Milton Creek Memories: resources for the geography classroom

1. Milton Creek Memories: resources for the geography classroom

2. History and Geography Resources: how to use this pack The Milton Creek Memories Project uses anecdotes, facts and opinions to bring the past alive and raise questions about the future. These learning resources are designed to help pupils enquire further and make connections between people, places and environments over time. This pack offers a range of enquiry led topics with accompanying resources that can be tailored by teachers to suit the needs of their class. It is aimed at Years 6 – 7 and could form the basis of a transition unit. Learning about the locality through first hand and secondary sources is an important and required aspect of both history and geography in the school curriculum. It is relevant and motivating for pupils as they will already have some knowledge of the local area that they can draw on to develop their understanding. Local studies also help pupils to make connections between important aspects of subject knowledge and their own everyday lives, enabling them to grasp the bigger picture and understand how they fit into it. There are a range of ideas for geography and history lessons and suggestions for extensions or follow up work. Each lesson has some accompanying resources such as activity sheets, images, maps and presentations for use with the classroom interactive whiteboard. There are also Teacher Notes. While these materials have been designed to compliment each other, teachers can pick and choose which lessons they teach, how they combine aspects of geography and history and if or how they make connections with other subjects.

3. Geography Resources: expected outcomes • These resources will enable pupils to develop their geography knowledge, skills and understanding. • Most pupils will be able to: • recognise and describe the geographical patterns of land use in Sittingbourne and Milton Creek and appreciate the significance of location with regard to the wider local area and wider world. • recognise and describe physical and human processes that characterize this place and begin to understand how these can change the features of a place and the lives and activities of people living there. • Understand how people can both damage and improve the environment and explain their own views • use primary and secondary sources of evidence, and appropriate vocabulary, in their enquiries. • Some pupils will achieve more and be able to: • begin to explain geographical patterns, and human and physical processes • recognise some links and relationships that make places dependent on each other • suggest explanations for human induced environmental change and explain their own views. • Some pupils will not achieve as much and be able to: • Describe and compare physical and human features in Milton Creek and Sittingbourne, making some comparisons with other places they have studied. • Recognise how people seek to improve and sustain environments • Offer reasons for some of their observations, views and judgements

4. Contents Pages Where is this place? Starting to enquire about Milton Creek 3 - 6 What is Milton Creek like? Developing mapping skills. 7 - 13 Virtual fieldwork: doing a risk assessment 14 - 19 The Milton Creek Mystery 20 – 24 What is Milton Creek like now? 25 - 28 Milton Creek in the future: hopes and challenges 29 – 33 Thinking further about Milton Creek: new perceptions 34 Ideas for using maps 35 Ideas for using images 36

5. Where is this place? Starting to enquire about Milton Creek (Teacher’s guide) • Geography works well as an enquiry led subject, using a mix of pupils’ own and other key geographical questions such as: where is this place? What is it like? How and why is it changing? Geography is a ‘living subject’ and is focused on the here and now of contemporary life. It also draws clues from the past and considers possible futures in creative and critical contexts. Geography seeks to explore and better understand the dynamic interactions between people, places and environments. • This set of resources aims to encourage pupils or groups of pupils to carry out their own local geographical enquiry and engage critically and creatively with their local environment. This initial lesson is intended as a completely open activity where pupils can talk about and reflect on what they already know and what they want to find out. Start by asking pupils to draw a map showing the location of Sittingbourne, Milton Creek and other places that they know about or have visited in the locality. This will provide a starting point to assess their locational knowledge and give them a focus for using maps at different scales. You could ask pupils to do this individually or working in pairs. • The last part of the lesson asks pupils to prepare a spoken piece describing the location of Sittingbourne and Milton Creek. This will give you an opportunity to assess pupils’ understanding of location and use of geographical vocabulary and terminology. Encourage pupils’ to suggest how these short spoken presentations could be improved in terms of accuracy and language. You could also ask pupils to write a paragraph afterwards detailing this location.

