Erica Hooper
Grades: 4-6
Geography

Purpose:
The purpose of this lesson is to help the students become more aware of population at the global, national and local levels and to better understand how population affects our social and political environment.

Connection to the National Geography Standards:
No. 9. The characteristics, distribution, and migrations of human populations.  During discussions in this lesson students will learn that population growths and declines are partly due to migration.  The center of population shifts when large numbers of people migrate from one place to another.
No. 17. How to apply geography to interpret past.  With the discussion and statistics presented in this lesson the students will be aware of some past population trends and distributions. From looking at these statistics it is easier to understand today.
No. 18. How to apply geography to interpret the present and the future.  By knowing current population distribution and trends students can see the possible outcome of the current population growth for the future. It is important to understand this so that we can handle it better when our resources are exhausted due to overpopulation.

Objectives:
The student will demonstrate the ability to:
1.  Understand what overpopulation is about.
2.  Discuss population distribution around the world, nationally, and locally.
3.  Discuss population shifts and the reasons for the shifts.
4.  Discuss past population trends.
5.  Discuss current population trends.
6.  Discuss future population projections.
7.  Use the Internet to find population information.

Procedures:
Day 1: World Population
Sponge Activity:  Before class write on the board the question, "What do you know about population?" and directions for each student to take out a piece of paper.  While the students are getting ready for class to begin they are brainstorming on what they know about population and writing the ideas down.  This activity gets the students thinking and ready to start the unit on population.

Opening:  The first lesson's focus will be on global population.  A preview is given of the coming lesson. This first activity will be used to activate the background knowledge of the students.  Begin the class by having the students pull out of a hat locations to go to around the room.  The locations will be pretend countries and the students will the citizens of these countries.  The students will cluster in the location they have drawn and wait for instructions.  Each person will be given a situation that gives them a reason to either stay or move to a new location.  This will take place a couple of times before you have the students discuss the activity. The students will discuss their reasons for "migration" or their reasons for staying.  This activity is used to show students shifts in population and possible reasons for the shifts.  Then the discussion will shift to such questions as:  What do you know about the world's population past and present?  What is the most populated country today?

Guided Practice:  This portion of the lesson will begin with some lecture and discussion. *Overpopulation - the number of people in an area exceeds the capacity of the environment to support life at a decent standard of living
*75 % of world's population lives on 5% of land surface - these surfaces are low-lying with fertile soil and temperate climate that is why people live there
*Show to class map of population distribution
*Discuss why sparsely populated regions are sparsely populated - dry lands: to dry for farming - 20% Earth's land surface - wet lands:  near equator - combination of heat and rain depletes nutrients from the soil, not good for farming - cold lands: unsuitable for raising crops, few animals can survive - high lands: few people live at high elevations, snow-covered, cannot grow crops
*What seems to be the most common reason why these are less populated? - hard to farm and the resources could not support many people
*Why do population shifts occur? - ask students and let them try to give you reasons why - some reasons are:  political disputes cause people to develop a desire to leave a particular region or they are forced to migrate - environmental reasons such as a drought will cause people to move to areas that are better suited for their needs - economic reasons such as job relocation or search for jobs - medical reasons such as a plague will cause a decrease in population and people flee to escape the plague - students should be able to list several others
*Discuss current world population - nearly 6 billion, number constantly changing
*As a class look at graph of World Vital Events per Unit: 1997 (this can be found at URL http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/powe) - discuss with students the births, deaths and natural increase for each time unit
*Discuss how the world is more populated today than any other time in history
*Show table and graph of just how much it has changed in just the last few decades (the table can be found on URL http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldpop.html and the graph at URL http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldpop.gif) - these also show projections up to 2050, students should recognize the rapid growth
*Show table World Population Milestones at URL (gopher://gopher.undp.org:70/00/ungophers/popin/wdtrends/mileston) - the table shows that the amount of time to gain 1 billion more people is rapidly decreasing and as the projections show should eventually begin to slow again
*Show short 6 min 30 sec video on growth of world population over all of time - from video that the world population growth remained slow until recent years
*Discuss why this new rapid growth might cause problems - food supply is limited especially in less developed countries

Independent Practice:  The students will be put back into the clusters they were originally in at the beginning of class.  The students will look up websites on world population and answer discussion questions from a worksheet.

