Get Off The Road Alan Parkinson Learning Resource Key Stage 3
Mapstream for Schools Learning Resources These resources are a guide for teachers to demonstrate to the whole class or direct individual students as appropriate. Each activity has several ideas within it that you can tailor to suit your class and pupils. Some resources contain worksheets for direct distribution to pupils. Title Level Context Location KS3 An introduction to the Mapstream for Schools product. Bring in maps, and change the scale to identify particular streets. Zoom to street level. Explore changes using a fieldwork activity in the area around school (depending on its location) Links are made to urban change / local planning regulations / link to flooding and urban hydrology given the changing nature of the urban fabric. Most cities and towns will have this issue in residential areas close to the town centre. Knowledge Cirriculum links (England) Scottish Curriculum for Excellence Changing map scales, using large scale maps, creating polygons, creating shapefiles, symbolising and recording fieldwork data, area measurement Local studies, map skills (Social Science Outcomes: People, Place and Environment): 0.07a, 1.07a, 1.13a, 1.14a, 2.08a, 2.09a, 3.08a, 3.14a, 4.10a, 4.14a Introductory Quote
If an area of green space in London the size of twenty-two Hyde Parks were to be concreted over there would, quite rightly, be a huge public outcry. But when the lost green space in question is made up of front gardens rather than parkland, we have let this happen with barely a murmur. Darren Johnson, 2005 Source: Crazy Paving Report Context: If you take a walk along many streets in areas just outside the central business district of towns and cities you will see that the car dominates the view. Cars are parked along the streets, sometimes on both sides. In some cases there will be parking restrictions using resident-only parking permits and yellow lines. The problem is greatest in those areas which have Victorian or Georgian housing. The Georgians were not big Ford Mondeo owners. For that reason, these houses tend not to have garages attached, as post-war houses in the suburbs have. In some cases, people have created off-street parking as a result of the inconvenience of being able to guarantee a parking place close to their house, and the potential damage to their car if it is parked on a narrow street with cars parked outside. There has also been the introduction of permit only parking, often at a cost to the householder. This is usually for one car per family, so that there are problems if a family owns more than one vehicle. Starter Activity Show students this image. Can they work out what this is? Answers at the end of the lesson http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_malcolm/2350631699/
(Image Copyright of Chris Malcolm, Edinburgh) Starter Activity 2 Ask students to think of streets that match the description above and locate them within your nearest town or city. Think of some of the issues that on-street parking may cause for residents and other people who are visiting, using or driving along this street. What difficulties might lines of cars parked along streets cause for young people, for example? Put the replies that you get onto the speech bubble sheet and sort them into a state where you can create an answer the following question.(speech Bubble Sheet Available as an attached document) Should all house-owners have to pay to park on the street? Is this a problem in all areas of town? Do people park their car for convenience above all? As a matter of interest, no-one has a right to park outside their own house, or even to park on the street in the first place. Here is an extract from the Highway Code on the matter of parking. Point 216: You MUST NOT park in parking spaces reserved for specific users, such as Orange Badge holders or residents, unless entitled to do so. Law RTRA sects 5 & 8. Point 217: DO NOT park your vehicle or trailer on the road where it would endanger, inconvenience or obstruct pedestrians or other road users. For example, do not stop: -- Near a school entrance -- Anywhere you would prevent access for Emergency Services
-- At or near a bus stop or taxi rank -- On the approach to a level crossing -- Opposite or within 10 metres (32 feet) of a junction, except in an authorized parking space -- Near the brow of a hill or hump bridge -- Opposite a traffic island or (if this would cause an obstruction) another parked vehicle -- Where you would force other traffic to enter a tram line -- Where the kerb has been lowered to help wheelchair users -- In front of an entrance to a property -- On a bend Point 218: DO NOT park partically or wholly on the pavement unless signs permit it. Parking on the pavement can obstruct and seriously inconvenience pedestrians, people in wheelchairs, the visually impaired and people with prams and pushchairs. Starter Activity 3 Explore the area immediately outside the CBD of your town, where there are terraced-house lined streets, and (probably) an absence of large front gardens. In 2005, it was estimated that around a quarter of the gardens in London were actually paved over rather than being naturally planted, and that as many as two-thirds were at least partially paved over. Can you find a street that has lots of gardens that fit this description? Consider the following question: What are the environmental impacts of paving over, or covering a front garden with gravel rather than leaving it as a lawn and flower beds? The Crazy Paving report available from here - http://www.london.gov.uk/who-runs-london/thelondon-assembly/publications/environment/crazy-paving-environmental-importancelondon%e2%80%99s-front-gardens discussed the impact in London in particular. (This report is attached at the end of this document) How serious is the problem in your hometown? Explore local streets and gardens to identify possible hotspots for this sort of conversion within a few kilometres of your school site. Discussion point:
What reasons do you think people give for having reduced the permeability of their gardens in this way? Easier off-road parking? Reducing the need for gardening perhaps this is linked to the demographics of an area? I used to live in a village with a large percentage of elderly residents and many of them changed their garden to parking to reduce the distance they had to walk once getting out of their car, and also to make their front garden low maintenance. Reducing insurance premiums Block paving possibly being used as an improvement, which might raise the selling price of a property A desire to have plants which require less watering to reduce the amount of water usage if the household has a water meter fitted Main Activity Identify a street which you are going to study and record the impacts on. This could be as a result of actual fieldwork (depending on your school location), or perhaps you can simply imagine (for illustration purposes) that random gardens on the street are paved over e.g. every third house has its garden paved. Here s an example from a recent trip to work: If possible, make a brief visit to a street that is within easy walking distance of the school. You will need to gain the necessary permissions for this trip, and also carry out appropriate risk assessments.
