Week 10: What makes a border? Why do people want to cross them?

As discussed last week, we're taking a deeper look into the nature of geography and borders. 


On Monday, we spent some time examining and discussing this image, making note of the various physical features. 

People pointed out mountain ranges (green on one side, less so on the other), lakes, rivers, areas that seemed greener than others, and coastlines. We then started talking about these features in terms of what it might mean to live there. Rivers irrigate crops. Oceans allow ports. Deserts can be inhospitable. Where would you want to live on this map? Where would you want to avoid? 

We also talked about how these features might form natural borders for people (and other life!). Oceans, mountains, and deserts have historically been difficult to cross, thereby separating people, cultures, languages, and religions through long stretches of history. People living on one side of a vast desert or giant mountain range might have very little in common with the people who live on the other. 

We eventually looked at this image with the political labels turned on: 

Before the labels were revealed, a few kids had recognized the region we were examining, but they knew little about it. For example, no one knew about the longstanding tensions between Pakistan and India. We discussed some of the current and historical issues in this part of world as a way of illustrating how the physical and the cultural can intersect and influence a border. 

With all of this in mind, we then examined maps of a fictitious landmass. Everyone was tasked with the following challenge: 

Given these physical features (coastlines, rivers, and mountains):

... and these regions of differing religions:

... and this map of the languages spoken in each region: 

... what borders do you might imagine would exist on this landmass? 

Here's a sampling of what people came up with: 

As you can see, there were plenty of ways to divvy things up. 

Later, we shared and discussed our maps, making note of similarities and differences. We talked about what was challenging about creating borders, and what influenced our decisions. How important was it to have a river or coastline for each country? How did religion or language enter into each borderline? What role did the mountains play? 

Then we extrapolated further: What would it be like in the countries where there was one predominant religion, but also small pockets of another? What about countries with more than one language? Would citizens coexist peacefully, or would there be friction? What if a country with a minority population in its borders lacked a sufficient water source? What if there was a scarcity of farmable land? 

We unanimously agreed that this was indeed a tricky process. It was easy then to see how the evolution of nations and states in the real world has been even more complicated and messy. 


All of this informed a discussion about a contemporary issue that is currently on the minds of many: The mass influx of refugees to Europe. 

Visit this link to view an astounding animation of the number of refugees entering Europe from 2012 to the current day. Here's a screenshot of a moment in time, but you'll really want to check out the animation in motion. It's a little staggering: 

Each white dot represents 25 people. We watched the animation a few times and discussed many questions: Why are so many people going to Europe? What causes someone to leave their home country for another? Why are so many people fleeing Syria? What about Somalia? What's happening in sub-Saharan Africa in general? And why are so many people going to Germany? Why France? 

We discussed some of what's been going on in those parts of the world, which hopefully provided at least some small amount of context for the tragedies that have since been in the news over the last few days. I'm sure there will be many more conversations to come next week. 

The latest development in our current read aloud book Esperanza Rising has given us another view of this issue, as Esperanza and her family have just crossed the Mexico/United States border, fleeing their own troubles for the promise of a better life in California. It will probably come as no surprise that things get complicated.