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QUARRY RESTORATION OPTIONS
Quarry Geography Unit 14 - Quarry Restoration Options
Geography Unit 14 - Can the Earth cope?
Between a rock and a hard place - exploring hard rock quarry restoration options
In this unit, pupils explore options for the restoration of a hard rock quarry in the local area. Should it be used for landfill, a recycling plant, an industrial estate, a retail park, a leisure centre or turned over to nature? Can any of these uses be combined?
The unit offers opportunities for first-hand (questionnaire) research and the use of secondary sources (local press, radio and TV reports, internet); differentiation of ‘facts’ and ‘opinion’; decision-making by groups of pupils and the production of a report which can be submitted to relevant local organisations.
Finally the unit highlights the relevance of studying resource issues in a local context.
KS3 geography Unit 14 Can the earth cope?
Teacher overview
Title: Caught between a rock and a hard place – quarry restoration options.
QCA Unit link: Geography: Unit 14, sections 5,6 and 7. A local study related
to global issues.
Main curriculum area: Geography
Subsidiary areas: Science, Literacy, ICT, Numeracy, Citizenship
Key themes: Should restoration of a local quarry be carried out with landfill,
recycling facilities, industry, agriculture, forestry, leisure facilities, retail
development, industrial archaeology, nature conservation in mind? What will
be the costs (financial social and environmental) and benefits of these options?
Can any of them be combined? Is funding available? Are they sustainable?
Description / overview of the modified quarry-based unit:
Following QCA Unit 14, sections 5, 6 and 7, the following options for restoration
and development will be considered:
• Landfill
• Recycling facilties
• Industry
• Agriculture
• Forestry
• Leisure facilities
• Retail development
• Industrial archaeology
• Nature conservation
• Education
• A combination of compatible options within these
Initial questions will include:
• What is the employment situation in the local area?
• Will it be worsened when the quarry closes?
• What is the current access to the quarry? Are there road or rail links
which could be used and/or improved?
• Utilities (power, water, sewage) – what is the current situation
and would it support development?
And then for each option the following
might be considered:
• What will the development cost (finance)?
• How will it affect the local community? Costs and benefits
o provision of jobs
o provision of facilities
o effects on local small businesses
o effects on infrastructure (transport, utilities)
o effects on the local physical environment (noise & other pollution, aesthetic
considerations)
o health and safety implications
o effects on wildlife – costs and benefits
The unit will present opportunities for:
• first-hand (questionnaire-based) and secondary (internet) research
• a decision-making process based on role-playing by pupils
• the production of written, audio or video presentations.(outcome - section
6).
• Citizenship (section 7): thinking about local issues, problems and events
and making personal decisions about them.
This unit will encourage pupils to:
• Distinguish fact from opinion (section 5)
• Appreciate the validity (or otherwise) of a range of opinions
• Investigate waste disposal facilities (landfill and recycling), natural
habitats, industry and industrial archaeology, leisure and shopping facilities
in the area around the quarry by fieldwork surveys, (questionnaires) or, if
a questionnaire survey is not possible, role-play and using secondary sources
(internet, local and national press, media)
• consider the short-and long-term effects of a particular development
strategy on the local environment and community
• Discover whether any of the options can be combined to mutual benefit
• Evaluate the sustainability of the chosen option(s) on a local and global
scale
• Produce a development plan in consultation with local conservation bodies,
leisure and business organisations
Links with other areas of the curriculum:
• Numeracy: collating and interpreting data from fieldwork surveys and
secondary sources
• ICT: designing fieldwork recording and data collation sheets, graphing/charting
data, newsletter layout, management plan design, photographic manipulation
• Literacy: production of persuasive newsletter(s), press articles, development
and management plans.
• Art; poster production, photogrgphic skills
• Science: wildlife conservation, interdependence
• Citizenship: consideration of the effects of actions on the local environment
and community
Lesson overview
The quarry-based modified unit is envisaged as a combination of five 50-minute
lessons and one half-day fieldwork outing to a local town (option 1) or, if
a questionnaire survey is not possible six 50-minute lessons with the fieldwork
outing replaced by role-play (option 2).
Unit 14 Can the earth cope?
Ecosystems, population and resources
(Quarry-linked adapted unit for sections 5, 6 and 7). ‘Caught between
a rock and a hard place’ – quarry restoration options
Geography
Year 8
About the adapted unit
This unit addresses sections 5,6 ,and 7;global futures/resource issues. Pupils
investigate the effects of restoration and development of a hard rock quarry
and about resulting environmental issues/consequences.
Activities in this unit provide the opportunity for pupils to improve their
literacy skills and think about important topical issues linked with citizenship.
