Sustainable Development – My Urban Area Blog
In this blog I am going to discuss my urban area where I live. To start looking at Urbanisation I watched the TED Talk “its our city. Let’s fix it.” From this I found out some of the impact that increasing urbanisation has on the world. One Positive impact is on the economy and job opportunities as when there is more shops etc there are more opportunities for work. one negative impact is the impact on the environment for example 80% of the worlds gas emissions are from urban cities, which has a negative impact on the environment. Another factor that is related to urban areas is that a third of people who live in cities are in poverty this is a surprisingly high amount of people in poverty in the areas that are considered urban.
I then started to look at where I live and if my area is considered urban. I live in Ayr around a 5-minute walk from the university. Ayr is considered to be urban as it is a reasonable size town with a range of buildings and green space. Are is mainly made up of two floor houses there aren’t many tall buildings like there are in places such as Glasgow. The roads in Ayr are mainly not main roads and are all pretty much single lanes with a few exceptions. There are a few one-way systems and lots of roundabouts. So, the roads are like a typical town. There are many green areas such as belleisle, sea field and the old racecourse. Even just round about my house and the university is surrounded by woods and fields with a woods path following the river Ayr.
The Transport in Ayr is mainly cars, there are always busses and taxis running but most people travel by car. There is also Ayr Train station that is used to visit other towns and cities but is not used for within the town. There ae many community spaces in are there are quite a few primary schools for a town, around 10, and there are around 5 secondary schools. For after school education there is Ayr College and UWS Ayr. There are also quite a few community centres a few around my house are whittlets and Lochside. There also other types of community areas such as Carnegie and forehill library and the Craigie allotments which is just down the road from my house and the university. In Ayr there are many sports facilities such as the citadel leisure centre where there is spots courts and a swimming pool. Apart from that there is a cinema, Ayr football stadium and then there are lots of restaurants and bars. As well as the green areas such as belleisle where there is a large free park and lots of grassy areas and nice walks as well as a golf course.
The population in Ayr is around 47,190 according to my google search on the 23rd September 2018. The job opportunities in Ayr are mainly in retail in the towns shopping centre and other than that then the other work is in the councils and offices. This results in a lot of Ayr’s population seeking jobs outside of the town.
Some ways you could investigate urban environments with a primary 5 class would be to go out of the school as a class and explore your own urban area and allow the children to make their own discoveries and options on their area. Also, they could be given a random town/city to investigate online, themselves to explore and they could make a presentation or poster to share with the rest of the class then the whole class could group/compare all the different areas that they looked at alone or in small groups either I class or as a homework project. Some of the experiences and outcomes I think could be achieved by exploring urban environments could be, “I can discuss the environmental impact of human activity and suggest ways in which we can live in a more environmentally responsible way.” SOC 2-08a, “Having explored my local area, I can present information on different places to live, work and relax and interesting places to visit.” SOC 2-10a and “I can explain how the physical environment influences the ways in which people use land by comparing my local area with a contrasting area.” SOC 2-13a.
References
- Education Scotland (2004) – Curriculum for Excellence; Experiences and Outcomes [Online] https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/cfe-(building-from-the-statement-appendix-incl-btc1-5)/Experiences%20and%20outcomes [Accessed on 23rd September 2018]
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_towns_and_cities_in_Scotland_by_population
- https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.4659611,-4.605853,15z
- “It’s our city. Let’s fix it.” TED Talk [Online] https://www.ted.com/talks/alessandra_orofino_it_s_our_city_let_s_fix_it
