A. What is it all about?

Work with a partner to choose at least two of the images below. Each image represents a different migration. For the photos you choose try to work out what you think the image shows and represents:
  • What? - what does the image show? Is it positive or negative (or a bit of both?) and why do you think that? 
  • Where? - where was the image taken? where do the people in the image come from?
  • When? - when do you think it was taken? Is it modern or older? When did the migration happen? 
  • Who? - who are the people in the photo? Think about age, gender, background.
  • Why? - why did the migration happen? Did people move for positive or negative reasons?
  • How? - how did this migration happen?

 A. What is migration? Key terms.

Migration
The movement of people either within a country or between countries. Migration can be permanent, temporary or seasonal.
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  • International migration - Movement of people to another country
  • Forced migration - The migrant has no personal choice e.g. refugees moving due to a natural disaster, war or political persecution.
  • Voluntary migration - Migrants looking for a better quality of life or personal freedom e.g. better climate or to join relatives
  • Internal migration - Movement of people within a country
  • Rural-urban migration - Movement of people from countryside (Rural) areas to towns or cities (Urban areas)
  • Emigration - when someone leaves a country.
  • Immigration - when someone enters a country.
  • Economic migration - moving to find work or follow a particular career path
  • Social migration - moving somewhere for a better quality of life or to be closer to family or friends
  • Political migration - moving to escape political persecution or war
  • Environmental migration - causes of migration include natural disasters such as flooding

B. Why do people migrate?
People think very carefully before making the decision to migrate. The decision is likely to be a combination of:
PUSH FACTORS - Negative things about the place where you are which make you want to leave. These might include low pay, lack of job opportunities, war and conflict, environmental problems and other factors.
PULL FACTORS - Positives things about the place you decide to move to. These might just be perceived positives (ie they might not actually exist when you arrive). They might include opportunities in education and employment, better housing and infrastructure, social factors.
Work in pairs to create a simple mind map (it could be like the one on the right with a colour key to show which are push and pull factors or more like the one below) which lists as many causes of migration as you can. Your diagram MUST show push and pull factors clearly.

Discuss you own experiences, things you have read about and seen on TV. You could also check some of the resources below:

C. Homework interview

Your homework is to interview an adult about their experience of migration. This could be a parent, a family friend or even a willing teacher (no Geography teachers allowed!!). You should ask them the following questions and write up their interview to share. 

Questions:
  • Who are they? Where were they born? How old are they? (A little bit of background!)
  • Give an example of an occasion when they decided to migrate. When? Where? 
  • What were their reasons for leaving the place where they had been living?
  • Were there things that made it difficult to leave?
  • What were the reasons for wanting to move to their new home?
  • What were the best things and worst things about migrating?
When you write about the interview you should use terminology from our lesson. Think about what kind of migration this is; what were the push and pull factors?