2.6 Malthusian Theory 2.5 The Demographic Transition Model ...

week of September 11, 2023 2.5 The Demographic Transition Model

2.6 Malthusian Theory

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In week 5 of the bell ringers, students will continue learning about how the interplay of environmental, economic, cultural, and political factors influences fertility, mortality, and migration, causing changes in population. Focus your instruction by helping students think about the why of where. Most importantly, don't forget to have fun teaching. Working with teenagers is the best part of the job! Last week, my big wins involved a population density map (from week 3 of the bell ringers) and an image from NASA Earth Observatory of Earth at night. One student asked if choropleth population density maps at the national scale of analysis are the best way to understand where people actually live; she used the example of Alaska being shaded the same as the rest of the US. Another student asked if a limitation of the NASA image in understanding population was the fact that electricity access isn't equal throughout the world. Sometimes students help me write the bell ringers! There is always too much for one teacher to use in them; choose what seems right for your teaching situation, and use what's here to inspire your own work. Have a question? Want to tell me about something that didn't work for you or a mistake I made? Want to suggest a resource or strategy or a way to make the bell ringers even better? I am a one-woman show in this endeavor and always welcome thought partners! Please feel free to email me at laura.kmetz@.

A reminder: An excellent source for lesson plans for many topics in unit 2 is Population Education and its companion site World Population History. You can get access to Pop Ed's engaging, interactive, ready-to-use lesson plans by attending the Population Education webinar sponsored by NCGE on 9/13. An outstanding primer on population from the Population Reference Bureau for students and teachers new to teaching the course can be found here. World History Digital Education has three exceptional, step-by-step lesson plans directly correlated to unit 2 content and skills in topics 2.7 and 2.9.

Resources for teaching about the 9/11 terrorist attacks: Show students this short video of the shutdown of American airspace on 9/11/01, and ask them to apply essential knowledge from 1.4 to it. Two engaging videos that focus on the altruism of Gander, Newfoundland (the inspiration for the musical Come From Away) on 9/11 can be found here and here. The podcast 99% Invisible has an excellent episode about Gander International Airport that is full of geography ; you can find it here.

A note to newer teachers: Success on the AP exam depends on a student's ability to make connections across units (and regions and scales), and only your most dedicated and thoughtful students will do that on their own. This week's learning objective enhances student understanding of the migration topics in unit 2 in addition to several others in later units, including (but not necessarily limited to) 3.5 Historical Causes of Diffusion, 5.4 The Second Agricultural Revolution, 5.5 The Green Revolution, 6.1 The Origin and Influences of Urbanization, 7.1 The Industrial Revolution, 7.2 Economic Sectors and Patterns, and 7.4 Women and Economic Development. You might take a look at those before you teach 2.5 and 2.6 so you can help students understand these connections.

Professional Learning Opportunities APHG Essentials: Dive Into Population & Migration, an interactive webinar led by Population Education network trainer and NCGE Bell Ringers author Laura Kmetz

from 7-8 pm ET on Wed., 9/13; attendees will engage in lessons from Population Education and receive access to dozens more lessons; read more and join here.

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Resources and Information for Teachers

Learning objective for this week's topics IMP 2B Explain theories of population growth and decline.

Three excellent podcast episodes for IMP 2 are "The Future is African" and "Japan's Population Problem" from the podcast series Why it Matters by The Council on Foreign Relations and the episode "The Bomb That Didn't Explode: Why Our Fears About Population Growth Didn't Come True" from the podcast series Hidden Brain by NPR. All of these can help students understand how population dynamics are related to the demographic transition and Malthusian theory (2.5-2.6). You might also want to show a Hans Rosling video (or two or three) that is shorter than the hour long "Don't Panic": "Religion and Babies," "Global Population Growth, Box by Box," and "Child Mortality in Developing Countries" are all great choices. The 10ish minute video Crash Course Geography #33 "How Populations Grow and Change" discusses many topics in unit 2, including population pyramids/age-sex graphs, population dynamics, the demographic transition model, Malthusian theory, women and demographic change, and aging populations. It would be excellent to show before teaching about the demographic transition or Malthusian theory to reinforce 2.4 Population Dynamics and preview content in the next several topics.

You can have students engage in retrieval practice related to topic 2.4 by using parts of Q1 from set 1 of 2023. Click here for scoring guidelines. A solid understanding of population dynamics helps students understand 2.5 The Demographic Transition Model. The demographic transition and epidemiological transition models are the first models most students will learn about in APHG. Be sure to discuss the nature and purpose of models: they are imperfect representations of reality that provide a starting point for thinking and learning about a concept. You may wish to have students use this ArcGIS StoryMap by APHG teacher Matt Poleski to learn about the DTM. Two lesson plans from Population Education related to 2.5 can be found here ("Family Counts," focused on US) and here ("Demographically Divided World"). A great chart to have students look at to compare the DT in countries over time - not included here because I didn't think it would reproduce well - is available from Our World in Data by clicking on "Empirical Evidence for the Demographic Transition." Crash Course Geography #34 "How Does Disease Move?" could help you introduce the epidemiological transition. In teaching the DTM, be sure to address limitations and common student misconceptions. These include:

