WHY DO PEOPLE MIGRATE?

People migrate for many different reasons. These reasons can be classified as either economic, social, political or environmental:

Economic migration may involve moving to find work or follow a particular career path.
Social migration may involve moving somewhere for a better quality of life or to be closer to family or friends.
If someone is a political migrant they may be moving to escape political persecution or war.
Environmental causes of migration include natural disasters such as flooding.
Some people choose to migrate, eg someone who moves to another country to enhance their career opportunities. Some people are forced to migrate, eg someone who moves away from their home region due to war or famine.
Often those who are forced to migrate become refugees. A refugee is someone who has left their home and does not have a new home to go to. Often refugees do not carry many possessions with them and do not have a clear idea of where they may finally settle.
Push and pull factors are often used to explain why people migrate:
Push factors are the reasons why people leave an area, ie what pushes them away from their home. Push factors include: lack of services, lack of safety, high crime,crop failure,drought, flooding, poverty and war.
Pull factors are the reasons why people move to a particular area, ie what pulls them to a new place. Pull factors include: higher employment, more wealth, better services, good climate, safer, less crime, political stability, more fertile land,lower risk from natural hazards.
Migration usually happens as a result of a combination of these factors.

4º YEAR ESO STUDENTS ON THE ETWINNING PROJECT

I have known some of these students for two years and their level of English varies a lot but most of them can manage both on writing and on speaking skills. Some of them like having discussions a lot and I consider it is important to help them to develop their own points of view about the world around them.

MORE 4º YEAR ESO STUDENTS ON THE PROJECT

The students of 4º year ESO have 9 different subjects, I hope all of them will pass them and start Bachillerato next year (two year high school courses preparing for University). Some of them have already decided about their future professional careers, but others haven't made up their minds yet.

OTHER 4º YEAR ESO STUDENTS WORKING ON THE PROJECT

These are some of the 4º year ESO students working on the etwinning project, they are mostly boys, 12 boys and 3 girls. At the moment of taking the photograhs they were writing their essays about "multiculturalism

INFORMATION ABOUT GIJÓN

GIJÓN

Geography
The municipality of Gijón has an area of 181.7 square kilometres and it is located in the centre of the wide strip Asturian seaboard. The rugged and uneven coast contrasts with the smooth relief of the interior of the municipality, with a maxim height of 672 meters (2204 feet) above sea level. Gijon is located in a privileged location in the Asturian geography, a few minutes away from Oviedo and Avilés and thirty minutes away from the Asturian Airport and from the municipalities of the coalfields. The centre of Gijón, which layout seems an amphitheatre, is marked by the large sandy area of San Lorenzo, the main beach of the town. Next to it, we can discover the renewed beaches of Poniente and El Arbeyal and the characteristic beaches of El Rinconín, Peñarrubia, Serín, La Cagonera and La Ñora, in the border with Villaviciosa.


WATCH THE VIDEO ABOUT GIJÓN RECORDED BY ONE OF OUR TEACHERS AND SOME STUDENTS

Climate

Gijón has an oceanic climate with abundant rains during the coldest season and the first days of spring. In summer, the weather is steady and warm. The average rainfall is one of the lowest of the region: 1000 litres per square metres. The average temperature is of 14ºC (57.2) with a maximum temperature of 24ºC (75ºF) during the hot season and a minimum temperature of 10ºC (50ºF) and 11ºC (51.8ºF) during the coldest month. There are sporadic winds depending on the season. In winter, the coastal winds are mild and warm and flow from the South-East but in summer the winds are cold and dry and flow from the North-East creating a fresh, bright and dry climate. When to go Gijón offers a whole-year variety of possibilities since weather is always pleasant and festivities are quite diverse. Autumn and spring offer the best climate and in summer there is almost no rainfall.

History

The city of Gijón is embraced by the magnificent Bay of Biscay which has denoted the history of the city for over 5,000 years. Gijón is the seaport of the Ruta de la Plata (Way of La Plata) and it has kept alive its Roman past through the actions made in the Archaelogical Park of Campa de Torres, one the main fortified cities in the North of Spain (before 490 B.C.), and in the restored thermal baths of Campo Valdés which is a public building dating from the late 1st Century A.D. The Romanesque churches dating from the 12th and 13th Centuries are the living proof of the occupation that took place in the city during the Middle Ages. The founding of Puebla in 1270 means an urban expansion stopped in the late 14th Century, when Gijón turned into the scenario of the Trastamara conflicts that ended up crumbling the city. In the 18th Century, the enlightened Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos designed the city layout. The industrialization process that began in the mid-19th Century turned the city into the industrial centre of Asturias with the thriving harbour of El Musel, the shipyards and the numerous manufacturing facilities. The continuous modernization of Gijón and the splendid natural conditions of the city turned it into a major tourist area with a great cultural and sport offer. In the beginning of a new century, Gijón is trying to maintain its remote historical past in order to use it as en example of its tourist excellence.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOUT GIJÓN

