My urban environment, Lanark, is a small town situated in the middle of Scotland. The population in the town is around 8800. Lanark has a vary of different buildings, ranging from shops, houses, flats, school, sports centres, churhces and farms.  Lanark still has many old, original buildings which outweighs the newer builds. There are many green spaces in the outskirts of the town due to farms and there are various parks and grass areas need schools and housing estates.  However, in the middle of the town there is a lack of greenery due to the upraise of buildings.  A lot space in the town is taken up by our 4 schools as well as 3 large supermarkets . Alongside,  Lanark’s highstreet is full of local stores with the only train station situated at the top.  Lanark now has a new sports centre and gym but this has left the old sports centre abandoned, making it an eyesore to the pubic. Other community spaces include, churches, the library, the YMCA, Lanark Loch and the local racecourse which accommodates an equestrian centre and many local football teams. As Lanark is rather small town, people tent to walk a lot more than people would in cities, instead of jumping in a taxi to get somewhere, walking is the main choice of transport. Buses and trains are available for transport into cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh at almost any time during the day. Taxis are rarely seen for daily use in Lanark, however, as there are people without cars or licenses taxis are essential to  go about their routines.  There are many nature walks and hikes around and in the town which makes the people or Lanark much more active as well as allowing them to appreciate their environment. The air pollution in Lanark is very low due to a lack of industrial buildings, it is only marked as a 1 which is very good. There is only one factory in Lanark, Borders biscuits, and this is on the outskirts of the town to stop such things.  As for noise pollution, this is not a problem in my town as the roads are rather quiet throughout the year and the trains run out of Lanark instead of through it.

To introduce and teach urban environment with a primary 5 class, I would take them out into their environment to get them to physically engage with what they are learning.  I would allow them to explore different types of house, shops and  community spaces  in the area.  you could allow them to do their own research as homework and maybe create class projects on how their environment differs to each others or even other countries. Then you could gradually increase the thought of transport and see how it affect the environment, maybe even allow the children to experience different forms of transport in due time.

Lecture – As this was our first lecture, we were told about how the module would pan out.  We learned about things such as Equality vs Equity, how sometimes giving everyone the same help or materials isn’t enough.  We then went onto discussing our environment and what this meant.  Most of us suggested it was the area around us and where we live. When I looked up the definition of environment it suggested the same, “The surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.” . I learned that people are more likely to care about their environment if the interact with it, which is why children who spend a lot of time outdoors will be less likely to want to destroy it than others.  We discussed how people aren’t very supportive of the upkeep of their environment and the people who are, are stereotyped as  “tree huggers” or “hippies”.

Workshop 1 – In my first workshop I experienced outdoor learning first hand.  We were given multiple tasks over the period of time which linked with the topics we were doing. The first task I encountered was a leaf and bug treasure hunt like game. This task was to get my team mates and myself thinking about why there were certain leaves and bugs in or not in Ayr. Since this was a hands on experience, it was much more engaging rather than just researching things online. The second task I undertook was a sensory walk, to allow myself time to look at the detail of nature.  We found a lot of litter and even some graffiti around the uni environment, as well as a lot of smokers polluting the air and leaving their cigarettes all over the ground. Lastly, I looked at the different types lichen in the area and why it was causes. There was a reasonable amount of lichen on the trees all of different colour. This thought us that the air pollution in the area must be rather low due to the amount of lichen.

Workshop 2 – —In this workshop I learned about plants and Living things. I learned all about how plants are formed and even got the chance to dissect some flowers. In this I also found out that the leaves collect sunlight to photosynthesise and provide food for the plant as sugars. There were various other stations where you could examine snails and do other types of quizzes. I was able to go outside to examine different types of leaves by making rubbings of them and comparing.  We researched the different parts of the leaves and found out the names of them. We used a card game to distinguish between living and non living things which was a good exercise to get you thinking and would be good to use in a classroom. Overall, the different stations made to workshop more interesting and engaging.