Great Lesson Ideas: GCSE Geography - Population, Employment and Ecosystems

Interactive ideas for teaching about Population and Migration

Preparation

Population change and migration is a contemporary topic that is studied at varying degrees at KS3, GCSE and A level. Students develop a good understanding of the implications of population change and migration through case studies and engaging activities. Students enjoy learning about this subject; it has the potential for raising lots of interesting points of view and issues for debate. The degree of complexity can be built up over the key stages through scaffolding lessons to ensure their learning and understanding.

We have found that kinaesthetic activities work best for the teaching of this topic as it enables them to physically move around as you would through migration and the interactive lessons bring the subject to life.

At GCSE, this subject would be covered in the People, Work and Development unit of WJEC/OCR B and other specifications that have this module of work.

Sample Question at GCSE:

Case Study: A place from where people have migrated

  1. Name a place from where people have migrated.
  2. Describe the place where they migrated away from.
  3. Explain why they moved away. Refer to push and pull factors.

Class Migration

Starter

  • Discuss with the class what we mean by the term migration and what factors they think might persuade/force people to move from one location to another.
  • Briefly explain the purpose of the task and the expectations from the students.

Main Activity

  • Desks will be moved to create space for the students to move (migrate) around. They will be shown a serious of PowerPoint slides with changing scenarios and they will be expected to move to certain locations within the classroom based on their decisions.
  • After each slide, students will be selected to feedback why they moved to a particular location and give reasons for avoiding other regions – this will highlight what is meant by the terms push and pull factors.

Plenary

  • By the end of the lesson, students will have moved around the room based on the scenarios and their decision making process.
  • At the end of the lesson students are asked a series of questions to explore their learning and understanding of the issues to do with migration.

Jelly Babies Population

The aim of this activity is to introduce students, through group work, to population and the factors that influence population and demographic change.

  1. The class will be split in to groups of six. They will be provided with the resources, instructions and chance cards and I will explain to them the purpose and objective of the game.
  1. Give background on terms population structure and cohorts.
  1. They will then play the game. During the game they will be expected to write down & record how chance factors have influenced the population structure of their country.
  1. At the end of the lesson I will have a series of questions to check their understanding and learning. These might include the following - which scenarios changed the birth rate?Which scenarios changed the death rate? Which scenarios changed the migration rate? Which scenarios were push factors of migration? etc

Resources for the Lessons (all resources have been produced):

  1. Classroom Migration – PowerPoint presentation with migration scenarios.
  2. Jelly Babies Game – Instructions and student recording sheets, chance cards.