Computer Science Department | Appalachian State University



The Research Experience for Teachers Program: Scientists have been studying and collecting data about populations for years. What do you think happens to a population as time goes by? Does it just grow and grow and grow indefinitely? How do different populations grow differently? Looking at data and creating graphs can help us to make conclusions and predictions. Materials List: Computer, Internet Access, Spreadsheet software such as Excel, Google Spreadsheet, Apple’s Numbers, or OpenOffice Calc.ProcedureBackground: You will import data for population growth by year and then use a spreadsheet to make graphs to represent the growth so that you can analyze and make conclusions.Lab Activity:Part I. Find World Population Data (Your teacher may have you skip this part and provide you with the file directly):Go to the World Bank DataBank site. Either search for “World Bank data bank,” or go directly to You can also skip steps 1-5 by clicking this link: on the “By Country” tab towards the top, Then click “DATABANK.”Click on Create Report.Click on World Development Indicators.Under the “COUNTRY” tab, click, “Select All.”Under the “SERIES” tab, scroll down and check “Population (Total)”Under the “TIME” tab, under “SELECT YEARS,” click “Select all.”Click “DOWNLOAD.”Choose the best option for your situation. For most people, a .xlsx file should work. Also save as a .csv file just in case the .xlsx does not upload properly into Google Spreadsheet. Save your file in a safe location and name it something you will remember.Part II. Import Data Into A Spreadsheet and Make Graphs.Open up Google Drive (if you don’t already have a gmail, it’s quick and easy to register).You now need to upload the Spreadsheet file that you either completed in Part I or your teacher provided for you. (Click on the Up Arrow beside the Create button on the left). If you don’t convert it to a Google Spreadsheet initially, you will need to make sure you open in Google Spreadsheet.If you get an error downloading or converting as a .xlsx file, then try the .csv format. It might produce a zipped file, but you will only need to extract the file with “data” at the end.You should notice that Countries are listed in the first column and years are in the first row. NOTE: A column is up and down and a row is across from left to right.You will now create a graph to represent a country’s population growth from 1960-2013. Let’s start with the US (United States)At the time this was written, in order for year to show up on the x-axis, you will need to follow these directions:Highlight Row 1 (years) and Row 2 (Afghanistan). Click Insert > Chart (Chart in this context is another word for graph)Be sure to click on the line graph option.You will probably need to click “switch rows/columns” for it to display properly.Click the grid to edit the data.Click “add another range.” Go to spreadsheet and click row of country (row 205 for the US).Then click on top box and go all the way to right and change BF2 to BF1. Click Ok.In combine ranges, choose Vertically. Click the box beside Use column A as headers.Click Insert.Make sure you label the x-axis as Time and the y-axis as Population. You can do this in directly on the graph by double clicking.What kind of growth does the US have: linear, logistic, or exponential? Is the growth positive, slow, no, or negative growth? What do you think are some of the factors for why the US would have this kind of growth?Now graph the country of Tonga. Follow the same directions as above (4-a (1-12), but instead of the US, you will do Tonga.What kind of growth does it show? Look up Tonga and explain what factor/s account for this type of growth.If you had added the Tonga data to the US graph, it would have looked like the following. Why does it look different?You will now graph a developed country – Japan (by following steps (4-a (1-12).What kind of growth does the Japan have: linear, logistic, or exponential? Is the growth positive, slow, no, or negative growth? What factors account for this type of growth?You will now graph the world’s two largest populations - China and India. This time, however, we want to graph them together to see which country is the biggest.Follow steps (4-a (1-12) for China.We will now add India:Click on the Down Arrow in the upper right corner of the graph, then click Advanced Edit.Click Start Tab, then click the Grid. Click “add another range”. Click in the 3rd box that is empty.Click the India row. Click Ok. Click Update. There should now be two lines on the graphWho has the biggest population? What factors account for their large populations?You cannot really tell from the above graph if these 2 countries are growing at the same pace as others, so you will add a line to the graph of India and China - Vietnam. To add Vietnam, follow steps 8-b (i-vi) for Vietnam. Who has the slowest growth of China, India, and Vietnam? How do you know based on the graph? Based on this, who has the most resources, and what are those resources? Who has the least resources?You will now graph Afghanistan. You can just highlight the first 2 rows and do Insert>Graph.Between 1960 and 2013, the Soviet Union (now referred to as Russia) waged war on Afghanistan. BASED ON THE GRAPH, estimate when you think this happened, and how did you conclude this.Graph a country of your choice and describe the population and what factors account for it.You will now graph World Population. First we need to total the Populations.Go to the bottom of the 1960 column E and click in the cell. Type “=SUM(“ then highlight all the numbers from E2:E215. Type a closed parentheses “)” and then press enter. Once you press enter, there should be a number for the World population in the year 1960.Now click on the cell in the bottom right corner until a + appears and click and drag all the way to column BF .Now go to your India, China, Vietnam graph and add the World Line. Give the chart an appropriate title. What kind of growth does the world population display? Make a prediction for the growth of the World based on current trends and looking into the future what may happen.You will need to turn in your assignment based on your teacher’s instructions. The recommended method is to share or email the Google Spreadsheet you have created. Make sure you change the name of the document to YourName_World Population Graphs.AssessmentPre-Assessment: What is a population?What does a graph with exponential growth look like?What does a graph with logistic growth look like?What is carrying capacity?What are resources?What are limiting factors?What is birth rate? What is death rate?Is the population increasing, decreasing, or staying the same if birth rate is higher than death rate?Is the population increasing, decreasing, or staying the same if birth rate is lower than death rate?Is the population increasing, decreasing, or staying the same if birth rate is equal to death rate?Results/ConclusionsWhat does exponenial growth look like? What population/s had exponential growth?What does logistic growth look like? What population/s had logistic growth?Based on the graphs, is the birth rate of the world higher or lower than the death rate?With current trends, which countries are growing the fastest?With current trends, which countries are growing the slowest?The total population of a country at any given point is an estimate. Why is it an estimate and not an exact number?Data analysts predict that Nigeria could grow in population to become the World’s 3rd largest nation after India and China, surpassing the US. Would this be positive, slow, no, or negative growth? What would need to happen for Nigeria’s population to explode so rapidly?In general, most countries’ populations are growing larger and larger year to year. Why?Go back to the World Bank Data site and follow the prompts until you get to series. Look at all the options for data about a country’s population and develop some ideas for data you could analyze and information you would hope to gather.Reference(s) ................
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