1. Have students discuss reasons whole groups or communities might move to another location.
Review with students some of the push factors and pull factors that cause individuals to move from one location to another. Then have students discuss possible reasons that whole groups or communities might move to another location. Provide them with the following examples:

  • human-made environmental disasters that make it unsafe to stay in an area
  • natural disasters that make it unsafe to stay in an area
  • the loss of industries or employers in an area
  • a less extreme climate
  • cultural resources
  • job opportunities

Have students identify which are push factors and which are pull factors. Have students add their own examples of additional push and pull factors.

2. Have small groups investigate your community’s history.
Divide students into small groups. Provide groups with historical documents, newspaper articles, photographs, and other documents you gathered. Write the questions below on the board, and ask students to find the answers to the questions as they explore the materials:

  • What push factors can you find? Why did people leave the community?
  • What pull factors can you find? Why did people move into the community?

 

3. Have groups present their findings to the class.
Have students create and share brief, simple presentations that show migration to and from your community. Have students draw pictures that show these push and pull factors and explain their drawings to the class.

Informal Assessment

Check students’ comprehension. Ask:

  • What is a push factor?
  • What is a pull factor?

Extending the Learning

Have students add captions for each push or pull factor in their drawings.

Subjects & Disciplines

Learning Objectives

Students will:

  • explain migration in terms of push and pull factors
  • describe their community’s migration history

Teaching Approach

  • Learning-for-use

Teaching Methods

  • Discussions
  • Research

Skills Summary

This activity targets the following skills:

Connections to National Standards, Principles, and Practices

National Council for Social Studies Curriculum Standards

  • Theme 3:  People, Places, and Environments

National Geography Standards

  • Standard 9:  The characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations on Earth's surface

What You’ll Need

Materials You Provide

  • Construction paper
  • Historical documents about your community
  • Markers
  • Paper
  • Pencils

Grouping

  • Small-group instruction

Other Notes

Before starting this activity, gather historical documents, newspaper articles, photographs, and other documents that help to tell your community’s migration story.

Background Information

It’s important to understand why people move, or the push and pull factors that cause them to move. Push factors “push” people away from their home and include things like war. Pull factors “pull” people to a new home and include things like better opportunities. The reasons people migrate are usually economic, political, cultural, or environmental.

Prior Knowledge

  • push and pull factors

Recommended Prior Activities

Vocabulary

human migration
Noun

the movement of people from one place to another.
pull factor
Noun

force that draws people to immigrate to a place.
push factor
Noun

force that drives people away from a place.

Websites

  • Credits

    Media Credits

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    Writer

    Nancee Hunter

    Editor

    Christina Riska Simmons

    Expert Reviewer

    Andrew C. Clarke, University of Otago, Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Other

    The idea for this activity was inspired by Marie Loiselle of the Maharishi School in Fairfield, Iowa, who received a teacher grant from the National Geographic Education Foundation in support of a project called Geographic Learning and City Growth.

    Sources

    adapted from National Geographic Xpeditions lesson “Migration: Reasons to Move”

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