 'Making Connections', 'Exploring England', and 'Settlement'....content from one Unit is important to learn for and from the others - they are all 'inter-linked'. So for this Unit we are concerned with where people live, patterns, site, problems, types, and 'hierarachies'...a long word but hopefully this part of the website will help you.

Your key words here are: SETTLEMENT FUNCTION SITE MARKET FORM NUCLEATED LINEAR DISPERSED CATCHMENT SITUATION HAMLET VILLAGE TOWN CITY CONURBATION HIERARCHY DENSE SPARSE DISTRIBUTION.

The settlements we live in are old - they are sort of living relics of the past and can show us, if we care to look, things about them which help us understand the present.

It's always good to start investigating in the middle of the settlement. Almost certainly there will be a church at the centre - and probably very old too; our local settlement we are using as an example is South Benfleet. The good points - the 'advantages' of the area for building your early settlement are given above in the section headed 'SETTLEMENT EXAMPLE 1.' The interesting thing (well I think so!!) about Benfleet and all the other hundreds of thousands of settlements in the UK today is that 99% of them were built before 1066. So they are survivors!

Historical photo of the former creek (now dried up) in old South Benfleet

Old Hadleigh 1928

Junction of London Road and Rectory Road

The above picture was taken just 500 metres from our school in 1928

The old Canvey Bridge; until the late 1930's this was just a ford with stepping stones for pedestrians at low tide. Notice the farm barns where Waterside Sports centre is now.

Very different to South Benfleet: the 'grid-iron' pattern of Victorian and 1930s housing in Chalkwell looking south towards the Thames Estuary. What is the green field-like feature at centre right?

SETTLEMENT EXAMPLE 2:

The Village of Canewdon

Canewdon is 10 kms north of Southend on Sea in south east Essex, in a very rural location; the village is on the short ridge of a small hill, the steepest side being the north facing with the south facing being slightly less in gradient. To the north is the River Crouch, and to the south the River Roach. The surrounding land is very flat.

The 1:25,000 map shows the services in the village as being a church, a chapel, a Post Office, and a school; we do know through field work investigation that Canewdon has a Public House too. The fact that this is not shown on the map means we cannot take every map as clear evidence of exactly and accurately what is in a settlement.

Canewdon almost certainly was, once, a linear small village, in its form; but the building of the housing estate at 898943 has expanded the village's size - and changed it form or shape; it is now more nucleated; every village has its own shape - and most are not like you would find in a geography textbook!!!

If you lived in Canewdon.....

a) where would you shop? b) how far would you have to go to get to a secondary school? c) how far would the nearest town be? (...and what is it?!) d) how close are the next villages?...and what are they?

I went to Canewdon to talk to some locals - about their village; they were interested in the Year 7 project on Settlement; one promised to get some photographs - here they are below:

From evidence gained from the photographs what do you think the function of Canewdon was / is today?

Canewdon, East Essex....The View Southwards from the Church

Canewdon, East Essex...The view northwards from the Church

Canewdon, East Essex...The View Eastwards from the Church

Photographs of Canewdon kindly provided by Mr.S.A.Cripps

SETTLEMENT EXAMPLE 3:

Southend - on - Sea

In the hierarchy of the local area that is south east Essex - which is our 'type area' - we have already looked at Canewdon, a small village, and South Benfleet, a very old settlement. A settlement - which can be described as either a very, very large town - or, more properly a city, is Southend on Sea; this has every feature that as geographers we would expect to find in a city.

A city will attract thousands of people every day from its 'catchment area'....an area that the city dominates; people come into the city to work at hundreds of different jobs that need to be done to keep the city going...people come into the city for recreation to use clubs, theatres, restaurants, and amusements. People come into the city to shop.

In a city centre the land is used for either shops ('retail') or for offices ('commerce'). These two LAND USES compete together. The area of greatest competition in the city centre is called the CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT commonly just known as the CBD. There are virtually no houses in any CBD. The CBD that you will know - in Southend - will include the following:

The High Street from the top of Pier Hill to the Odeon Cinema, The Royals, The Victoria Plaza Centre, the western end of Southchurch Rd around Pizza Hut, the eastern end of the London Road outside Pizza Express, all of Victoria Avenue from Victoria Rail Station terminus north past the Planetarium, the Police HQ, the Library, The Civic Centre, to the College; plus all of the vast offices on the western side of Victoria Ave. This is a large CBD.

The Settlement Enquiry

Does the size of the villages (in the Cambridge area) affect the number of goods and services they provide?

[How does the size of a settlement affect the number of goods and services it provides?]

The official title is in brackets above.

You need to read pages 114 to 117 in the textbook; Part 1 of the project is to write what you are going to try to find out - which is whether you can see a pattern in the link between the size of the settlement and the number of services (and goods) it offers.

It's always difficult to start a project! You could start by writing "My project is about the Cambridge area, answering the question 'How does the size of a settlement affect the number of goods and services it provides?'....."

Next you need to write a description of the Cambridge area - include (for example) the number of villages in the area, how far apart - on average - the villages are, what the landscape is like, and how many villages in total on the map. Draw some maps, and use Resource 2 at the top of this page under the Exploring England section to show where abouts the areas is (you have to use an atlas!!!).