This section of unit 14 is expected to occupy 4 50-,minute lessons and one half-day
fieldwork outing.
Key aspects
Geographical enquiry and skills
Pupils will:
• ask geographical questions
• suggest investigation sequences
• collect, record and present evidence
• analyse evidence and draw conclusions
• appreciate values and attitudes
• use maps
• use secondary evidence
• draw maps, plans and graphs
Knowledge and understanding of places
Pupils will:
• locate places and environments
• explore interdependence and local cititzenship
Knowledge and understanding of patterns and processes
Explored through:
• ecosystems
• resource issues
Knowledge and understanding of environmental change and sustainable development
Pupils will study:
• the sustainability of specific development proposals
Expectations
At the end of this adapted unit
most pupils will: appreciate how resource issues can change places and the links
and relationships that make places economically dependent on each other; appreciate
that different values and attitudes result in different approaches in managing
environments sustainably and that these may have different effects on people
and places; suggest relevant questions and a sequence of investigation of ecosystems,
population and resources; select and use effectively a range of skills and sources
of evidence; present their findings about these issues in a coherent way and
reach conclusions that are consistent with evidence
some pupils will not have made so much progress and will: recognise some of
the links and relationships that make places economically dependent on each
other; explain their own views and recognise how people try to manage environments
sustainably; begin to suggest explanations for how human activities cause damage
to the environment and recognise how people may try to improve the environment;
suggest suitable geographical questions and sequences of investigation of ecosystems,
population and resource issues; use a range of skills and secondary sources
of evidence and communicate their findings using appropriate vocabulary
some pupils will have progressed further and will: understand that many factors,
including people’s values and attitudes, eg about waste disposal, may
influence decisions about environments and that environments and the people
who live there are affected by actions and events in other places; appreciate
that human actions may have unintended consequences for the environment and
that considerations of sustainable development may affect the planning and management
of such environments in the future; identify geographical questions and sequences
for investigation of ecosystems, population and resource issues; select and
use accurately a wide range of skills and sources of evidence; evaluate critically
sources of evidence for bias, present well-argued reports and begin to reach
substantiated conclusions
Prior learning
It is helpful for these sections if pupils have:
• • carried out research using a range of sources, eg internet,
CD-ROM, library
•
Language for learning
Through the activities in these sections of the unit pupils will be able to
understand, use and spell accurately words relating to:
• public opinion, eg fact, opinion, nimbyism, probable and preferable
futures (others according to case studies selected)
Speaking and listening – through the activities pupils could:
• discuss and question what they are learning and how it is relevant in
other contexts or when using variables
Reading – through the activities pupils could:
• distinguish facts from hypotheses/theories/opinions and how far information
is complete and helpful
Writing – through the activities pupils could:
• link ideas and paragraphs into continuous text
Resources
Resources include:
• selection of resources covering a variety of resource issues, eg textbooks,
newspaper articles, internet information as text
• any clip from BBC’s Question time
• Thinking through geography (David Leat, Chris Kingston Publishing, 1988)
(includes activities on ‘Fact or opinion’)
Future learning
This unit lays the foundation for the study of development in unit 16 ‘What
is development?’ in year 9, with its focus on distribution at a global
scale and its consideration of topical issues. Such background information will
also be useful for GCSE work.
Links
The activities in this unit link with:
• other geography units – unit 16 ‘What is development?’
• ICT – using a mapping package, using internet search engines
• citizenship – considering topical issues, justifying personal
opinion
• science – work on food production, habitats, toxic materials in
food chains
What are the effects on
the environment of this resource issue?
• to suggest appropriate sequences of investigation
• to collect, record and present evidence
• to use secondary sources of evidence
• to locate places on a world map
• to consider the effects on the environment of the use of a resource
• Choose a case study about a topical resource issue which links with
the global distributions already investigated, eg waste disposal by landfill.
Provide pupils with a range of text-based resources, eg newspaper articles,
internet information, expressing an opinion about the issue, eg some in favour
of and some against waste disposal by landfill. Ask pupils to use highlighter
pens (two colours) to identify the ‘fact’ and the ’opinion’
statements within the texts relating to impact on the environment and planning/management.
Ask pupils to identify the various interested groups referred to in the text
or those who have generated the text, eg scientists, politicians, environmentalists,
etc. Fill in a matrix recording the fact and opinion statements (vertical columns)
against the relevant groups or individuals (horizontal rows).
• Ask pupils to plot all the ‘resource issue’ locations in
the text extract on their
world map.
