This location study compares two coastal cities: Cardiff in Wales and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.
Cardiff is the capital of Wales. It's on the coast and is a port where cargo ships come to collect and deliver goods to other countries across the sea.
Far away in the Pacific Ocean, is the island of Papua New Guinea. Port Moresby is the capital city. Here the climate is tropical, and the sandy beaches are lined with palm trees.
Reenie: Hello my name is Reenie. I am ten years old. I live in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. I live with my grandma, my auntie, uncle and my three cousins.
Judah: Hi my name is Judah, and I live in Cardiff. I'm ten years old, and I live with my mum, dad brother, and my dog, called Mollie. The beach is ten minutes away from my house. The trouble is that rains a lot in Cardiff, and we're just going to have to give up right now.
Reenie: It's usually hot all year here, but we have two seasons: wet season, and dry season. The wet season is when it rains a lot, and the dry season is when it hardly rains at all.
Reenie: My house is about fifteen-minute walk from the beach. When it is really hot, we can go in the sea to cool off.
Judah: One of the best things about living by the sea is that at the beach you get ice-cream. When it's windy on the beach, it's quite nice - the feeling of it just going through your hair and everything. You can spin around.
Reenie: That's where I go shopping with my grandma, and we buy fish and vegetables for dinner.Judah: My school is quite far away to walk, it usually takes about ten minutes, or I go on the bus.
Reenie: I go to school a short walk from my home. Every morning we sing the national anthem.
Judah: It's a Welsh school, so we do English and Welsh.
Reenie’s teacher: OK class, we'll be learning about clothes today. Reenie, can you read about the shirt?
Reenie: This is a red shirt…
Reenie: There are thirty kids in my class. All our lessons are in English, and we have to talk in English. –
Reenie’s friend: What are you doing this weekend?
Reenie: I'm playing marbles with my friends.
Judah: Helo fy enw i yw Jwda ac rwy'n byw yng Caerdydd - and that means 'Hello, my name is Judah and I live in Cardiff.' I speak Welsh with my friends at school, but if I don't know a word I say it in English.
Reenie: I usually speak Pidgin with my friends. At home I speak Motu with my grandmother.
Judah: Having a double language is hard, because sometimes you get mixed up.
Reenie: After school I collect wood for the fire to cook our dinner.
Judah: When I look out to sea it's incredible.
Reenie: I think about the creatures that live under the water.
Judah: When I was little I used to imagine this island that was filled with bamboo and all this tropical stuff.
Reenie: I wish to be a mermaid, to live under the water, and know the sea world, and spider fish.
Video summary
This short film was first published in 2018.
Download/print a transcript of the video.
Judah, 10, from Cardiff in Wales and Reenie, 9, from Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea tell us about what is similar and what is different in these two coastal cities.
Both describe how they enjoy the balance of the two environments, the city and the sea, and how they make the most of the two settings so close to them.
We learn how they each incorporate the waterfront in their daily or weekly routine, to swim, eat ice cream, walk the dog, play and hunt fossils.
Judah attends a Welsh-speaking school. Reenie sings the national anthem every morning with her classmates.
They talk about the challenge of speaking multiple languages and switching between languages.
Together these two children's lives illustrate the cultural and geographical similarities and differences of two distinct places.
This clip was originally broadcast as part of the series Your World.
Teacher Notes
Pupils could make lists of the similarities and differences between Port Moresby and Cardiff.
How are the beaches different in the two places? What is the climate like?
Pupils could look at the world's oceans, locating each city on the map and naming the nearby bodies of water.
Pupils could be asked to map out a boat route from Cardiff to Port Moresby, and ask which oceans they cross on the way.
This clip is relevant for teaching Geography at KS1 and KS2 in England, Progression Step 2 and 3 in Wales, Early and 1st level and 2nd Level in Scotland and Foundation and KS1 in Northern Ireland.
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