Lesson Plans, Reading and Classroom Discussion Guide
School Lesson Plans and Readings - These can be adapted to different ages through college
Click on individual lesson titles to download file.
The lessons tend to fall in three categories:
1) helping students understand population dynamics, such as the history of world pop growth, age distribution, trends and projections, etc.
2) Connections between population pressures, resource use and environmental health
3) Connections between population pressures and societal trends such as girls’ status, poverty, development, public health, etc.
Earth: The Apple of Our Eye: Another favorite. It’s a quick demonstration that serves as a discussion starter on land use (especially arable land).
Population Circle: This is a good visualization of how rapidly the world population has grown over the past century.
Food for Thought: This is one of the most popular activities for middle and high school. It’s a global simulation where students are divided into different world regions according to population distribution. They then compare stats for demographics, resource use, education and public health using different props.
Everything is Connected: Students create a concept map examining the cause and effect relationships between population growth and a host of environmental and economic topics. As they create the web, students can really see how population pressures impact so many aspects of our lives. For middle and high school
Lessons for Life is designed for middle school and especially focuses on the importance of girls’ education.
A Girl’s Life is designed for high school students. In addition to examining the role of education for girls, it also introduces older students to issues of child marriage, women’s work, pregnancy and motherhood in less developed countries.
The People Connection is high school level reading that will give students a base knowledge of demographic trends and related issues.
Seven Billion and Counting is middle school level reading that will give students a base knowledge of demographic trends and related issues.
There are many more great lessons on the World of 7 Billion Website including School Wide Events.