Population Change

Year 9 have worked incredibly hard this term and we have covered the biggest topic within the IGCSE syllabus very quickly and with no problems in their understanding of the major issues.
The Malthus and Boserup homework was difficult but the work on Easter Island I feel helped considerably with the overall level of understanding of this particular element of population change.

Migration is also an element of population change but can also be considered as a separate element of population studies. It is important here that we are all comfortable with the basic terminology that we learn last week and that also we fully understand both of the major case studies that we shall be working on. Mexico to the USA economic and illegal migration and the refugee crisis in Darfur. Some of you will also remember the end of year 8 exam that you did on the boat people from North Africa going to the Canary Islands and the different attitudes expressed by the tourist, local people and the boat people themselves..... see, nothing in Geography is ever wasted!

Mexico is a particular favourite of mine because there are so many good resources out there, not that this video is one of the best but it is rather funny and looks at immigration from a different point of view, which is what us Geographers are always interested in, especially as we didn't quite manage to see it in the lesson!



Worldmapper has an excellent subversion of the world in relation to the overall proportions of refugees and IDP's (Internally Displaced Persons)

We started the week with this photograph and considered the five W's in relation to the man, and what I found particularly interesting was after the initial laughter had died down you all seemed quite sad that a man would be so desparate to be forced to resort to such desperate measures just to get into America.

The BBC has a series of interesting news articles on this issue Mexican migrants locked in a lorry and the migrant trail through Mexico some of the information in this Mexico country profile might give you a better understanding as to why so many people will risk all that they have just to get out of Mexico.

These videos are all very visual representations of the Mexican economic migrants issue but what is so interesting is that they are all from very different viewpoints.