6. Lesson 1 Where is this place? Starting to enquire about Milton Creek (Pupil instructions) • Working on your own or with a partner, draw a map from memory to show the location of Sittingbourne and Milton Creek. Mark in as much detail as you can in 15 minutes. You could show for example: • Local roads and transport links to other places • Human and geographical features • Any places of interest that you know of or have visited • Your school, house, local shops, cinema • Significant cities, towns or villages nearby • A portion of the nearby coastline • The direction of North (N) • Share your map with others and discuss similarities and differences. Use an atlas or online mapping tool to locate Sittingbourne and Milton Creek. List three things that are good about your map and three things that you could improve. • Discuss what you have found out about the location of Sittingbourne and Milton Creek and anything that surprised you. Collect any questions on ‘post its’ or use ‘Wallwisher’. • In groups, take five minutes to prepare a spoken statement detailing the location of Sittingbourne. Listen to each group’s version and choose the best. Think about specific geographical and location vocabulary.

7. Lesson 1 Task 4: Give a short spoken statement detailing the location of Sittingbourne NE NW What will you include? Think about geographical vocabulary. Direction? Grid Reference? Near to? South of? Where is it in the UK? In England? County? Town? Post Code? How close to the coast? Which coast? How far from London? Connected by which motorways? Select and use aerial and spatial information to help you prepare this. E.g. online and paper maps and images. SW SE

8. Lesson 1 Where do we think Sittingbourne is? (Some useful resources) • Google Earth www.earth.google.com • Google Maps www.maps.google.com • Bing Maps www.bing.com/google • Quik Maps www.quikmaps.com • Scribblemapswww.scribblemaps.com • OS Maps Digimaps for schools www.digimapsforschools.edina.ac.uk and see example map provided • OS maps of the area, other maps of the area showing different layouts e.g. Tourist maps • Atlases • Wallwisherhttp://wallwisher.com/ Create a virtual ‘wall’ where pupils can post questions.

9. Lesson 2 What is this place like? (Teacher notes) • Start by gathering pupils’ perceptions of a place. This could by done by giving each group a large piece of paper and pens and asking them to brainstorm words and phrases to describe this place. Some will have been there, some might live there and others may have heard about it from others or through other media. This activity will help provide an idea of pupils’ knowledge, misconceptions and stereotypical views. Using a word cloud programme such as Wordle will emphasise the key ideas held by the class or by groups of people. It will also provide a reminder of what pupils thought about this place at the outset. • The map of Milton Creek and Kemsley Marshes is courtesy OS Digimap for Schools and uses standard OS symbols. There is a separate high res PDF file of this map which can be printed out and laminated for class use with the accompanying OS key for this scale of map. • Print out paper copies of the partial map and ask pupils to use the original map to identify features that are either missing or not labelled. Pupils should try and add as much information as they can to the map without it being too cluttered. Discuss what makes a good map. One very important criterion for example is that is should be easy to read whilst another is that it should be fit for purpose. Pupils might like to make their own list about what makes a good map after this task.

10. Lesson 2 What is this place like? (Teacher notes continued) • 4. Use Tripgeo to help pupils better visualise features shown on the map as well as those that aren’t and support pupils to make links between these two resources. • After establishing some further ‘core knowledge’ about the features in this place it would be useful to revisit some of the questions posed by pupils in Lesson 1 and discuss which ones have been answered and which new questions ought to added to the list. • Twitter can be a highly effective tool in the classroom. Create a class account and use it on the IWB so that pupils come up to add their ‘Tweets’. If you add a hashtag e.g. #miltonmemories and share this then it enables other schools to follow your work and you could read Tweets from another class. The hashtag provides a search tool. Giving pupils a limited number of characters to describe a place helps them to use geographical language as effectively as possible. • You could introduce Map 2 showing landmarks of Milton Creek in 1979 to compare current and previous features of this area.