the misconception that the model is static; rather, the model is a process, so different countries move through the DT at different rates, spending different amounts of time in each stage (illustrated well by the resource from Our World in Data linked above)

the misconception that the model correlates perfectly with level of economic development as defined by classifications used by the United Nations and World Bank; although changes that cause a country to transition are typically associated with economic development, there are some exceptions. A limitation of the model is that it was based on western countries, so in general, there is a stronger correlation with economic development in countries that moved through the DT first. This might make an excellent explain the degree question after students have studied development in unit 7 (or if you've already formally taught the development part of unit 7): Explain the degree to which a country's stage in the demographic transition reflects its level of economic development.

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Resources and Information for Teachers

In 2.1 Population Distribution, students learned about the different types and uses of population density, including the concept of carrying capacity. In 1.5, they learned about land use and sustainability. Students will use what they learned about population distribution, population densities, land use, and sustainability as well as the DTM to help them understand the historical context that influenced Malthus and 2.6 Malthusian Theory. Rapid population growth after World War II renewed interest in Malthusian theory. If you are teaching the topic in 45 minute segments over two days, you could spend one day on Malthus and the next on its critiques.

To "hook" students, you might play the first few minutes of NPR's Hidden Brain "The Bomb That Didn't Explode" (the sounds of the eight tiny mouse that lived in Universe 25). Another option is to show the first several minutes about how Malthus's theory inspired the Avengers character Thanos (spoiler alert) from the Foundation for Economics Education. The last few minutes are related to the strengths of capitalism and not to Malthusian theory, so you may not want to show the entire video.

Other videos you might consider showing include Crash Course World History 215 "Population, Sustainability, and Malthus" or Crash Course Geography #16 "Population and Food." You might also consider using these resources: a reading, discussion, and debate from the Constitutional Rights Foundation's Bill of Rights in Action; an engaging video that I always use to teach 2.6 - complete with discussion questions and additional resources - from RetroReport (which can help you teach about neo-Malthusian perspectives, mentioned in a few questions in AP Classroom); or a lesson plan that allows students to compare the theories of Malthus and Boserup. Although the CED doesn't specifically state which "critiques" of Malthus to use, many APHG instructors teach it by discussing the work of Ester Boserup, although she is not the only person you might use; google Cornucopians and/or Julian Simon for other resources to use in teaching critiques of Malthus. I focus on Ester Boserup because she is notable for her work studying the role of women in economic development, and gender is an overarching theme in APHG. Advanced students might want to read part of Paul Ehrlich's 1968 work The Population Bomb. You can find ch. 1 here. It is not necessarily appropriate for all students and requires the teacher to contextualize it, so please read it before deciding to share with your students.

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Suggested Answers and Points of Discussion for Slides

Remember that students need to be writing their responses in complete sentences, but for the sake of time, I don't necessarily always write suggested answers using complete sentences.

Slide 7 - death rates; many decreases in death rates are due to improvements in public health, including sanitation infrastructure and vaccination programs

Slide 9 - A. (any of the countries below, but not on or above, the diagonal line are likely to be in stage 5 shortly if they are not already) B. Countries such as Niger and Angola have high birth rates and much lower death rates. (Yes, students need to add details from the graph as exemplified in the new few sentences to support their answers...) For example, in 2021, Niger had a birth rate of about 45 and a death rate of 8, making its population grow by natural increase at a rate of 3.7% a year. Angola's growth rate was about 3.1%. Both countries have such high natural increase rates that they are likely to be considered in stage 2 of the DT.

Slide 10 - See this infographic from Our World in Data.

Slide 11 - (Death tables were taken from graph on source. The graph might be confusing on a slide in the bell ringers but is worth displaying in class so that you can highlight particular causes of death by hovering over them.) A. Death rates, measured in deaths per 100,000 people in the population, appear to have been higher in 1900 than in 1998. Infectious diseases were more frequent causes of death in 1900 than diseases associated with longer life expectancies, such as heart disease and cancer. B. As a country progresses in the demographic transition, improvements in public health lower death rates, especially from communicable diseases such as pneumonia and influenza, and lengthen life expectancies. In 1998, delayed degenerative diseases were the top two causes of death.

Slide 12 - On the map, all of the countries with the highest birth rates are clustered on the continent of Africa. Countries in stage 2 of the DT have the highest natural increase rates, with birth rates that are much higher than death rates.

Slide 13 - agricultural; physiological

Slide 14 - You may wish to supplement this slide with information from Footprint Network about Earth Overshoot Day.

Slide 15 - Flashback to previous content by asking students to review the theories of environmental determinism and possibilism in connection with Malthus and critiques of his work. Teaching 5.5 The Green Revolution will help students review both 1.5 and 2.6.

Slide 16 - This slide was adapted from Q2 in 2011; suggested answers can be found on pages 4-5 in the scoring guidelines. Please note the format of FRQs has changed since 2011.

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