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Abstract
This is the third PowerPoint population presentation in a series
of six.
Viewing a passenger bus, students wonder how many
passengers might be able to climb aboard without breaking or
damaging critical machinery. (They are surprised to imagine that of
all the systems stressed by increased crowding, the restroom at the
rear of the vehicle might be the first to fail.)
The lesson
then raises similar questions concerning earth's "carrying capacity"
for an industrialized humanity and the "limiting factors" that tend
to govern ultimate population sizes.
Lesson fundamental understandings:
Essential
Questions:
Standards
National Standards POPULATION GROWTH
Populations can reach limits to growth. Carrying capacity is the
maximum number of individuals that can be supported in a given
environment. The limitation is not the availability of space, but
the number of people in relation to resources and the capacity of
earth systems to support human beings. Changes in technology can
cause significant changes, either positive or negative, in carrying
capacity. Populations grow or decline through the combined effects
of births and deaths, and through emigration and immigration.
Populations can increase through linear or exponential growth, with
effects on resource use and environmental pollution. Various factors
influence birth rates and fertility rates, such as average levels of
affluence and education, importance of children in the labor force,
education and employment of women, infant mortality rates, costs of
raising children, availability and reliability of birth control
methods, and religious beliefs and cultural norms that influence
personal decisions about family size. NATURAL RESOURCES Human
populations use resources in the environment in order to maintain
and improve their existence. Natural resources have been and will
continue to be used to maintain human populations. The earth does
not have infinite resources; increasing human consumption places
severe stress on the natural processes that renew some resources,
and it depletes those resources that cannot be renewed. Humans use
many natural systems as resources. Natural systems have the capacity
to reuse waste, but that capacity is limited. Natural systems can
change to an extent that exceeds the limits of organisms to adapt
naturally or humans to adapt technologically. ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Natural ecosystems provide an array of basic processes that affect
humans. Those processes include maintenance of the quality of the
atmosphere, generation of soils, control of the hydrologic cycle,
disposal of wastes, and recycling of nutrients. Humans are changing
many of these basic processes, and the changes may be detrimental to
humans. Materials from human societies affect both physical and
chemical cycles of the earth. Many factors influence environmental
quality. Factors that students might investigate include population
growth, resource use, population distribution, overconsumption, the
capacity of technology to solve problems, poverty, the role of
economic, political, and religious views, and different ways humans
view the earth. Living organisms have the capacity to produce
populations of infinite size, but environments and resources are
finite. This fundamental tension has profound effects on the
interactions between organisms. Human beings live within the world's
ecosystems. Increasingly, humans modify ecosystems as a result of
population growth, technology, and consumption. Human destruction of
habitats through direct harvesting, pollution, atmospheric changes,
and other factors is threatening current global stability, and if
not addressed, ecosystems will be irreversibly affected.
State Standards
Lesson
Prerequisite Skills
This is a self-contained unit and students can complete the
PowerPoint presentation itself by simply reading each slide and
using the mouse to click through the slides of the program. The
enrichment activities suggested below, if assigned, offer
opportunities to enhance student skills using search engines,
entering URLs to access internet information, developing graphs,
tables and charts, preparing PowerPoint or multimedia presentations,
etc.
Teacher
Information/Situations/Setting/Time Would you like
your students to apply the understandings gained in this unit to the
real world? Consider a follow-up project involving the following
student research and activities:
Assign student teams to
research a nation and all its characteristics (economic, political,
resources, wildlife, climate, language, employment, etc.) Then the
students are to take on the following role: They have been hired by
the government of that nation to develop policy recommendations to
optimize, insofar as possible, employment, freedom, protection of
the wildlife, genetic resources, and the environment, cultural
diversity, standard of living, levels of education, and
sustainability.
(1) Student teams choose a nation and use
internet and digital resources to identify its: current population,
system of government, per capita income, number of births, annual
rate of growth.
(2) Have the teams prepare a map, graphs, and
a computer or multimedia presentation on the nation selected,
identifying its major mountains, rivers, natural resources, cities,
natural areas, native wildlife species, national parks, languages,
agricultural areas, historical developments to date, etc.
(3)
Students use their data to: (a) estimate and project future
conditions in the nation over the next 30-50 years; (b) make policy
recommendations that will feed, clothe, and educate its population,
optimize standard of living, health, and employment, minimize waste
and depletion of resources, minimize levels of pollution, and
maintain the climatic, biological, and genetic integrity of its
natural systems.
(4) Each team presents its results to the
class and identifies their top five policy recommendations, the
rationale supporting those recommendations, and the costs and
sources of funding associated with implementing the
recommendations.
(5) Finally, each team should identify two
"alternative futures" for the nation: One future should presume that
the recommended policies are adopted and implemented -- the second
future should presume that the policies are not implemented and
existing policies, conditions, and trends continue.
You may
find the following web-sites useful: www.census.gov and www.cia.gov
Assessment
(1) Students click through PowerPoint lesson (27 slides).
(2)
Students answer worksheet items based on lesson information.
(3)
Students take "self-quiz" (see closing screens of the
presentation).
(4) Students take turns reading worksheet items
aloud, and specify the correct answer to each item.
(5) Class
discussion and further research may follow at the option of the
instructor
Student Activity/Tasks
Enrichment/Alternate Activity:
Cross-Curricular:
Technology
Requirements/Tools/Materials
Acknowledgements:
Additional Resources
Main
URL:
Related Lessons
Related Resources
Copyright © 1997-2003
Career Connection to Teaching with Technology
USDOE Technology Innovation Challenge Grant
Marshall Ransom, Project Manager
All rights reserved.
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