Assignment: Scientific Measurements



Human Population Demographics: Virtual Lab

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Name of Student:       Date:      

Overview:

Before civilization began to impact the human life cycle approximately 10,000 years ago, human beings had high birth and death rates. Today the world is in the midst of a demographic transition, a transition to low birth and death rates, as the ability to control both disease and reproduction increases. Along the way, between these extremes, populations go through an intermediate period of continued high birth rates, combined with low death rates, resulting in a population explosion.

Because countries span a continuum along this transition, looking at the present demographics of countries around the world provides an opportunity to look forward or backwards in time: a post-transition country can get a glimpse of a situation resembling its own past from countries still in transition, and a transitional country may get a hint of its demographic future from countries that are further along the continuum.

Go to the following web site to begin your lab:



Part I: The Demographic Transition

Step 1:

At the most basic level, the increase or decrease in population can be calculated by following the simple formula:

BIRTH RATE - DEATH RATE + IMMIGRATION = GROWTH RATE

(Please note that this model does not take immigration into account, so we are looking at birth and death rates only. The birth or death rate is the total number of births or deaths per year. However, as you’ll see in the simulator, birth rates are normally expressed as number of births per woman (over her whole life) and death rates as a percentage of people who die in each age group.

To get a sense of this continuum, start by running the simulator to 2050 for all seven countries (click on Run button). Record their population growth rates at the end of the simulated period in the Data Table and number the countries by growth rate from highest (earliest in the demographic transition) to lowest (farthest along the transition). Then answer the following questions.

|Lesson 1: Step 1 |

|Country |

|Country |Described Shape of Pyramid: Prediction |Described Shape of Pyramid: Simulation |

|USA |      |      |

|China |      |      |

|Egypt |      |      |

|India |      |      |

|Italy |      |      |

|Mexico |      |      |

|Nigeria |      |      |

1. Did the pattern of population change match your prediction?      

2. Compare the final population pyramid for Italy to the one you noted of Nigeria. How do they compare, and why are they similar or different?      

3. Many Western European countries are giving monetary incentives to employees who have multiple children. Why would they do this?      

4. How would a baby boom change Italy’s demographics?      

Summary Review:

As you saw in this lesson, two countries with the same birth and death rates by age group will eventually come to have populations with identical structures (population pyramids). However, it takes them a while to get there. This is because the age structure of a population is key to its population growth. Countries like Nigeria, with large numbers of young people, will go through a "growth spurt" as those young people age and have children. Conversely, a country such as Italy, with a large elderly population past childbearing age, will dwindle as those older people die. Eventually these factors even out and a country with a replacement fertility rate such as that of the USA will have a stable population.

But in the short term, a population structure has a momentum of its own. Even with extreme measures such as China's "one-child" laws, a population's growth rate cannot be changed quickly.

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