NEWTON Population: 343

No.1: Small food items & stationery

No.1: Shoes No.2: Hairdresser No.3: Small food items & stationery No.4: Tearoom No.5: Food, magazines, & car accessories.

No.1: Food, stationery, toiletries No.2: Small food items and car accessories No.3 Printers

The scale above is for all villages in this section.

Once you have done the first part of the study - which is collecting - finding out about - and writing up a description of the area, then you must move onto the second part: How large are the settlements? Using the guide on page 115 you need to draw your graph; the information about the population part of the question is on the maps above.

It might be a good idea to sketch out the plan of one village - neatly but very simply - with grid lines in the correct place to show the area in square kilomteres. You can use the scale on the coloured sketch maps above to help you work out an area.

The third and final question you have to answer in this project is ''How many goods and services are there?"

Definitions: Goods-things, usually bought in shops, which are useful to people eg cookers, food, furniture. Services-facilities provided by a settlement and which help people eg shops, church, telephone, bank, library, garage.

Count the all the goods to be found on sale in each village - not just the shops! Make a list of all the services too and draw this up into a table and also a bar graph. See page 116.

FINALLY...... the conclusion!

So, how does the size of these villages affect what they've got it them?!! You've now (hopefully!) done all the work and can answer the orginal question. What have you found out about Newton, Harston, Foxton, and Barton?

Goods and services are for you and me.....so surely the more people there are, the more of these goods and services they'll be - compare Canewdon with Hadleigh!....so which of our villages have the most people in them?....How many services and goods have you counted? ....and so what's the link - and why is there a link - between the number of these and the village size?

And now you've finished!

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VOLCANOES !!

This section includes a series of photos I took in January 1973 as I left Iceland to fly back to England to teach....the explosive nature of the new volcano was very dramatic. The town of Heimaey was evacuated apart from a few locals who stayed to 'fight' the lava flow - as it crept slowly down the slope of the volcano it threatened block the harbour - and as the island's fishing fleet is its life, this blocking by the lava would have meant the end of life on the Westmann's.

The volcano 'Eldfjell' by the town of Heimaey in the Westmann Islands off the southern coast of Iceland

The ash thrown out by the volcano was up to 20 feet deep - and the houses had to be dug out.

The town of Heimaey from the east - before it was evacuated during the eruption of Eldfjell

A 'fissure' (crack) eruption at Laki in Iceland.

(above photo: Gisli Thorsson)

Splatter cone near Laki, Iceland

The case study we are using for this unit is Iceland. The reasons for this is that the country has more 'vulcanicity' - volcano activity - than anywhere else in Europe - and for it's size probably anywhere else in the world. Also its posotion astride two plates is unusual.

You should have learnt that the earth's crust - a skin of solid rock floating on molten rock of the mantle - is broken up into rafts or plates, which all move in different directions. These plates can dive down beneath another plate, can divide and move in opposite directions, can slide side-ways past one another, or slam into one another building mountains in the process.

There are two types of crust: oceanic crust is a thinner layer of heavy rock which covers the surface of the planet and forms the ocean floor; there is also the continental crust which is made of lighter rock and sits higher on the mantle. This is made mainly of granite rock; the ocean floor is made of basalt rock.

When plates move against one another - or just divide and move in different directions magma can build underneath the crust and find its way to the surface; sometime this is under great pressure and explodes from the earth's surface - like a can of fizzy drink that you've shaken then opened!

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An EXAMPLE of a plate which is being destroyed by diving under another is the Pacific Plate grinding down and under the Eurasian Plate. The result? Japan and its islands - mountain and volcanoes (Fuji) and severe earthquakes. This is a major danger zone as som any people live in this country.

An EXAMPLE of a plate separating from another - both going in different directions is the North American Plate moving west away from the Eurasian Plate moving east - and this is found all the way down the middle of the floor of the Atlantic Ocean....the feature being known as The Mid Atlantic Ridge; nowhere else in the world does this ridge appear on land - except in Iceland. Here 30 active volcanoes are found in a line across iceland where the Mid Atlantic Ridge breaks the surface; examples of these volcanoes are: Surtsey, Eldfjell, Hekla, Katla, and Grimsv�tn.

An EXAMPLE of a plate moving sideways in relation to another plate is in western USA, on the coast of the state of California. Here the San Andreas Fault is the plate edge or 'boundary' between the North American Plate moving northwards fast, grinding and juddering against the Pacific Plate which is moving in the same direction but at different speeds.There have been many earthquakes in this region - some very destructive.

An EXAMPLE of a plate slamming headlong into another plate is the Indo-Australian Plate hitting the South Asian plate some 70 million years ago; the gap between them which was filled with countless billions of tonnes of sediment, sea-floor sand and limstone, rock, and river mud was gradually narrowed as the Indo plate moved forever north - and then the gap, which orginally had a sea in it disappeared and its rock etc was slowly pushed up into a mountain chain - now the highest in the world: The Himalayas. The plate is still pushing into the South Asian one and Everest - in the Himalayas - is getting higher and higher every year. The earthquakes experienced here are very severe eg the 2005 Kashmir quake.

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BOSCASTLE FLOODS