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“Balancing Act”
Your Mission
Find the key to a balanced population.
In the past 40 years, world population has nearly doubled. By 1999, it had reached six billion people. All those people need resources, such as drinkable water, food, and places to live. How can people learn to practice sustainable use of resources so that future generations will have enough to eat, clean water to drink, and comfortable homes? One key is to realize the imbalance in the distribution of resources and the increase in population in different regions of the world.
Regions and Resources
When you think of Europe, one of the world’s regions, what comes to mind? A Paris café, Swiss ski slopes, a gondola in Venice? What does Africa, another world region, call to mind? Perhaps the snowy cap on Mount Kilimanjaro or a pride of lions lying on the savanna.
The quality of life in these regions and throughout the world depends in part on the balance between population and the availability of resources.
Regional Research
Use a “geographic focus” to look at six regions of the world identified by the United Nations: the United States and Canada, Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, and Oceania.
Divide up into teams of at least six students, one for each of these six regions. Each of you will then compare four aspects of life—population increase; income per capita; availability of fresh water; and the amount of cropland—in your chosen (or assigned) region. You and your teammates will gather data either from a map, or from other materials your teacher will give you.
Gather your data. Then enter the statistics for “your” region on the “Population & Resources” card your teacher has given you.
Graphic Evidence
Make a bar chart of the data you gathered for your region.
The Best Place, Bar None
Within your group, compare the six bar charts.
What is the annual rate of population increase in each region?
What is the per capita annual income in each region?
How many gallons of fresh water does one person use in a year in each region?
How many acres of cropland per person exist in each region?
As a group, in which region would you most like to live?
Pick one person from your group to tell the class where your group would like to live, and why you chose that region. Find out how other groups voted.
Bar Charts and Beyond: Information Is Key
Geographers constantly struggle to find the best ways to display data. Charts, graphs, maps, and other visual displays help geographers report information from a spatial perspective.
Your group should draw a large world map. Using this map and the data from you bar charts, your group will create a display to help others understand the worldwide balancing act between people and resources. You can go to Web sites under Other Related Web Sites to find additional information to add to your display. Be creative—people are more likely to read your chart if it catches their eye.
Include:
TODALSS (map elements)—Title, Orientation, Data, Author, Legend, Scale, Source;
world regions;
bar charts of data for all six regions (use the bar charts you’ve made or make new charts); and
photographs, drawings, or symbols representing the four indicators: population increase, income per capita, fresh water availability, and cropland.
Taking Action
Start at home . . .
Donate your time or goods to the Red Cross, which supplies communities with necessary supplies during national disasters.
Conduct a food or clothing drive.
Learn about your watershed-about keeping the water clean and using it wisely. Look at the Fresh Water 9-12 activity for a list of Web sites focused on watersheds and keeping yours clean.
. . . and go beyond.
To learn about environmental emergencies worldwide and to take action, check out the Eco-Club Action Web site
Learn about groups that provide needed assistance around the world, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Adapted from “Millennium in Maps: Population” lesson plan. Copyright © 1998 National Geographic Society.
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© 2000 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.
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