Overview & Lesson Sequence

Focus on Standards & Assessment

Materials Needed, Preparation & Planning, Management Strategies

Background Info

Intro Activity
Why Study Populations?

Meet the Aphids

Research Project
Aphid Population Growth

Data Analysis I

Data Analysis II

Optional Activity
The Power of Exponential Growth

References

Glossary

Suppliers

Resource Sheets

Great Gravidity Home

CISEO Home

Optional Activity: The Power of Exponential Growth

Materials Needed per group

• World Population Data Sheet from the
• Population Reference Bureau
• (http://www.prb.org)
• Frances Moore Lappé,
• World Hunger: Twelve Myths

Class Time Required

• 1-2 class periods for team paper research and preparation
• 15 minutes for each group to present
• position papers
• 15 minutes for a final discussion

This activity challenges students to use their newly acquired knowledge of population ecology to think about the impact of the human population on the earth's ecosystem.

Human populations interact in complex ways with their environment just like insects and other animals do. This interaction has strong implications for the long-term survival of humans. In 1999 the world population passed the six billion mark and continues to increase at a rate of around 1.3 per cent per year. The human reproductive strategies that have caused this population increase are based both on societal factors and on human biological adaptation.

Procedure
Ask students: Which of the environmental factors that you identified for aphids might affect the human population? (all)

What are some factors that affect the human population but do not affect insect populations? (social/political upheaval, use or non-use of birth control methods, food distribution)

Do you think that the earth has a carrying capacity for humans?

Have teams use their assembled aphid population data and information plus the World Population Data Sheet from the Population Reference Bureau (http://www.prb.org) to prepare a position paper on human population and the carrying capacity of the earth. Use the following questions as prompts:

What do you think might be the earth's carrying capacity? Can it be calculated? Why or why not?

What factors affect human population growth?

How have economic, political, religious, technological, and environmental factors influenced the size and rate of human population growth?

You may also want your students to read the book World Hunger: Twelve Myths and ask the following questions:

Is the problem lack of food or poor distribution of food? Why have populations dropped in Europe? What is the connection between social status and fecundity?

Ask each student group to present their position papers to the class (see the Rubric for Group Presentations). Once all the student groups have made their formal presentations, facilitate a class discussion on how the principles of population ecology they studied (exponential growth, carrying capacity, environmental factors) affect and will continue to affect human population growth.

Assessment
Use the presentation or other rubric to assess student presentations. You may want to have students assess one another's presentation or use a rubric they develop.

For additional activity ideas, see:

"Less Elbow Room", "Almost Six Billion and Still Growing" and "Piecing Together Population Patterns" from the Project Food Land and People curriculum (http://foodlandpeople.org/).

Zero Population (http://www.zpg.org/).

"Carrying Capacity" from the NSTA/EPA Global Environmental Change series.

Note
What is 1.3% of a dollar?

What is 1.3% of six billion dollars ?