11. Lesson 2 What is this place like? (Pupil instructions) • What is Sittingbourne and Milton Creek like? Brainstorm a list of words and phrases in your group or with a partner and enter them into ‘Wordle’ to create a Word Cloud. Discuss common words and phrases used by your class. Are the main words positive or negative ones? Do they help to describe and explain this place? • Use the OS Digimap for Schools map provided to find out more clues to describe what this place is like. Be a geography detective and examine the human and physical features on the map. • Complete the partial map provided by labelling features and adding a key. See Lesson 2: map skills. • Working as groups take a short ‘virtual journey’ in the area using ‘Tripgeo’. You can stop to ‘look around you’ at various points along the journey, prepare a short spoken narration to accompany this journey and present this to the rest of the class with each group member having a chance to say something. • Review the questions posed from Lesson 1 and discuss which, if any have been answered. Discuss and add further questions. • Summarise what you have learnt about the area so far and write a ‘Tweet’ in 140 characters or less. Think about the best geographical language to use.

12. Map image courtesy OS Digimap for Schools www.digimapforschools.edina.ac.uk Higher res PDF available for printed copies

13. Partial Map of Milton Creek based on OS Digimap Scale 1:10000 showing Kemsley Marshes www.digimapforschools.edina.ac.uk Identify and label features shown on the map. Can you add more information and a key?

14. Lesson 2 Task 3 Mapping skills • Use the Digimap of the area provided and online mapping tools to help you complete the partial map of Milton Creek and the surrounding area. • 1. Can you find and label these features on the partial map? • Church • Major roads • Creek • Church Marshes Country Park • Milton Creek • Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway • Saxon Shore Way • Kemsley Marshes • 2. Using the range of suggested mapping sites and aerial imagery, what other features can you notice? Draw them on the map and add a key. Could you show housing for example? • Extension Task: use Map 2 showing landmarks of Milton Creek in 1979 and compare with your more recent map. What do you notice?

15. Lesson 2 What is this place like? (Resources) • Create a word cloud by entering words into www.wordle.net • Create a virtual travel route using Tripgeohttp://www.tripgeo.com/DirectionsMap.aspx • Use the beginning and end postcodes and ensure you have entered ‘UK’ in the ‘Region Code’ box. • Click ‘create your directions map’. A preview box will appear where you can view your map and route. • Scroll down, select ‘view directions and map’. Your animated map will appear. • Route 1: Asda, Sittingbourne ME10 2PD to Green Porch Close, Kemsley ME10 2HA • Route 2: Adisham Green ME10 2SR to to Green Porch Close, Kemsley ME10 2HA • Route 3. Regis Crescent ME10 2EP to Green Porch Close, Kemsley ME10 2HA • Try creating some routes of your own. • Create a class Twitter account and use this to share your learning www.twitter.com

16. Lesson 3 Virtual Fieldwork: risk assessment (Teacher notes) • It is good practice for pupils to do their own risk assessment before visiting a place and your own photo resources plus internet mapping tools and sites such as Google Street Map and Tripgeo enable you to do this virtually with pupils. Even if you don’t have a trip planned, ‘virtual’ field trips can provide opportunities to think about practical aspects of environmental interaction such as keeping safe. It also gives pupils a chance to practise their geographical vocabulary and develop observation and thinking skills. • Use some images on the IWB with the whole class first to help them identify what a hazard is and discuss what action is needed to stay safe. Then, either use other images one at a time on the IWB and give pupils ‘talk time’ to discuss in partners and make notes or print out images from the photo pack so that pupils can work with a partner at their own pace. • Use pupils’ talk and completed risk assessments to assess how well they can explain features and say why they might present a hazard. This is evidence that pupils are beginning to apply their geographical thinking and knowledge. • Using role cards helps pupils to develop an awareness of particular hazards, perspectives and challenges faced by different people in the same environment. This can be developed to help pupils evaluate an environment inclusively. • It’s important to get pupils thinking about who is responsible for then staying safe as they often do not recognise that the choices they make are very important. • If you do go out on fieldwork, ask pupils to bring their own risk assessments with them.

