Intro Quiz: A UK rural landscape experiencing decline: Cumbria

Video: A UK rural landscape experiencing decline: Cumbria

﻿Hi, I'm Miss Goacher, and welcome to today's lesson. Our focus for today's lesson is continuing to look at the unit of work focusing on economic change in the UK. We're today, going to look at how that has influenced population change in rural areas, and really look at rural population decline. If you joined us last lesson, you will have looked at population gain and increase in rural areas. But today, we're going to look at the causes and the impacts of population decline, focusing on a particular area of the UK, which is Cumbria. You're going to need a pen and some paper as normal. So if you need to pause the video, please feel free to do so to go and grab those materials before we continue with the lesson. Before we do anything today, it's really important that we understand that definition of rural and urban. A rural area is an area defined as somewhere outside of an urban area, typically a village or a hamlet and situated in the countryside. An urban area is somewhere with a high population density. Within the UK, we are looking at 10,000 people plus, and is typically a town or a city. Only 6.8% of the UK is actually urban land. The 81.5% of our population lives in urban areas. Our job is going to focus on rural areas today. And you can see from the map on your screen where those rural areas are across the UK. Look very carefully at the key here. We are looking at those darker green colours on our choropleth map to identify where our rural areas are across the UK. And you can see quite clearly that a lot of land in the UK is categorised as rural. We're going to focus on one particular part of the UK, which is Cumbria. So we are going to be looking at the northwest of the UK to find out more about urban change and rural change. Before we do anything today, I want us to look at a skills question. You've got a graph on the slide, which is showing us about UK rural and urban age groups. What we need to do is we need to describe the population structure of rural areas in the UK. Look carefully at the key on your graph to identify that rural areas are shown by the orange colour. Your success criteria clearly states that we need to identify the main trends. So rural and urban highest and lowest numbers, identify the highest and lowest rural age groups and use some data either of the population size or the age ranges. Look very carefully at that graph to identify that main trend. Do rural or urban areas have the highest numbers of those age groups? And then for part two, can you identify those highest and lowest age groups for rural areas using data to support your answer? Pause the video at this point so that you can have a look very carefully at the graph. Let's see what you got. I've popped some ideas on the screen here of how I have interpreted the graph. So my first main trend that I've picked out is that there is generally a lower number of people in rural areas across all age groups. That would give me a mark. I've then picked out the highest number. So I've said the highest number of people in rural areas is in the 50 to 59 age group. One mark. This is approximately 1700 people. One mark. I've then looked at the smallest number, and I've said the smallest number of people in an age group for rural areas is in the 80 plus category. One mark. There is approximately 700 people in this age range in rural areas for my last mark. You might choose to pause the video at this point to double-check that you've got some of these ideas written down. Our big question today is to understand why rural areas are seeing population decline. Some rural areas in the UK have seen a significant decline in their population. And we can link that to two main reasons, fewer social opportunities and fewer economic opportunities. Think carefully about which age group you think these would impact. You can see in the image on the screen the sort of areas that we are talking about in our focus area of Cumbria today. What sort of social opportunities would be lacking in these rural areas? Could you link it to quality of education or healthcare? Could you link it to entertainment? What economic opportunities might be lacking in these rural areas? Would employment opportunities be lacking? Would incomes potentially be lower? You might want to pause the video and pop some ideas down of what you think might influence this population decline across the UK, but particularly in these areas of Cumbria. We'll move on to look at specific reasons for the population decline in Cumbria, but you may be able to pick out some generic ideas that help you understand more about why rural areas may be seeing certain age groups leave their population. Our focus area of South Lakeland in Cumbria is an area that has experienced rural decline. You can see very clearly on the map where this is located. And it's a rural county in that northwest part of England that includes the Lake District National Park. You saw in the view and the images before the sorts of area that we are looking at in terms of the physical landscape. A couple of points, just to get us thinking about this decline, the area's population has decreased by 0.8% in those 10-year period between 2005 and 2015. And there's been a huge decline in jobs in agriculture and manufacturing, which has been quite a significant factor in leading people to choose to move elsewhere to find those economic opportunities. This might be a good point for you to pop some ideas down. So you might put a little heading on a piece of paper that gives your place in the UK, South Lakeland in Cumbria and identifies two ideas for why the population has declined. We can see two typical landscapes for this area of