Mapping Open Mapstream for Schools and add the maps into your chosen GIS client. Follow the instructions to add a WMS layer to your chosen GIS client. If this is your first activity using Mapstream for Schools it may take you a little longer. Access the instructions from the Mapstream for Schools website if you don t already have them to hand: http://mapstream.edina.ac.uk/start.html Navigate to the street which you have selected for the activity. You will need to zoom down to the larger scale maps. Remember that you have access to mapping at all scales down to Ordnance Survey Mastermap. It is recommended that you choose a scale of around 1: 1250 or similar so that you can see individual properties. You now need to assess the extent to which the gardens in this street are permeable to rainfall and calculate an overall score for the street of how permeable it is. This may involve some or all of the following steps: a) Counting the number of gardens b) Working out the area of the gardens that had been made impermeable c) Carrying out a visual assessment, and estimating how much of the garden has been made impermeable to rainfall identify a rough percentage figure from your observations d) Identifying the extent to which areas of permeable ground exist within the area immediately outside the gardens e.g. are there other grass verges or open spaces in front of the properties? You may wish to make pupils aware of a resource from the Royal Horticultural Society on the way that front gardens can be made more permeable and plant friendly. http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=738 Creating a polygon You need to create some polygons for each of the front gardens to identify the potential area which has been lost to gravel / concrete slabs. These polygons are usually made by selecting an appropriate option from the TOOLS menu. Polygons are created by clicking at each corner of the shape that you want to produce, and (usually) double clicking the final point to finish. In QGIS, you will find a range of tools to help you create a suitable shapefile, which is what you will need to create shapefiles on top of the Ordnance Survey maps.
Click Layer Click New Choose New Shapefile Layer Call this layer GARDENS or something similar A POLYGON shapefile is required for this activity note the other options are Points or Lines. These are the three types of files that are used by GIS software. If you want a combination of any two of these, you will need to create two different files. Note that the heading in the box will say NEW VECTOR LAYER, rather than NEW SHAPEFILE LAYER. This relates to the types of images that GIS uses. A shapefile is a Vector layer, because it is made of a series of lines joining specific points on the map, and following a particular course across the map. Check that the polygon shapefile option has been selected, as you cannot change this once the file has been created, and you would need to begin the process again. Each garden along the street will be represented by a separate polygon. You may wish to allocate pupils a street of an appropriate length if time is limited. NOTE: There are many Coordinate Reference Systems, but you need to ensure that British National Grid has been selected, as the OS maps use this system, and if you don t do this, your polygons will not appear in the correct place. The OS National Grid is called OSGB 1936 This should already be in the recently used section of the menu as you have already selected this when opening the WMS layer, but this may not always be the case. You will notice that an attribute (piece of information) about the layer that you are making has already been created: an id or identification field. You will need to add attributes for the layer that you are creating. I suggest you create and add the following attributes for this particular activity, although you can feel free to add others. The name field will allow labels to be added at a later date: Name Type Width Name Text / String 20 Percentage Integer 10 This will hold the percentage of the garden which has been made impermeable through the use of paving or other materials. Description Text / String 10 Cars Integer 10
After the details of each attribute have been created, click ADD TO ATTRIBUTE LIST. This is important, as the attribute will not be added until you confirm using this step. Click REMOVE ATTRIBUTE if you make an error and wish to remove something. Don t press OK unless you have finished entering details of the final attribute and made sure they are visible on the list. This may take a few tries to get used to. Also note that each time you create a shapefile you will create more than one file: there will be 5 in total. These will need to be stored together for the shapefile to work correctly. When you have created all the attributes, click OK and save this layer with the name GARDENS Click VIEW, PANELS and make sure LAYERS has a cross in it to see the layers that are open. Note that the layer on top will appear on top of the one below. If you wish to see any Polygons that you create, this order needs to be maintained. Dragging and dropping this layer will change its order within the map view window, and may result in the polygons disappearing from view if they are covered by an opaque layer (such as the Mapstream for Schools layer) Double-click on the name of the layer: GARDENS in the left hand panel, to open the properties of the layer. This will allow the colour and other details about the layer to be changed. You may wish to choose an appropriate colour for the features that you are creating the default is a pale red colour which is transparent. This can be done before or after you have created the polygons. To create a new polygon for each garden in the street that has been identified, you will need to select TOGGLE EDITING and identify that the editing toolbar is live and not greyed out. Click carefully in each corner of the front garden to create that garden s unique polygon. Right click the final corner of the polygon to finish. The shape will be generated, and an attribute window will pop up. At this point, you can type in the values for the garden that you have just created. Once you have completed a polygon you will be able to move on and create the next until you have finished. You can also choose to OPEN THE ATTRIBUTE TABLE and see the data that has been entered so far to check that things are happening correctly. For teachers, this is a useful way to demonstrate that there are numbers which lie behind the map change the numbers and you change the map. For this reason, this is a good example of the use of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) in action. Remember that there are plenty of job opportunities using this sort of technology. You may wish to allocate each student (pair of students) to a separate street so that they can cover an area between them and identify a district of the town which has a particular problem with on-street parking.