17. Lesson 3 Virtual Fieldwork: risk assessment (Pupil Notes) • Look at the images provided in the photo pack (some of these images are shown on the next page) and explain what the image shows, what a possible hazard might be and how you could stay safe. • Discuss the key hazards for a day out to the park and complete your own risk assessment. Make sure you think about whose job it is to make sure you stay safe. • Use the role cards provided to think about the landscape in terms of these characters. Would the risks be the same? Discuss special problems that might be encountered. • Extension activity: Use Google Street View Map to ‘walk’ from Asda’s to the entrance of Milton Park in Green Porch Close and list potential hazards that you encounter. Discuss with someone else what you would do to stay safe.

20. Risk Assessment for Milton Creek Country Park NAME___________________________________________ Use the images provided to complete your own risk assessment for Milton Creek Country Park

22. Lesson 4 The Milton Creek Mystery: why was this area so important? (Teacher notes) • Once an important centre for the oyster industry, by the mid-19th Century the Creek had become an important commercial hub for the paper and brick manufacturing trades, and of the cement industry. Collectively, these industries changed the fortunes of Sittingbourne and the surrounding areas, as well as the local natural environment. The banks of the Creek were scattered with wharves, yards and berths of the many companies utilising its resources. http://miltoncreek.co.uk/about/the-creek/ • Milton Creek was an extremely important commercial hub at one time – why and what happened to change its fortune? • The geographical explanation lies within a combination of key factors. • Resources. Local, natural resources of clay and chalk were available for making bricks and cement. • Demand. The growing population of London needed foodstuffs from the farming county of Kent and building materials for its Victorian building programme. The concept of a daily newspaper had also become popular- requiring vast amounts of paper. • Access. Milton creek gave access to the local industries and enabled shallow bottomed crafts to transport goods to London and the wider world. Materials needed for paper production such as logs and wood pulp were also brought in. However, road and rail transport later developed which meant that barges were no longer such a popular and profitable option, hence the importance of the creek declined.

23. Lesson 4 The Milton Creek Mystery: why was this area so important? (Teacher notes 2) • Mystery Task • Print out and cut out the statements on p. 23. You could laminate them to make them last. • Give one set of statements per group and a copy of the Digimap for Schools map. • Give students time to read through the statements carefully and discuss their ranking in terms of importance. A three level system is suggested to help them sort the statements. • Ask students to think about how they will explain the ‘Mystery’ with relation to some ‘big’ geographical ideas or concepts. The worksheet provided can be used for them to make some notes. • Encourage groups to discuss how useful the statements are and whether they would have used them or not. • Encourage groups to select and use additional information afterwards for example through homework research to develop their understanding. • A follow up task might be to gather their own collection of statements to illustrate the Mystery of why Sittingbourne once had the largest paper mill in the world. • Another follow up task might be for students to draw a concept diagram to explain the story of Milton Creek’s rise to importance in the 19th century.

24. Lesson 4 The Milton Creek Mystery (Pupil notes) Did you know that Milton Creek was once a very important place, exporting goods to London and around the world? Did you know that Sittingbourne once had the biggest Paper Mill in the world? Did you know that bricks made in and around Sittingbourne were in great demand? Why do you think this was? Why was this place so important? And what happened to change its fortunes? You have a pack of statements to look at with your partner. Look at the clues carefully. Sort them into three groups Group A – Very important clues Group B – may be useful clues Group C – Not relevant to the enquiry When you are happy with the way that you have sorted the clues try and tell the story using the clues to help you. You can use Activity Sheet 4 B to help you. Identify the key factors and why location was so important.