Evaluation:  The worksheets will be handed in and the students will be graded on completion.

Closure:  The class will come together again and will discuss briefly some of the things they discovered from looking at the websites.  The class will orally compare and combine this new information with the facts discussed early in class.  The day will end with a quick preview of tomorrow's lesson on the US population.

Day 2: United States Population
Sponge Activity:  Like the day before have the question, "What do you know about population?" written on the board.  Today have the students brainstorm again and write the ideas down on a new piece of paper.  Ask them to compare the list to yesterday's brainstorming to see if their knowledge has increased about population from day to day.  This will get the students thinking and ready to start another lesson on population as well as reinforces what they learned yesterday.
Opening:  The students will be given a certain identity.  Each identity will be a type of person in the US today.  Each student will be asked to read his personality to the entire class.  The class works together to decide where in the US might this person live and why.  From this activity the students will get a better understanding of why people live where they do in our nation today. After the activity the students will be given a quick oral quiz over the information discussed the day before to reinforce yesterday's lesson and links will be made to today's lesson.  We briefly discuss the brainstorming activity done at the beginning and talk about how their knowledge has increased.  Then the students will be asked questions about the opening activity - Why is it important to know about where someone lives? Why do people live where they do? Why might some regions of the US be more populated than others?

Guided Practice: *The instruction will begin with a whole class look at the Popclock Projection website - (http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/popclock) At this website the US Census Bureau shows the current national population up to the minute it is being checked, this lets the students have a better understanding that our national population is constantly changing - the website also gives the rates for the changing population in seconds, the students should learn that population is never constant.
*Discuss how the center of population has shifted through the history of the US - when the country was first colonized the population was concentrated on the east coast, as time progressed the concentration of people began to move more west as the pioneers headed west, the center of population today is still closer to the east coast today, but is always moving
*Discuss why people are moving - age is one of the biggest reasons people move within the US, today people over the age of 55 make up 20% of the nation's population, this age group of people are moving away from the Northeast to escape the cold and the big cities
*Moving trends are changing - Look at Population Changes Map at the following URL (http://usatoday.com/news/states/special/pop/npop002.htm) - this map shows that the population trends of the 80s are the same as the population trends of today - population is dynamic and is constantly changing
*Look at the population pyramids for 1900, 1950, 1990 at URL (http://mindspring.com/~hlthdata/1900pop.html) - from these pyramids the students should be able to realize the changes in the age makeup of the US -in 1900 many young people very few old people - 1950 still more young people but number of young and middle age adults is increasing - 1990 biggest group of people is between 30 and 40 years of age, America is aging

Independent Practice: *The students will get back in the groups they were in yesterday *In these groups the children will be given a worksheet with discussion questions that deal with the website.
*The students will answer the questions while exploring the website and they should gain an understanding of the population pyramids for the US from 1900 to 1990.

Evaluation: The worksheet will be handed in and graded for correctness and completion. Closure: The day will end will the class coming back together to briefly discuss the information found at the website. A short oral review will be conducted to reinforce the facts about population presented in both days. The class will end with a brief description of tomorrowÕs lesson on our local populations.

Day 3: Local Population
(this lesson would differ according to where your school is located, this lesson is done for a pretend city and a pretend elementary school)

Sponge Activity:  Like the two previous days the class will begin with the question, "What do you know about population?" and the students will again brainstorm and list.  They will compare all three list and realize that over the past two days their knowledge about world and national population has increased.

Opening: This class session would begin with the students graphing the population of each classroom in the school.  As a class the students will be given the population of each class in the school and they will have to graph the populations on a bar graph.  Because of Texas state laws the classroom sizes will be very similar until about the fourth or fifth grade.  The class will discuss how the population distribution is evened out through the school.  After this discuss with students the facts learned in the previous two days to reinforce and to make links to today's lesson. Have a brief discussion on the sponge activity.  Talk about how the population grows and changes globally, nationally, and even locally. The current population of the city is 108,800 people with a median age 30.5, but this has not always been the population.  Looking at old statistics will show that the city began as a farming community of a few families back in the 1800s - 1900 the farming community had grown into a small city - today the city is growing rapidly in size and economics.  Show students graph of city population history over the past 50 years. As the city has grown so has the school.