Traditions
These are the most important festivities: Antroxu: one of the most spectacular carnivals in the North of Spain with parades, street bands competitions, carriages, people with floats and concerts for all kind of audiences. Holy Week: The centre of Gijón, specially the quarter of Cimadevilla, is venue of different religious processions. "Semana del Mar" (Sea Week): St. John and St. Peter. It is a week with different activities to remember the link of the city with the sea. After this the celebration of St. John takes place (a magical night of the Asturian culture) followed by diverse activities up to St. Peter’s Day (patron saint of the city) when a blessing of the waters marks the beginning of the beach season. St. Peter's Festivity: It takes place on 29th of June. The waters of the San Lorenzo Bay are blessed according to an ancient tradition during the summer, the bathing season.
Asturias Regional Day: (First Sunday of August) This year, the Cerro de Santa Catalina hill gathers most of the activities of the Asturias Day in Gijón with dances, bagpipes, lively parades and local sports. Semana Grande (Great Week): During these days the city is filled with a celebration soul. Open public concerts takes place in the different parks of the city. Great Night of the Fireworks: (August 14th). The eve to the Begonia celebration, fireworks illuminate the sky of the city with an amazing show that attracts hundreds of people. Fiesta de la Sidra Natural (Natural Cider Festival): From August 26th to August 28th. These days of celebrations are focused on the most popular drink of Asturias offering free tasting (world Guinness record for simultaneous pouring of cider) and cider waiters competitions together with traditional music and a little market of Cider and Apple.

Gastronomy

Among the typical dishes we can mention: the beans that can be found in the widely known “Fabada con Campango” (a kind of stew with beans, chorizo, blood sausage and ham) or with clams, spider crabs, etc. and in the “Pote Asturiano” (a mixture of beans, potatoes, chorizo, blood sausage, bacon, ham, pork and cabbage). Other exquisite dishes are those prepared with the seafood from the Bay of Biscay. Among these dishes we have "Chopa a la Sidra" (black bream in cider sauce), “besugo a la espalda” (sea bream), tuna fish and sea urchins. Also, meat dishes are quite delicious and among these we have beef and chicken. Among desert we have "arroz con leche" (rice and milk pudding), "tarta charlota", "Gijón biscuit" or "princesitas". All these dishes accompanied with cider pouring it in "culines" (special glasses used to pour cider) are delicious during the long summer afternoons with a Spanish omelette, chorizos with cider and "empanadas".

THE CITY OF GIJÓN

You can have a walk along the city of Gijón. It is the biggest city of our community, Asturias, it has about 300.000 inhabitants and is situated on the north coast of Spain. In the video you can see a bit about its history, museums, monuments, people and beaches.
Gijón began as a fishing village nearly 3,000 years ago, according to the records of the Campa Torres Archaeological and Nature Reserve in Gijón. Today the city is an important port on the Atlantic coast of Spain.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOUT GIJÓN

MULTICULTURALISM

Several different cultures can co-exist peacefully and equitably in a single country.

Watch the video

This video will help you to understand one of the basic ideas of our etwinning project.

First describe the scene and explain what you think it means to your partners

Then, imagine that you are the script writer of this short film. Write an essay describing the richness of multicultural exchange and the joy of sharing one's identity and experience with others.

OUR SCHOOL "I.E.S. ROSARIO DE ACUÑA"

Click on the picture to see our web page

Our school name is "Rosario de Acuña"; She was a Spanish playwright, essayst, and short story writer known for her controversial liberal views; she was born in 1851 in Madrid and died in 1923 in Gijón. She was considered radical for her willingness to address such issues as religious fanaticism, atheism, illegitimacy, civil marriage and the possibility of divorce.

You can visit our web page and surf through the different links, I hope you can find our web interesting.

SCHOOL CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

Before Easter holidays we had some interesting school workshops that our students enjoyed a lot. There were plenty of workshops about cooking, computers, musical instruments, photography, Karaoke, juggling, radio, video. You can have a look at the video that was recorded by some of our students.

THE STRAIT OF GIBRALTAL

The Strait of Gibraltar is a mirror-territory of the transformations taking place in the world today: Globalisation, migrations, borders, citizenship, network-society, communication, technologies (...). The border is a crossed-place, an extensive territory of life and mobile confinements where multiple social practices put pressure on established limits. New spaces and relationships emerge from and through the border between Southern Europe and Northern Africa.
Geographically, it is in a space of transition: between Africa and Europe, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; a space that separates and connects and that has always been permeable to the continuous flows of life. Today this place fulfils a specific role as a barrier, both physical and mental, separating the legal from the illegal, like a folding line that splits our world in two. But borders are habitable territories that can’t be reduced to lines on a map. They are environments that favour mixing and exchange, highly dynamic territories that generate a gradation of shared spaces, where the nature of ‘passing through' prevails over that of the ‘barrier’. To cross their thresholds means to physically move from one place to another, but, even more so, it implies the start of a transformation, to becoming-others.
The Strait of Gibraltar is a laboratory-territory of the contemporary world. Multiple processes coexist and combine in such a way that Migrations and Work become key words for reading the transformations taking place. This enclave, a natural point of entry from Africa to Europe, underlines an abyss, a paradox of the global geo-economic order. Minimum geographic distance, maximum distance between the different levels of wealth and life options.

Watch this video about the experience of some immigrants after crossing the strait of Gibraltar.

IMMIGRATION AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Click on the gif to follow the link.

We have started a new etwinning project about the topic of "Globalization". Accepting that our world is more and more interrelated, we will analyse the globalization phenomenon with the idea of understanding it better and see the need to establish cooperation links to redistribute richness, to extend human rights, and to respect the dignity of all human beings. We will first study immigration with the idea of developing a positive awareness towards cultural diversity and heightening the richness of human difference. We will work with a German secondary school the "Mariengymnasium" from Bocholt. First the students will produce Power Point Presentations to introduce themselves, their schools and their cities. Then next year they will start researching about immigration in their schools, neighboughhoods and cities and then they will exchange and share their findings.

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