Mapping personal migrations in Google Earth

Migration is the movement of people from one area to another. It may be over long
distances or within a country. It may occur at an individual level or involve large groups of
people. The migration may be permanent, temporary, voluntary or forced. It may be for a
single reason or a combination of reasons. These reasons can be classified into economic,
social, environmental or political reasons. They are usually subdivided into push and pull
factors, where the push factors are the disadvantages which push people away from an
area. Pull factors are the advantages of an area which pull people to it.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Net_migration_rate_world.PNG

Most people have moved or migrated at some point in their lives. This activity introduces
you to the process of migration and the different ways in which migrations can be
classified, and helps to identify specific push/pull factors. If you have never migrated, either
help a friend to map their migration patterns, map the migration patterns of a relative or
invent a detailed migration story!

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 Mapping personal migrations in Google Earth

Firstly, you will need to open up Google Earth and place a pin in the location where you
were born.

By clicking on the pin the You can drag the flashing icon box
placemark box pops up. to the location that you want.

Use the description box to add information Make sure that you give
about this place. In particular, use it to this place a name.
classify the type of migration and to list the
push and pull factors. You can find out a
little bit more about these below.

Once you have done this, you should attempt to identify some push factors (factors which
caused you to move away from your previous place) and pull factors (factors which
encouraged you to move to your current place).

As an extension, you could try to distinguish whether these factors are social, political,
environmental or economic.

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 Mapping personal migrations in Google Earth

You then need to put pins in every other place you have moved to throughout your life.
Use the description box to classify the migration.

 Was the migration voluntary or forced?

 Was the migration permanent or temporary?
 Was the migration international or national?

Once all of your pins are in place, you can go on a virtual tour of your migration by right-
clicking on place 1 and selecting ‘directions from here’, and then right-clicking on place 2
and selecting ‘directions to here’.

You can see your migration route mapped and,

if you press this icon, you will fly from place 1
to place 2 with a great view of the landscape!

Once you have completed your Google Earth visualisation of your own personal migration,
compare yours with a friend’s. Are your migrations similar or different? Why do you
think this is?

You could also plot where you would like to migrate to in the future (maybe use a
different pin or icon for this). What might some of the push and pull factors for this
migration be? How likely is this migration to happen? Why is this?

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 Mapping personal migrations in Google Earth

Teaching notes
As an alternative to mapping their own migrations, students could map the migrations of a
celebrity.

At the time of writing, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Beckham gives a very detailed account of

David Beckham’s life to date. Obviously his migrations have been dictated, in the main, by
economic reasons but might provide a useful starting point for some students.

David Beckham

 1994 born London

 1994 Preston

 1995 Manchester

 2003 Madrid

 2007 Los Angeles

 2008 Milan

 2009 Los Angeles

 2009 Milan

 2010 Los Angeles

Similarly a teenage pop star might also provide a similar starting point. In the case of a pop star or
band, it might be valuable to map their UK, European or world tour. The Doom tour image is
from http://www.flickr.com/photos/thearches/6282900508/ 2011 by The Arches

Google Earth is downloadable from http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en_uk/earth/download/ge/agree.html.

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