Changing Borders

Changing Borders
Shari Heen
Spring 1999

Purpose:

For hundreds of years, people have moved from one place to another in search of a better life. This continues today. The reasons people leave their homeland in search of a new place to live vary. Some people leave by choice. Others are "forced" out because of unrest in their home country. Some are able to freely leave their homeland. Others must escape with only a few personal belongings. Through this unit, we will look at the reasons people have left their homelands and the hardships they faced. The children will also learn where their ancestors came from.

Through this unit, we will also explore the concepts of borders between countries. Using a concrete example from the news today, we will look at the former Yugoslavia and how it's boundaries have changed and how this has lead to the problems they are faced with today, as these immigrants were forced out of their country.

Objective: The students will be able to:

Locate the country that their ancestors came from.
Identify reasons why people left their homeland.
Identify the reasons people came to America.
Gain an awareness of political boundaries on a map.
Understand that the boundaries between countries are not permanent.
Analyze current events and stories as examples of cooperation and conflict.
Describe a place using physical and human characteristics.

Hawaii Content and Performance Standards:

Explain, use, and apply concepts of communities, cities, states, countries, continents, and oceans.
Use geographic tools and resources to explain the relationship between the physical and human environments.
Identify commonalities and differences among cultures.

Geographic Standards: The geographically informed person knows and understands:

Standard 1: How to use maps and other geographical representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.
Standard 4: The physical and human characteristics of places.
Standard 9: The characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations on Earth's surface.
Standard 13: How the forces of cooperation and conflict among people influence the division and control of Earth's surface.

Geographic Themes:
Location, Place, Human Environmental Interaction

Geographic Skills:
Asking geographic questions
Answering geographic questions
Acquiring geographic information
Organizing geographic information
Analyzing geographic information

Materials Needed: world map (preferable a Pacific Rim map), Post-It notes, books on immigrants, map of the former Yugoslavia (or a map of Europe), and a current map of Yugoslavia (or Europe).

Procedure:

Read the story Coming To America by Betsy Maestro. After the story, inform the students that we will be learning about immigration. Immigrants are people that leave their country for another country. America is a country of immigrants. There are many reasons why people leave their homeland, which we will be exploring in this unit.

For homework, the children will find out where their ancestors came from and if possible, why they left their homeland.
The next day or when the students have this information, give each child a Post-It note. They will write their name on the Post-It note and place it on the country that their ancestors came from. Some children may need more than one Post-It note if their ancestors came from different countries.

When the map is completed, ask the children what they notice. Where do most of the ancestors come from? Why do you think this is so? This can lead into a discussion of why people would leave their homeland in search of a new place to live. Ask the children to share the reasons their ancestors came here. Make a class chart of their responses. (You may want to add to this chart as the unit progresses).

Assessment: Observation - To see if the students are able to correctly find the location of the country their ancestors came from.
Create a class graph showing where our ancestors came from.
Read the story The Long Way To A New Land by Joan Sandin to the students. After the story, have the students identify the country the immigrants came from. Next, discuss what the conditions were like in their homeland. In this story there was a drought that lead to a famine because their crops would not grow and there was not grass for their animals to eat. The lack of food caused this family to leave their homeland. This could be called the "push" or the reason(s) that were pushing them to leave their country. Next, discuss what were their images of America. Again, in this story, America was seen as a land with good soil that would provide food. This could be called the "pull", or the reason(s) they came to America.

With this information, create a matrix with the following headings:

Title of story Country Life in Their Homeland Images of America Push/Pull Life in Their New Country
Read the story How Many Days To America by Eve Bunting. Again, discuss where the immigrants came from, what was it like in their homeland, their images of America, and the "pushes/pull". Add to the class matrix. Discuss the part in the story that shows the people in the boat coming across a place that they cannot stay. This will tie in to the upcoming discussion of the refugees from Kosovo.
Throughout the study of immigration, make the students are of world events that affect immigration today. Students with the help of their parents can bring in newspaper articles about immigrants today. Since the stories being read deal mostly with immigrants from the past, the students need to be aware that even today people leave their homeland in search of a better life. Most people are able to freely leave their homeland. However, some are "forced" out because of unstable conditions in their homeland, such as the Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Pull down the map and find Kosovo. Point out that Yugoslavia was once one country. Show a map of the "old" Yugoslavia. However, it is now divided into several different countries. Ask the children what they notice. Explain that a border is an imaginary line that divides one country from another. However, the borders can change as with Yugoslavica. Discuss briefly what is happening there. Explain that the Ethnic Albanians are being driven out of their country because of the fighting (an example of immigrants who are forced out of their country).

Assessment: Learning Log - Students will explain the following:
Political boundaries and bordering countries
What is a border?
Break the students up into 4 groups. As a group, they will read a story about an immigrant and fill in the matrix. Each person will be responsible for one of the headings on the chart. The students should add pictures to as well as writing when appropriate.
After the chart is complete, discuss the following questions:

Are there common reasons that people migrated to a new land?
Are the reasons people chose to migrate the same today as it was a long time ago?
What are some of the hardships they had to overcome in their new land?
The students will do research on the country their ancestors came from. Through this research, the students will be asked to find out the ethnic make up of the people that live there. Discuss their findings to discover if the country is homogeneous or made up of different ethnic groups.

Assessment:

In their travel log (or learning log) the students will write about the country their ancestors came from. They will include information about the physical and human characteristics of the country and how this may have affected their ancestor's decision to leave their homeland ("push/pull"). They will also include information about what life was like in their homeland and compare that to Hawaii (new home).
Learning Log entry - What have I learned? What impressed me the most?

Extensions

Students can interview an immigrant about what it was like in their homeland and why they came to America. This information can be compiled into a book.
After finding out the ethnic make-up of the people living in their country, the students can begin to explore the reasons why people from different ethnic backgrounds came to live in that country. For example: Many immigrants came to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantation.