Uni t8

1. Unit 8 : Transport
and Communications
Chong Boon Secondary School
Humanities Department
Geography Unit
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2. Unit Objectives
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• By the end of the unit you will be able to:
• Identify the types of transport and
communications
• Improvements to accessibility and
connectivity
• The effects of the Shrinking World and
Globalisation

3. Types of Transport
• Modern transport is multi-modal
• Air
• Planes / Shuttles
• Land
• Road/ Rail / Animal
• Sea
• Ships
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4. Starter Activity
• In the handout provided, look at the
picture and write down in the spaces the
different modes of transport you can
identify.

5. Developments in Transport
• Improvements in Mode of Transport
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• Over time with technology, transport has become
faster and safer.
• 9000 years ago, key transport modes were animals and
simple rafts/canoes
• 7500 years ago, the invention of the wheel made carts
possible
• In the 1760s, the steam engine was invented
• Boats, trains, cars.
• In the 1860s, airships were flown
• In 1885, the combustion engine made the first cars.
• In 1903, man first had flight

6. 9000 years ago

7. 7500 years ago

8. 1769

9. 1869

10. 1885

11. 1903

12. Present date

13. The Future??

14. Technological gains in
transport
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1.Improvements in Speed
2.Improvements in Passenger
Transport

15. Improvements in Speed
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• Modern transport able to travel at higher speeds.
• Time taken to cover distances is reduced.
• Eg, to travel 100km, the following transport modes will
take the following time
• Donkey (10km/hr) - 10 hours
• Horse (20km/hr) - 5 hours
• Car/Bus (50km/hr) - 2 hours
• Train (100km/hr) - 1 hour
• Bullet Train (200km/hr) - 30 minutes
• Plane (300km/hr) - 20 minutes

16. Improvements in Passenger
Transport
•Better comfort
•Larger planes/ships
•More comfortable rides
•Greater safety
•Lower accident rates
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17. Think for a moment
My new super flying car
can get you to wherever
you want in half the time
of any other mode of
transport on earth!
Minor issue is it only land
20% of the time. The rest
of the time it will crash.

18. Accessibility
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•The ease with which you can
reach a location .
• A place that is easily reached is
said to be accessible.
• A place that is not easily reached
is said to be inaccessible.

19. Connectivity
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•Connectivity refers to the degree
of interlinkages in a network.
• A place that is well connected is
said to be well-connected.
•Well-connected places are better
able to share information.

20. Take a look at the 2 maps
below

21. 1980s MRT Map Singapore

22. 2012 MRT Map Singapore

23. Has the connectivity
of Singapore
improved in the past
30 years?

24. Improvements with Transport
Infrastructure
• Roads, railways, bridges and tunnels are
infrastructure that improve transport.
• Eg, the Channel Tunnel
• Links England and France under the sea.
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25. COPY !
Communications
1.Process where information
is transferred
2.Possible to be one-way or
interactive

26. One-way communication
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• Process to obtain information or to share
feelings with others.
• Printed materials (magazines,
newspapers, etc)
• Art work (paintings, sculptures, etc)
• Broadcast media (Television and radio
programmes)
• Internet media (Websites, Social Media,
etc)

27. Interactive Communication
• Process where humans communicate with
one another.
• Constantly happens over varying distances
(depending on technology available)
• Talking in person
• Telephone call / SMS
• Fb / Twitter / Weibo
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28. Developments in
communications
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• Technology has made it easier to
communicate.
•We communicate more however, the
depth of communication is decreased.
• Physical Distance has decreased but social
distance has been pushed apart.

29. COPY !
A shrinking world
(Globalisation)
• The world is not actually shrinking
• Technology has made the time taken to
cover a certain distance become shorter
(shrinking world)
• A letter from Singapore to Los Angeles
would take 6 working days to reach it’s
destination.
• With emails, it is now almost
instantaneous .

30. Our essential questions
1. How has technology helped us in our
communications?
2. How does the ‘shrinking world’
benefit modern man?
3. What are the various modes of
transport?
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