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Back to Changing faces, shaping places

Changing faces, shaping places

This module focuses on the theme of migration, the permanent or semi-permanent change of a person's place of residence - or simply, the movement of people from one place to another

  • Key Stage Three,
  • Module,
  • Urbanisation, migration and society
  • Overview
  • Have I got news for you?
  • Moving for money
  • Leaving for lifestyle
  • Is there a choice?
  • How has our local area been shaped by migration?
  • Who do you think you are?

Who do you think you are?

Key questions

How many different countries does our class represent?

What is the pattern over space and time?

Is this the same in every classroom in the country?

Where would I choose to migrate to?

What is the pattern over space and time?

There are many different reasons why people migrate and hopefully this unit will have drawn attention to many of them - particularly economic, voluntary and forced examples. The patterns of migration created by the class will vary greatly depending on whether the local area has experienced large or small amounts of immigration.

For a list of migration figures from new EU countries by UK local authority, see this BBC News map.

Voluntary migration patterns have broadly changed in the last century as a result of modern methods of transportation and the availability of information about far flung places around the globe. Prior to the 1950s, few people owned a car and many people travelled no further than 50 - 100km within their lifetime. During the 1950s and 1960s car ownership increased and other forms of travel became more affordable so that people were more likely to migrate slightly further distances but usually within their country of origin. Today, with the internet and cheap air travel, many choose to migrate to other countries for a ‘better' lifestyle or to find work.

Starter

Who do you think you are?

You may well have watched the BBC programme Who do you think you are? on television. In the programme, celebrities trace their family history and find out a bit about their origins and family heritage. Often, they uncover patterns of migration as ancestors have moved from one country to another.

In this starter activity, your task is use the internet to research the family history of a celebrity of your choice.

Try to find out the answers to the following questions:

  • Where did the celebrity's family originally come from? (This may be several different countries)

  • When did their family move to the UK?

  • What were the reasons for this move?

  • Where did the family settle when they arrived in the UK?

  • Plus anything else of interest that you can discover about their heritage

Share your findings with the rest of the class.

Main Activity

Post-it note patterns

Download the PowerPoint slide for the instructions for this task.

Your teacher will give you three Post-it notes in three different colours. One colour will represent your grandparents, one colour will represent your parents and one colour will represent you.

If you can, write the name of the place or country where you, one of your parents and one of your grandparents were born on the correct Post-it note.

Now stick the Post-it notes in the correct location on the large world map.

Can you use the world map to describe and explain the pattern of different migrations which have happened over space and over time?

Where would I go?

In this task, you will be thinking about a country or place that you would consider migrating to.

Download the PowerPoint slide for the instructions to the task.

When you have decided on a place, answer these questions:

  • Why have you chosen this place?

  • What might be pulling you there?

  • What would you miss about the UK?

  • How likely do you think it is that you will actually migrate to this place in the future?

Plenary

Are we representative?

Download the PowerPoint slide for the instructions to this final task.

You will need to use the results of both activities you have completed this lesson (using the Post-it notes and thinking about places that you and your classmates would like to move to) to think about the patterns of migration that are shown.

Do you think that similar patterns of migration would be shown in other classes in your school?

How about classes in schools in other parts of the UK?

How might these be different, and why?

Downloads

  • Changing Faces, Shaping Places Lesson 6 Teachers' Notes (.doc)
  • Changing Faces, Shaping Places Lesson 6 Teachers' Notes (.pdf)
  • Changing Faces, Shaping Places Lesson 6 Post-it Note Patterns (.ppt)
  • Changing Faces, Shaping Places Lesson 6 Where Would I Go? (.ppt)
  • Changing Faces, Shaping Places Lesson 6 Are We Representative? (.ppt)
  • Download all

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