Introduction
Tourism is present everywhere. Tourism arrivals have trippled since 1967, bringing wealth and prosperity to many countries and their citizens. Employment is one of the many benefits brought by tourism. Local business – shops, cafés and restaurants also profit from the influx of tourists . Taxes paid by tourists increase funds for the local community. Finally, in order to support the tourist industry, airports, roads, hotels, sports centres must be built, thus creating jobs in the construction industry.
The best thing about tourism is how people become aware of different cultures and traditions. Broadening our perspective, it makes us more tolerable.
However, there are some negative aspects of tourism for some countries. In recent years mass tourism begins to change the daily lives of local people resulting in an increased crime rate and, more importantly, teaching people to become greedy and materialistic.
But the most serious negative impact is its effect on the environment.
Task
In this webquest students will have to find out what different environmental effects of tourism are.
They are divided into 3 groups of three students . Each group researches one of the three impact areas.
Group 1: DEPLETION OF NATURAL RESOURCES
Group 2: POLLUTION
Group 3: PHYSICAL IMPACTS
Process
Group 1 has to find out about impact of tourism on:
- water resources
- local resources
- land degradation
https://www.gdrc.org/uem/eco-tour/envi/one.html
Students find examples of such impact on Croatian landscape.
https://plitvicelakescroatia.weebly.com/human-impacts.html
http://whc.unesco.org/en/soc/3487
Group 2 has to find about impact of tourism on:
- air pollution and noise
- solid waste and littering
- sewage
- aesthetic pollution
https://www.gdrc.org/uem/eco-tour/envi/one.html
Music festivals are infamous for their noise pollution and littering.
http://www.laweekly.com/music/trashed-music-festivals-are-environmental-disasters-2614424
http://theconversation.com/festivals-and-the-environmental-sustainability-challenge-11356
Photographs of garbage left after the Ultra music festival in Split
https://www.vecernji.hr/showbiz/ultra-europe-jutro-nakon-split-1182822/galerija-260603?page=1
Group 3 has to find out about impact of tourism on:
- physical impacts of tourism development
- physical impacts from tourist activities
https://www.gdrc.org/uem/eco-tour/envi/one.html
The impact of cruising tourism in Dubrovnik:
In the second part of the process each group will create a power-point presentation covering all the important findings about the effects of tourism on their specific field of interest.
Evaluation
The final evaluation will be conducted after the other part of the same class had done a webquest on the subject of „Eco tourism“ as the counterpoise to the subject at hand. It will be conducted in the form of A CON AND PRO DEBATE in front of the class as a jury.
The jury will choose the winner of the debate by voting according to specified parameters:
- well researched
- shows comprehension of topic
- makes good argument
So, apart from learning about the impacts of tourism, students will also learn how to hold a debate.
https://busyteacher.org/7245-conducting-class-debate-essential-tips.html
Credits
This webquest was created by a team of teachers, within the co-funded Erasmus plus KA2 partnership “English for hospitality” (EN4HOSTS), project number: 2017-1-RO01-KA201-037159, KA2 - Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices ,KA201 - Strategic Partnerships for school education
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.