25. Activity Sheet 4 A

26. Activity Sheet 4 B What is this place called? What is it like? What kind of features does it have? What kinds of jobs and activities do people do here and why? (Human processes) How and why are its natural features important ? How does it compare to other places? Use this prompt sheet to record ideas that help you explain why Milton Creek was so important at the end of the 19th century How and why are places connected at different scales? Milton Creek – Sitingbourne – Kent – UK – wider world? Where is this place? How does it connect to other places? Why and how is its location important?

27. Lesson 5 What is Milton like today? (Teacher notes) • This is an open enquiry which enables students to use their research skills to find out more about the people who live and work here. Pupils could work in groups to research the sites and different groups might take a particular postcode within the Milton area. One of the sites enables this to be found or you could use the post codes from earlier work. Investigating one area at a smaller scale helps students to realise that even at a local scale there can be lots of difference between one street and the next. Some of the housing for example is very old and some very new. The Census site enables students to enquire about the jobs and industries that are most common today. This can lead into discussion about why this is. It may be useful to model using some of these sites first. • Encourage pupils to recognise positive and negative attributes of the area and also that places are continually changing. For example, the recent introduction of a direct service to London St Pancras from Sittingbourne via the high speed rail link has cut travel times to London and made this area more attractive to commuters. The redevelopment of the area with new housing and the greening of Milton Church Marshes is also beneficial in terms of environmental quality for people and wildlife. • Finally, pupils can identify some of the push and pull factors that might attract people to this area. Try to focus on the positive factors.

28. Lesson 5 What is Milton like today? (Pupil notes) • 1.What can you find out about the area of Milton? Use the sites listed in resources to help you gather information about: • The people who live here • The jobs that they do • The reasons people may want to live here • Transport links and how well they connect people with other places • 2. Use the photo pack provided and the map to help you identify some of the local services and facilities in the area. • 3. Think of push and pull factors that might make people move to the area or to move away from the area. Complete Sheet 5 A with some ideas. • 4. Make an audio podcast to describe personal memories of local places that you have visited. Locate the place on a map and create a hyperlink to your podcast. Describe what you found attractive or not about the place and why you remember it.

29. Activity Sheet 5 A Key words: jobs, transport, leisure, family, friends, schools, housing, cost of living, environment, quality, location, safe, shopping, coast, town, rural

30. Lesson 5 What is Milton like today? (Useful resources) http://www.doogal.co.uk/LatLong.php zoom into the map, click on ‘use Street Map’ to help you identify the postcode of an area. http://www.checkmyfile.com/postcode-check/ enter a postcode to find out information about an area such as average house prices, jobs and demographic data. www.police.uk to find out about crime statistics in an area http://www.censusprofiler.org/ zoom into the map and use the ‘Themes’ to find out more about the people who live and work there. For example, select ‘Employment’ then select ‘industry’. Investigate which industries are most common to the area around Milton Creek (look for the denser shading indicating a higher percentage of people working in a particular industry). http://www.southeasternrailway.co.uk/ maps and details of local train connections http://miltoncreek.co.uk/ general information about Milton Creek http://www.maps.google.com to create hot spots with text and links to images, video and audio files.

31. Lesson 6 What might this place be like in the future? (Teacher notes) • 1. Think about possible, probably and preferred futures and discuss what this means. Young people often worry about what ‘the future’ holds but forget that there is not one definite future waiting for us but that there are a range of futures and that some are more likely to happen than not. The exact outcome depends a lot on what we do now and in this respect we all bear some degree of responsibility and also some degree of choice. This is a very important idea to share as it offers a real sense of hope and participation. • 2. Discuss some of possible threats to the area such as climate change and how the area might adapt to cope with this. Encourage students to think about what they could actively do that might impact positively on this such as monitor energy use more carefully at home and at school and / or install alternative energy technologies. Other issues might be e.g. Road congestion or lack of space for housing. Or environmental damage through vandalism or industrial waste. Students could add ‘hot spots’ to Google or Bing maps to show areas at risk and create their own maps to illustrate some of the points discussed. • 3. Either plan a real fieldtrip to Milton Church Park and the local area or use the resources gathered during these enquiries to consider what this place might look like in the future and how it might be improved. Students may wish to focus just on the park and the facilities and draw maps, make 3D plans and / or short films to show what they would change or what they would add.