the UK. These are two villages in South Lakeland, Cumbria. And we can see that they're very similar views, lots of open green space and quite traditional looking buildings. These are the areas of South Lakeland in Cumbria that are experiencing population decline. And think carefully about those causes, the fact that actually many people are leaving to find employment elsewhere, and the social opportunities sometimes are lacking. We're moving on at this point to look at the impacts of rural decline in this area of the UK. And we're going to categorise these into social and economic. Social impacts being those that affect people, and economic impacts being those that influence money and income. Socially, younger people have left, leaving a higher proportion of elderly people, which puts a strain on the health services and social care settings. A really good key term for that is an increased number of dependents, people that are dependent on the working population and the services in the local area. Schools and other services may be forced to close as fewer people are using them, which can also be a social impact that links to that economic impact of businesses and shops having to shut. Other shops and businesses are also at risk of closure. For example, Marks and Spencer in the area. Employment has also seen a decrease as businesses close, which has that knock-on impact of reducing incomes and therefore influencing standards of living. I would really encourage you to pause the video and make sure you've got some ideas noted down for those social and economic impacts of rural decline. I want you now to hide those notes and to see whether you can recall which category these impacts fit into. You've got four impacts that are identified on the screen, and your job is to pop those into the correct category, social and economic. Read through those ideas very carefully, and see whether you think they are impacts that affect people, and see whether you think they are impacts that affect people. So social or economic, money-based. Pause the video, pop those ideas in their correct category. And when you resume, we'll go through those answers together. So did you get any of these ideas here? You should have popped statements one and three into social impacts. So the young people leaving, leading behind those dependents, the elderly people that put pressure on health services and schools and other services being at risk of closure as they're not used or demand is not high enough. And economic impacts on there were statement two and four. Shops have closed and others are at risk of closing, such as Marks and Spencer, and employment might decrease, which we know can affect incomes and also spending in the local economy, which is another knock-on economic impact. Check that you've got those in the correct categories before we move on to the final task of the lesson. So our final task is focused on two three-mark questions. Question one asks us to explain the social impact of rural decline in the UK. And question two asks us to explain the economic impact of rural decline in the UK. For both of those questions, I would encourage you to pick out one impact and use those connective phrases on the screen to help you develop those ideas to explain how those factors are impacts on those local areas. You want to give yourselves approximately seven or eight minutes here to write down some ideas. And when you resume the video, we'll go through those together. For question one, I identified that a social impact of rural decline in the UK is a decline in the number of young people. That was my first mark. Here's my development connective phrases. This leads to a higher proportion of elderly left behind, leading to pressure being placed on health services. You can see how I've double developed my idea there to help explain why that decline in young people would be a problem for the rural area. The second question, I've written one economic impact of rural decline in the UK is a closure of shops. First mark, I've picked out that impact. This can lead to higher unemployment, meaning that incomes are reduced and other businesses may also be at risk of closure. Again, you can see how I've double developed my ideas using those connective phrases to help me explain the impact. I would really encourage you to read through your answers, and to see whether you have used any of those connective phrases to double develop your ideas and to really explain why those factors might be impacts. Pause the video at this point, if you need to do that. That brings us to the end of today's lesson. A big well done for the work that you've done. We've looked at those areas of the UK that are experiencing decline, focusing in that rural area of Cumbria. You should now know the causes of rural decline and the social and economic impacts of that population decline. Make sure that you keep your ideas and your notes safe, and that you do the quiz linked to the lesson to show us and yourself what you've learned today. Really importantly, is to make sure that you keep everything together so that you can refer back to this at a later point. If you choose to join us next lesson, we'll be moving on to looking at the UK economic change in terms of transport improvements to develop parts of the UK. For today, a really big well done. You may ask a parent or carer to share your work on one of our social media platforms, but for now, a big well done.

Exit Quiz: A UK rural landscape experiencing decline: Cumbria

Completed: A UK rural landscape experiencing decline: Cumbria

This lesson will focus on the trend of rural decline in the UK, with special focus given to Cumbria.

Geography

A UK rural landscape experiencing decline: Cumbria

Introductory Quiz

Video

Final Quiz

Lesson Complete