• Conduct a class debriefing activity to consider the results of the above
activities, eg prevalence of fact or opinion, half-truths, nimbyism, etc. Ask
pupils to evaluate the approaches to and outcomes of their work. • accurately
distinguish between fact and opinion
• accurately attribute views to specific groups and explain how and why
they hold these views
• identify correctly on a world map locations around the world where a
resource issue occurs • Language for learning: this activity provides
pupils with the opportunity to distinguish fact from opinion.
How can a resource be planned and managed?
• to carry out a geographical enquiry into resource planning and management
of a suitable issue using a completed teacher-modelled activity as a guide •
Ask pupils to carry out their own resource enquiry using the teacher model provided.
Provide pupils with suitable issues, waste recycling and landfill, wind energy,
water supply, pollution. Present the outcome of the research as a series of
questions and answers as in a Question time programme involving representatives
from different ‘interest’ groups, about how to plan and manage a
resource. Inform pupils that the dialogue should include fact and opinion and
ask them to draw an appropriate map showing the locations investigated. Less
able pupils may require more structured help, eg resource pack. • demonstrate
understanding of the views of different groups through the question and answer
tasks
• explain how and why people attempt to manage environments • The
outcome might be written/audio or videotaped/performed.
Why should we study resource
issues?
• to analyse and evaluate evidence about resource issues and draw and
justify conclusions
• to appreciate how people’s values and attitudes, including their
own, affect contemporary issues such as sustainable development • Provide
a large map of the local area and ask pupils to locate all the resource issue
studies carried out by the class. Discuss which issues have already had an impact
on their lives and which might affect them/their children in the future. How
will it affect their lives, the lives of others, their world?
• Provide pupils with a cartoon which depicts a negative global future.
Discuss this under the question Probable futures? with reference to the range
of resource issues investigated. Then ask pupils to discuss the question Preferable
futures? and ask them to design a cartoon to illustrate their own preferred
future. Ask them to compare the ’two futures’ cartoons in writing
and then, after discussion, to write their own definition of sustainable development.
• explain how human actions, values and attitudes can cause change
• identify and explain links and relationships that make places dependent
on each other
• give an acceptable definition of the concept of sustainable development
• Citizenship: this activity provides pupils with an opportunity to think
about topical political, spiritual, moral, social and cultural issues, problems
and events by analysing information and its sources, including ICT-based resources
such as news and pressure group websites; to justify orally and in writing a
personal opinion about such issues, problems or events.
Lesson 1: setting the scene
Introduce the topic by asking pupils what they know about the quarry in question and whether any of them have family members working there.
If they do, what are the effects of the closure going to be? This might lead to pupils asking their relatives about the issue.
NB Teachers will be aware of the need for sensitivity to the circumstance of particular pupils. Teachers may prefer to use a fictional family as an illustration.
Present information – press cuttings, internet material, concerned with the quarry closure. Which of these are factual and which are opinions? Which if any pressure groups are involved?
Then present a range of options for
restoration and development:
• Landfill – waste disposal
• Industry – industrial estate with recycling facilities
• Restoration to either agricultural or forestry
• Leisure facilities including a motorcycle scrambling track
• Retail development with recycling facilities
• Nature conservation and education
• A combination of compatible options within these
Lesson 1 resources
Computer network with internet access, page layout software, PowerPoint
Data projector/interactive whiteboard
Press cuttings
Videos of local news
Posters concerning landfill and recycling
Lesson 2: working
groups
Split pupils into groups and assign one of the above topics to each group.
Each group has the following
headings to work under, and to prepare a report for presentation (posters, ICT)
at the beginning of lesson 3:
• Is there a need?
• Costs and benefits
o financial – the teacher may need to provide this information
o effects on the local environment – short term and long term
o effects on the local community and businesses
o effects on wildlife
• Infrastructure – transport and utilities (power, water, waste
disposal)
• Sustainability
Stress the importance of sustainability and the effects on wildlife and environment here – these might be the main theme of investigations.
Then ask pupils to think
about how they can investigate these topics and themes in relation to their
group option. What resources will they need?
• Internet access to national and local information from Government, conservation
and pressure groups
• local public opinion (local press, local radio and TV)
Coursework: research via internet (local library if not available at home) or local media
Lesson 2 resources
Computer network with internet access, page layout software, PowerPoint
Data projector/interactive whiteboard
Poster paper, felt-tip pens
Lesson 3:
Each working group makes a short presentation summarising what they have been
able to find out, separating fact from opinion, and what information they still
need.
Now prepare pupils for the next lesson which is a role-playing session.
Tell them that they have to prepare a 5-minute presentation on behalf of their topic group.
Assign one pupil from each group to a new group with the role of local residents.
Each group’s task is to convince the local residents theirs is the best researched, most sustainable option with the lowest environmental impact
Less able pupils may need help with setting up a framework.
Each member of the group must make a positive contribution to the role-play.
Lesson 3 resources
Computer network with internet access, page layout software, PowerPoint
Data projector/interactive whiteboard
Poster paper, felt-tip pens
Back
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Fieldwork outing – teacher preparation
• All LEA and School procedures will have been followed before the visit;
o permissions obtained
o risk assessments carried out
o letters and consent forms sent to parents and return monitored
• out of courtesy local shopkeepers are contacted and asked what is the
maximum number of accompanied schoolchildren they will allow into their shop
at one time (so that pupils will not go into shops which definitely don’t
want them or in groups which are too large and cause anxiety)
• where shopkeepers don’t want children in their shops the teacher
must make this clear
• police and shopping centre managers informed
• sufficient staff and/or CRB vetted parents recruited
The fieldwork outing
On arrival in town set the framework of the day:
• who is in overall charge – mobile number given for emergency use
• who is in charge of which group of pupils
• location of public toilets
• meeting places and times – at intervals during the day and at
the end of the fieldwork
• questionnaire sheets to be labelled with the group number names of those
in the group
• behaviour and road safety rules
Before departure at the end of the
day ask pupils
• were there any problems?
• do you have all your own personal gear?
• to give their questionnaire sheets to the teacher in charge
Fieldwork outing resources
Lists for each adult of
behaviour and road safety rules
pupils and adults
medical details
mobile numbers
home contact details
school contact details
transport firm contact details
Plus any other information which the school or LEA requires you to provide
Make sure that adults each
carrry
A basic first aid kit (follow school & LEA rules)
A spare hot drink (esp. hot chocolate, tea)
A spare bottle of drinking water
A spare sweater
Worksheets for each adult
outlining
• who is in overall charge – mobile number
• who is in charge of which group of pupils
• location of public toilets
• meeting places and times
• the aims and outline of the day
Spare
• questionnaire sheets
• clipboards
• pencils
• large polythene bag to protect clipboards
Lesson 4 –
collating information
If a computer network is available the questionnaire sheets can be collated
using a shared Excel spreadsheet. In this way the responses to the key question
‘which of these do you think is the best option’ can be scored.
Pupils can draw a pie chart of the scores.
During this lesson pupils also collate information relevant
to their group option from the local press and from the internet and prepare
their group presentation. Clear guidelines about participation need to be given.
Lesson 4 resources
Computer network with internet access, page layout software, PowerPoint
Data projector/interactive whiteboard
Poster paper, felt-tip pens
Lesson 5 –
bringing it all together
Each topic group gives a 5-minute (maximum) presentation about their option.
They may conclude that it is impractical to proceed, but in any case should
give reasoned arguments for their decision.
Guidelines for presentation:
• state aims - which topic they are presenting and what they set out to
discover
• methods – how they investigated
• results – clearly presented (PowerPoint, OHP etc.)
o primary data (fieldwork survey, one-to-one discussions with people directly
involved)
o secondary data (internet, press, radio, TV)
? what is hard fact
? what is opinion/pressure group propaganda
• interpretation of results
• conclusions – yes or no and why
• acknowledgements – to people questioned, anyone helping
• evaluation
The class now has enough information for an informed decision
on the option(s) to follow: a vote is taken for each of the options.
A suggested voting procedure is 10 points for the first preference, 9 for the
second, 8 for the third etc. with the highest score being the overall preference.
Finally the teacher leads a discussion session looking at the
outcome of the investigation.
• What is the preferred option?
• Why is this best?
• Can it be combined with any of the other options?
Make sure that the pupils know that their presentations and the final class opinion will be presented to relevant bodies – e.g. Local Authority, Wildlife Trust, current quarry owners. Pupils are encouraged to write to all those who have provided help and support for the unit.
The relevance to the local community and to global issues (pollution of water supplies, waste production, climate change) is explored.
Lessons 5&6 resources
Computer network with internet access, page layout software, PowerPoint
Data projector/interactive whiteboard
Poster paper, felt-tip pens
Lessons 5 and 6 – producing a report
As a result of the role-playing exercise the class has now made an informed decision on the preferred option(s).
They can now produce a report – in the form of a newsletter or newspaper, and possibly web pages, for submission to the local authority, the local Wildlife Trust and the quarry operator.
The report should summarise what factual information has been discovered and what is based on opinion.
Encourage pupils to write to all those who have provided help and support for the unit.
Finally explore the relevance
• to the local community
• to global issues
o pollution of water supplies
o waste production
o climate change
and stress the importance of the pupils’ contribution
as informed citizens.