The final shapefile can be saved as a PROJECT in a student area. Students should save work fairly regularly as the software may crash or hang, which may result in work being lost. This is a good working practice to get into with any computer software. The resulting shapefile can be queried to identify those gardens which had the highest pavement cover. Area calculation What is the total area of land that has been covered over with shingle and paving in the street that has been studied? Q-GIS is able to identify the area of any polygons that have been generated. This requires the use of a FIELD CALCULATOR tool. Once you have created all the polygons that are required for your street, you can open the attribute table to see the results. How big are these polygons? What is the total area covered by the polygons? The area of each polygon can be identified using the FIELD CALCULATOR. Make sure that the GARDENS layer that you have created is open for editing. The editing tools should be visible and not greyed out. Open the PROPERTIES and choose OPEN ATTRIBUTE TABLE Select the various records in the table by holding down the SHIFT KEY and clicking the numbers in the first column. The fields should turn blue if this is done.
Select the FIELD CALCULATOR TOOL by clicking the icon. (shown in the previous screenshot) Enter the name GARDEN AREA in the Field Name section and choose an appropriate output type: Choose the GEOMETRY section and expand that by clicking on the small + to the left Choose $area and double click it to add it to the bottom box in the window it will appear in red. You should see an Output preview at the bottom left of the window with a number which is the area of that polygon in square metres. Click OK to add this new field, and you will see the area of all the polygons is calculated. You can also factor in the percentage of the garden that is not covered using an additional calculation if you are feeling confident. Assuming you have called the column with the percentage coverage PERCENTAGE as suggested earlier you can construct a formula in the EXPRESSION box at the bottom which looks like: $area * percentage / 100 Use a calculator to add these numbers to produce a total for the whole street. Student outcome: Students should be asked to produce an annotated guide for home-owners to outline the pros and cons of paving over a front garden to create an off street parking area.
This report needs to include the following items. A suggested number of marks which might be allocated to these sections has been included in order to suggest the relative importance of each section to the finished product. a) An introduction explaining the issue of off-street parking 3 marks b) A short summary of ideas taken from the Crazy Paving report with at least one quote (with proper attribution to the source) 3 marks The report is available here: http://www.rhs.org.uk/gardening/sustainable-gardening/pdfs/frontgardens c) A map of the street they have surveyed, along with the results of the total and percentage areas covered 10 marks d) A table showing the pros and cons of paving a front garden 6 marks e) Some guidance on reducing the impact of losing a front garden for parking purposes 3 marks TOTAL: 25 marks The Royal Horticultural Society has provided a useful document which identifies some of the issues with replacing planting: http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=738 Fieldwork Activity You may wish to use this as the basis for a more significant local fieldwork experience for students. Mapwork and its associated skills are an instantly recognisable aspect of school geography, acknowledged as such in the (current as of 2012) key stage 3 geography programme of study importance statement : Geographical enquiry encourages questioning, investigation and critical thinking Fieldwork is an essential element of this. Pupils learn to think spatially and use maps, visual images and new technologies, including geographical information systems (GIS) (QCA, 2007). A survey sheet for use in fieldwork has been included in the resources to download: see Front Garden Survey Sheet (PDF) Alternatively, a Google Form could be created, with some questions about the way that staff, and the parents of children at the school make use of any garage they may have access to.
And finally The image that was shown in the starter activity is a car turntable. Cars that are driven onto it can then be turned round. This is safer for access and egress from the property on a busy road, and means there is no need for a turning circle or space within the boundary of the property. EDINA at University of Edinburgh 2013 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial License