Teacher resource Not-on-the-shelf: Natural Heritage The Mourne mountains Key Stage 1&2 Thematic Units Supporting the areas of learning and STEM 1 Contents Section 1 Going up a Understanding 1. What is a mountain? Mountains around the hill, coming Mountains world. down a 2. Making a Mountain out of a... mountain. 3. Mountains! What are they good for? Section 2 My home Understanding 1. My home – The Mournes. The Mournes patch. The 2. My home in the Mournes. mighty Mournes 3. Exploring my home. Section 3 “There’s Understanding 1. The variety of life. Biodiversity. the Biodiversity gold in them 2. The interdependence of things. thar hills” of the Mournes 3. Precious life. Section 4 Resources Introduction Many local children and young people within the Mourne Mountains Landscape Partnership Area are disconnected from the Mountain Landscape that surrounds them. They live in the shadow of them, have to cross or drive round them for school or their social life and yet very few know or understand anything about them. They are a huge element in their lives and yet they are almost unaware of their presence. Through the delivery of this programme we hope to encourage children to look up at the mountains and be reconnected to this essential element of their life, community and heritage. We hope it will enthuse, encourage and empower them to explore the Mournes, discover their majesty and mystery, do something to conserve them and share their experiences with others. The first thing to realise when exploring any upland landscape is that it isn’t just a bunch of rocks and Heather– a barrier to get over– or something to pass through on the way to the seaside; this is a living, breathing, moving, shifting, community of flora and fauna that is constantly growing and dying, feeding and decaying. There is order, there is beauty, there are secrets and there is routine– life here ebbs and flows as much as any great tide, there is a cycle to the nature of the mountains. Teachers and education staff must carry out their own health and safety risk assessment before engaging their pupils in these activities. “Great things are done when men and mountains meet”– William Blake 2 The World Around Us Key Stage 1&2 This programme contributes to the following Statutory requirements for the World Around Us and supports the following key elements of the theme. Key Stage Statutory Geography History Science and Requirement Technology Interdependence ‘me’ in the world The variety of living things in the world and how plants and animals how we can take care rely on each other within of them. the natural world interdependence of people and the environment the effect of people on the natural environment over time interdependence of Key people, plants, animals, and place Stage 1 Place how place influences Comparisons between The range of materials plant and animal life local area and a used in my area. contrasting place for How animals use ways in which living example, weather, colour to adapt to their things depend on and transport, landscape adapt to their natural environment. environment features. Aspects of their own features of the immediate world and immediate world, comparisons between including different places features of town and countryside. change over time in local places An issue in the local or contrasting positive and environment, for negative effects of people on places example, litter or speeding cars. Movement and how and why Animals that migrate. people and animals Energy Design and make move simple models. Change over ways in which change Aspects of change Changes in the local time occurs in the natural that have occurred natural environment world over time in the local including how they area, for example, can affect living positive change and seasonal change or things. how we have a responsibility to make changes that might an active contribution improve aspects of the local area, such as recycling. 3 Continued... Key Stage Statutory Geography History Science and Requirement Technology Interdependence how they and Some of the ways Ways on which the The relationship others interact in the people affect/ use of natural between animals and world conserve the resources through plants in a habitat. environment both time has affected the how living things rely on The main stages in locally and globally. local and global each other within the the lifecycles of some environment, for natural world Local habitats, for living things. example, example, woodland, the effect of people on industrialisation since Plants and plant lake, river, seashore, the natural and built Victorian Times. growth. environment over time protected area or pond. Place how place Weather in the local Weather in the local influences the area compared to area compared to Key nature of life places that experience places that experience very different weather very different weather ways in which people, Stage 2 conditions. conditions by setting plants and animals depend on the features up a weather station. and materials in places and how they adapt to their environments features of and variations in places, including physical, human, climatic, vegetation and animal life change over time in places positive and negative effects of natural and human events upon a place over time Movement and causes that affect the Design and make Energy movement of people models. and animals positive and negative consequences of movement and it’s im- pact on people, places and interdependence Change over ways in which change Travelling to school at The life of a famous How animal and plant time occurs over both short different times of the person, family or behaviour is and long periods of time year and in different building in the past. influenced by in the physical and types of weather. seasonal change. natural world How the world has changed over time. Changes that occur to the effects of positive everyday substances, and negative changes for example, when globally and how we contribute to some of dissolved in water, or these changes heated and cooled. Changes of state in the water cycle. Obvious changes that occur in lifecycles. 4 SECTION Going up a hill, coming down a mountain. Understanding Mountains 1. What is a mountain? Mountains around the world. 2. Making a Mountain out of a... 3. Mountains! What are they good for? 1 5 Section 1 1.What is a mountain? Mountains around the world. New Words Suggested Learning Intentions and Phrases We are learning to: Landscape and recognise the features of a mountain landscape landform Activities: Slopes Ask the children to consider their local landscape by using the following questions and Summit information as prompts: Peak We are lucky to live in a beautiful area which lots of people enjoy every year. We see it everyday, and many people visit our mountains to walk or hike, have a picnic or take part Ridge in mountain sports or just to holiday in caravans and hotels. Foothills When you look out from the windows here at school, your house or your car when you are travelling about, what do you notice? Can you describe the mountain landscape? Range The children may give answers that include: Tectonic Plates sea/beaches/fields/woods/stone walls/mountains/ steep slopes. Now get the class, in small groups, to discuss what they already know about mountains. Do they know any individual Useful mountain names, mountain ranges, what the weather is like, Information what animals live in mountains? A mountain is a Can they describe mountains? Answers may include: Mountains usually have steep, landform that sloping sides and sharp or slightly rounded ridges and peaks. Mountains can be rocky rises to a summit and barren. Sometimes they are covered in snow because they are so high and cold. over 600m. Some have trees growing on their sides. Some common features of mountains There are even include: the summit, or the top or highest point of a mountain; slopes, or sides of the mountains on the mountain, a long high edge called a ridge and low gentle hills in front of them called Planet Mars. The foothills. A group or line of mountains is known as a range. Weather features are also tallest is important as the mountain climate is very different. Students may be aware of heavy Olympus Mons at snow and avalanches. Ask the class to research mountains. Collect the information 69,459 feet! about a particular mountain, a range of mountains, and perhaps how they were formed. National Geographic Take this information and display it on the wall as an introduction to the topic and as a describes reminder as the students move through the programme. mountains as “the wrinkles of Connected Learning Opportunities: age and pimples The World Around Us. Language and Literacy. Encourage the students to find mountain of youth on ranges in Atlases. Ask them to list in what countries the range appears. They could then look at the Earth's crusty culture of the various people who live in or around those mountains, comparing them with their own outer skin.” lives here in the Mournes. 6 Background Information Mountains are truly imposing features of our landscape. All across the world they dominate their area and force nature and people to work around them. Because of this, mountains have dominated the human mind and heart too. From Greek myths to the Biblical stories and other major religious narratives, mountains have been central, key features in the way we think about the world and how it functions. Where do mountains come from? There are five main ways that mountains are created. Folds, Fault–block, Dome, Volcano and Plateau.