You can use this task with “A New Life”. Copy the task into the Island Government task box.
As a new country, one of the tasks facing you as a government is to design and create a town for your citizens to live in. The first stage of this is to choose the most suitable location for your town. You are given 3 possible locations and information on these locations, you will then have to decide which one is the best.
Choose a suitable location for your town using the information provided and explain why you chose this location and why you did not choose the others.
Using the A New Life Location fact sheet and the map, decide on which location will be the best for your town. Say why you chose this particular location for your town to be built and why you did not choose any of the other locations.
Watch the video below to see how to install the Create a new town file.
Name your town.
Choose a name for your town. Consider your own town/city/village. How did it get its name?
Town Crest Create a town crest
Watch the video below to see how to name your town in Google earth.
Create and design an aerial plan of your town and add it to the A New Life map.
An aerial plan is a plan showing the layout of your town, as if flying over it. This is similar to the map views on Google Earth or on an Ordnance Survey map; where a house can be represented as a square and not a detailed building with a tiled roof and chimney.
When carrying this out with your class, you may want to look at an Ordnance Survey map of your local area and try to get the children to label or locate particular landmarks. You could even create an aerial map of your classroom to give the children experience of viewing an area from a different perspective/angle.
Ordnance Survey maps are scaled maps of specific areas that highlight the key features present. They are often used by hill walkers to navigate through the hills. Hill walkers need these maps as they do not have roads or sign posts, they use the features of the map (water, forests, mountains etc.) to work out where they are. They can also use grid references to tell others where they are or find where they want to go. See Grid Reference game.
See here for more information on Ordnance Survey maps.
Suggested ideas for use in class
Your town must include-
a Town Hall
Shopping Centre (name the Shopping Centre)
a school
a park (an extension could be to design the park)
a monument to represent or celebrate an occasion
a High Street
or a museum …
differentiate as appropriate.
Using A4 paper, design an aerial plan of your town. You can use a legend or key to show each feature of your town. You may also want to include street names or name parks/monuments after certain people. Look at your own town/city/village for inspiration.
Choose or vote on the best design (vote using the Classroom Copilot Polling Station) and add it to the A New Life map by scanning it into your computer or taking a picture with a camera.
This video will show you how to add your aerial plan to the Google earth map and replace the blank images.
Create your town using 3D shape nets.
Having created an aerial plan of your town, you can then use the 3D net shapes to build your town by gluing it to a large piece of care or paper. Try combining the nets to make more buildings; use towers and flats to make a Town Hall or even a castle. Experiment with different textures on your buildings to show wood, brick, concrete or roofing. What can you use for grass or trees? Can you design a pond that can hold real water or even a play park with moving swings?
Tip – decorate your house with doors, windows and brick work before building the net shape.
This lesson could also be carried out with junk modelling.