32. Lesson 6 What might this place be like in the future? (Pupil notes) • Think about what you have learnt about what Milton was like at one time in the past and what it is like now. Work with a partner to complete Worksheet 6 A thinking about what it will probably be like (most likely future); what it could possibly be like (best and worst case scenarios, not necessarily likely to happen but which could possibly happen), and lastly, what you would prefer to see in the future (what you would choose to happen). Discuss your ideas with others in the class. • Brainstorm some current day problems that might affect the area such as climate change. If sea levels were to rise by one or two metres how would it change the landscape? Use your OS map and the suggested websites to help you with this. What action might need to be taken? How could the area adapt to cope with this? Complete the action plan Worksheet 6 B. • Think about your preferred future. What would your vision be for Milton? What would you like to see be developed or built that would make the area a better place to live and work? Present your ideas using maps, diagrams, models and images.

33. Activity Sheet 6 A Milton in the future – what might happen? What would you choose? Make some notes

34. Activity Sheet 6 B What kinds of events and actions might pose challenges for the future? How might they be dealt with?

35. Lesson 6 What might this place be like in the future? (Resources) Maps and sea level rise See one visualisation of what sea level rise might look like on a map using different scenarios http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/ Zoom into the Kent coast and Sittingbourne. Choose 0 metres for the sea level rise then change it to +1 metre and then +2 metres to see how the land area changes. Do you think this is probable, possible or preferred? Articles about sea level rise and Kent Some identified threats to Kent’s coastline from sea level rise http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/content/articles/2008/09/11/flooding_feature.shtml Useful sites for teachers Glossary of Climate change terms http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11833685 A selection of resources for teachers to develop understanding of issues concerning climate change and energy use http://www.geography.org.uk/cpdevents/onlinecpd/younggeographersgogreen/

36. Thinking further about Milton Creek: new perceptions (Teacher notes) Find out how views, perceptions and knowledge about the local area have changed by asking students to create another word cloud. This time students could use Tagxedo to present their words inside a shape such as a sailing barge. On this site you can use a range of given templates or you can import your own images. www.tagxedo.com

37. Using maps: some ideas Maps Use the provided Digimap for Schools map, cut up into 9 rectangles and laminate. Make three or four packs of these jigsaw maps and put into wallets. Laminate an accompanying key for each pack. Give a group of students a pack and ask them to: Each choose a map rectangle and without showing it to anyone else describe it to a partner or the rest of the group. What features can you see on your rectangle? What kind of a place is it? You could sit back to back with a partner and ask them to draw as you describe it. Put the entire map back together as quickly as they can – this involves discussion and negotiation. Each choose a rectangle that shows some ‘extreme’ information and explain what that is e.g. The least / most densely populated area of the map; the rectangle with the most / least roads; most industries/ pubs / shops etc. Between them identify three rectangles that are linked by a feature, pattern or process and say what it is, e.g. A road, railway line, footpath, park, etc.

38. Using images: some ideas Images Print off a selection of images in small sizes (e.g. 9 images per A4 sheet) and laminate them to make up packs. Give each group a pack of images and ask them to choose one image each and say what it shows using as much geographical vocabulary as possible. Challenge student to say whereabouts the image might be located using a map of the area. Ask each group to choose the best three images that describe the character of Milton and explain why. Ask each group to choose just one image to represent Milton and say why. Look at the images chosen by each group and discuss what has been chosen and how similar and different the choices are. Could the class vote for just one image? How difficult is this? What does this tell us about the choice of images to represent a place. Choose one image each and write a caption for it. Collect your own images to illustrate this place. Upload them to the school website and link them to online mapping such as Google Maps.