Guided Practice:  *Discuss how the school population has grown over the years
*Hand out statistic sheet on the population growth of the school over the past 20 years
*Have the class work together with the teacher to make a graph of the school population history
*Compare the school graph to the city graph and discuss with students how the two graphs are growing together - as the city grows so does the school

Independent Practice:  *Have the students get back into their groups
*The students assignment, using all the information learned over the week, is to create a small community and to describe its population history of trends
*A pyramid graph should be created for 3 different decades throughout 100 years to show contrast and change Evaluation:
*The students will be graded on creativity, quality of information, demonstration of knowledge and completion

Closure:  The class will end with the presentation of the small communities to the entire class. Some discussion will be held on the small community presentations.

Evaluation:  A brief oral quiz will be done to reinforce and to check the acquisition of knowledge about population.

Materials:
*classroom computer on the Web with an LCD screen
*computers with internet access in the school lab
*VCR and TV
Appendix:
*Worksheets at end of document over world population and national
*All the maps and charts are listed in the sources

Extensions:
*The study of graphs and tables can be extended to the Math lesson.  The students can be exposed to more graphs and doing a closer study on how to read and use graphs.
*The study of past population trends can be extended into the History lesson.  The students can study certain regions or countries and see how events of the past can affect today's population. *For a possible Art activity the students could create a whole class map using the small communities that they created in the third lesson.  They can decide the arrangement of the communities on the map and color and decorate.
*For a possible English activity the students can pretend to be a citizen of their pretend community and write a journal as that person.  They would have several entries and each would be a different period of that persons life in the community.  They should discuss the population growth and changes that occur during that persons life?

Worksheet No. 1. World Population Discussion Questions URL:  gopher://gopher.undp.org:70/00/ungophers/popin/wdtrends/pop1996
1. From the table can you find the world's most populated country in 1996? What was the population?

2. From the table can you find the world's least populated country in 1996? What was the population?

3. Use a globe or an atlas to see the land area of both places. Which one has the largest land space?

4. Even if a country has a lot of land surface why might it be overpopulated?

Worksheet No. 2. National Population Pyramids Over the Century start at
URL:  http://www.mindspring.com/~hlthdata/1900pop.html
1. In which year, 1900 or 1990, is the nation the most populated?

2. In which year is the median age the lowest? highest?

3. What be some reasons why the population has grown over the past few decades?

4. Why would the median age be increasing over the years?

5. Draw what you think the population pyramid for the US will be in the year 2000?

Bibliography
1. Adams, Mike, MD and L. Adams, MS. America's Lifeline Online. Health Data, Inc. Homepage http://www.mindspring.com/~hlthdata/lifeline.html (visited 4/2/97)

2. Nasser, Haya El and Paul Overberg. USA Today. "Looking Ahead, A Settling Down as Boomers Age,"  http://usatoday.com/news/states/special/pop/npop001.htm (visited 4/2/97)

3. Rubenstein, James M. An Introduction to Human Geography. Prentice Hall, 5th ed. Upper Saddler River, NJ, 1996, pps. 57-98.

4. Stone, Andrea and Paul Overberg. USA Today. "Census Consensus: Less Dramatic Growth," http://usatoday.com/news/states/special/pop/npop002.htm (visited 4/2/97)

5. US Census Bureau, International Data Base http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/powe (visited 4/2/97)

6. US Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/popclock (visited 4/2/97)

7. World Population. (Video) Washington, DC: Zero Population Growth, Inc. and Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, 1990, VHS.

8. World Population Growth From 0 to Stabilization gopher://gopher.undp.org:70/00/ungophers/popin/wdtrends/histor (visited 4/2/97)

9. World Population for the Countries of the World: 1996 gopher://gopher.undp.org:70/00/ungophers/popin/wdtrends/pop1996 (visited 4/2/97)

10. World Population Milestones gopher://undp.org:70/00/ungophers/popin/wdtrends/mileston (visited 4/2/97)

Created April 23, 1997

Return to http://ejw.i8.com/97/plans97.htm