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Population Crisis– Fact or Fantasy?

Consider this statement:

"Forget the Year-2000 (Y2K) computer virus - it's the Y6B population problem that has demographers worried. "
L.R.Vanderkam, The Washington Times 13thJuly  1999.

  1. Is LR Vanderkam an optimist or a pessimist?
  2. What is the opposite point of view?

The Big Enquiry Question
Is population growth out of control & does it matter?

The purpose of the enquiry is to:

  • develop an awareness and understanding of the nature of and reasons for population growth.

  • develop and understanding of the issues arising from continued population growth

  • develop an awareness of different views and opinions on the solutions to the issues raised by continued population growth.

  • develop ICT and/or data handling and analysis skills.

 

Your task: is to create a campaigning leaflet for either [or preferably both]

  • the optimists

  • the pessimists

You need to carefully consider the words and the statistics that you publish.

Use these little questions as a guide to the weblinks:

  1. At what rate has the population of the planet grown?

    Plot the World Population estimates onto a graph (using Excel if possible). Check your answer against the figure at http://www.gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/summer95/population.html

    Identify the type of growth curve shown.

  2. What is the estimate of today's population?  Visit site http://metalab.unc.edu/lunarbin/worldpop

 

Time

Population

Growth

Now (T1)

 

 

T2: 6 minutes after T1

 

 

Write down the current estimate (T1).

Be careful to time six minutes from now and then repeat!

Calculate the population change (number not percentage) over 6 minutes and then use this to calculate the possible change (at current rates):

Time scale

Population change

over 1 hour

 

over 1 day

 

over 1 week

 

over 1 month

 

over 1 year

 

How much has the world's population increased since you were born?

Time

Population

% Growth

Now (T2)

 

---------------

Your birth date (Date: ) T1

 

 

Difference

 

 

Enter the current population estimate (T2) and the estimate on your birth date (T1). Subtract T1 from T2 to calculate the difference. Now calculate the percentage increase !

  1. At this rate when will the population reach the following size: add approximate figures from the graph on site: 

  2. http://www.un.org/popin/ 

 

 

High Fertility

Medium Fertility

Low Fertility

7 Billion

 

 

 

8 Billion

 

 

 

9 Billion

 

 

 

10 Billion

 

 

 

 

  1. Is population growth evenly distributed across the planet?

    Using Table 3 from the site above:

    a) What is the % growth Rate for the world population between 1998 & 2050

    b) Compare the Developed and Less Developed Regions populations - what do you see?

    c) Plot the % change per continent in descending order and/or map onto world basemap.

    d) Describe your findings with help from http://www.un.org/popin/

  2. Is population growth sustainable or should we limit population growth?

You might like to read : http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issues/1199/editorials/395.html or http://www.siue.edu/~rblain/worldpop.htm to give you further evidence of contrasting views.

  1. Additional Reading:

http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.0.html - Outline to the "Essay on the Principle of Population" by Thomas Robert Malthus (1798)

Other organisations

www.facingthefuture.org

www.prb.org

Please check that:

a) all links are still active before setting the tasks in this exercise.

b) all links are suitable for use with the students that you are working with.

c) you can always use a search engine like www.google.com if you get stuck.

Any views and opinions enclosed in the reports listed above do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the author and may not always agree with your own or institutions beliefs. A range of views and opinions has been used.