008 - Green/Smart Cities

Factual Question

What is a 'smart city'?


Conceptual Question

How will the cities of the future be more sustainable than the cities of today?

Approaches to Learning

Key Terminology

  • Smart City

We will be defining what a smart city is during the second activity but if you are still unsure just use the 'Useful Links' to help you to define the key terms.


Useful Links

Activity One - Change

Throughout our more recent history, humans have always tried to forecast what our cities and lives would be like in the future. Whether that was in the use of our technology, space or even creative ways to travel.


  1. Using the images below describe what inventors and planners in the 1900s thought cities would look like in the year 2000.

Useful Resources

The Public Domain Review

The Public Domain Review

Activity Two - Watch

Now we have had a short look at what the future would be we are now going to be begin to explore about what we think cities of the future will look like. Are they that farfetched? After all, we have progressed dramatically in terms of our technology advancements, are we really going far enough?


  1. Watch the YouTube clip below and make notes on what a smart city is and how it works.

  2. Are the cities of the future going to be any more sustainable than today? Explain your answer.

  3. Would you want to live in a Smart City? Explain your answer.

Activity Four - Create

Create a detailed example of a sustainable city and display this information creatively using lucid.app or on Google Drawing. You will need to include the following information:


  1. Location

  2. Aim of the sustainable or smart city

  3. Description of the plan

  4. Evaluation of the plan - do you think it will work?

Activity Three - Listen - Optional - 37 minutes

We have looked through lots of articles, interpreted images and watched multiple YouTube clips during the course of this unit but how good are your listening skills?