C OUNTING P EOPLE CfE: The Human Environment

P OPULATION UNIT Title: Counting people Date:22/06/2016 Aim: To find out how we count the population of a country or the world, and the problems that we can encounter while doing so.

L ESSON STARTER Before we go on to the lesson for today the starter is looking back at the previous lesson.

L ESSON STARTER : BIRTH AND DEATH RATE Birth rateDeath rate Increase Decrease Advances in medicines and hospitals Education on family planning Lack of contraception available War

I NFORMATION ON POPULATION Q: How do we get the information on how many people live in different places?

I NFORMATION ON POPULATION A: A census A census is when the government sends out a questionnaire to everyone in the country to find out important information.

I NTRODUCTION We know how many people there are in the world because every country takes a census. In Britain we take a census every 10 years and the last one was in 2011.

H OW DO THEY WORK ? Every household was given a census form to fill in on exactly the same date – The last Sunday in March. The forms were then collected and the figures added up.

W HAT QUESTIONS DO THEY ASK ? Task: Imagine that you are the UK government and you have to make up the questions for the census.

W HAT QUESTIONS DO THEY ASK ? Task: Q1) What information do you think that the government wants to find out? Think of at least 5 things. Q2) What questions do you think that they would ask? Write at least 5 examples down.

W HAT QUESTIONS DO THEY ASK ? The census form has questions about each person in each household, in order to find out: Basic Facts – their age, sex, nationality. Extra facts – other useful information such as occupation, type of house, language spoken.

W EBSITE

W HY ARE CENSUSES TAKEN ? It tells you how many people live in different parts of the country, so they know how much money they should be spent in each region. It tells you how fast the population is growing, so that they can try to slow it down or speed it up if necessary. It tells you how many schools will be needed, how much money they will need for pensions and how many people will be taxpayers.

I N SHORT ! All of the information is needed for a government to be able to plan ahead. How many new hospitals, houses, roads should be built and where in the country should they be built.

C LASS CENSUS Take the sub heading “Class census”. We are going to conduct a “class census” What information do we want to gather? What questions should we ask?

C ONDUCTING THE CLASS CENSUS

S COTLAND ’ S CENSUS Take a look at the interactive timeline which shows information from Scotland’s census from Timeline Look at the information from the following years 1851, 1891, 1931, 1971and 2001 Describe the changes that the population of Scotland has gone through, as shown in the census.

C ENSUS P ROBLEMS Look at these pictures and see if you can think of any problems that you might get when conducting a census in a LEDC. Write them down

Hello Bonjour

C ENSUS P ROBLEMS Some people do not want to tell the truth. It is difficult to count people if there is a war They are expensive to carry out It is difficult to reach some villages Some people cannot read or write and so cannot fill in the forms In some countries, many different languages are spoken. Some people are nomads. So are difficult to track down.

C ASE S TUDY N IGERIA

L OCATION

Population 89 million (1991) Most people live in the south The north east is very remote with few roads Many languages spoken 53% of adults are literate

N IGERIA ’ S C ENSUSES Since 1960 the country has had 4 censuses : 89 million 1973 : 80 million 1963 : 55 million 1962 : 45 million What doesn’t make sense about these results?

W HY ARE THE CENSUSES INACCURATE ? Lots of reasons (including illiteracy, difficult to get to some areas etc…) Also, the four main tribal groups in different parts of Nigeria tried to make their population totals higher than they actually were. They did this to get more money for their region and more votes in the Nigerian parliament.

W HAT DID THE N IGERIAN GOVERNMENT DO TO MAKE THE 1991 CENSUS MORE ACCURATE ? Employed 500, 000 officials. Used computers to collect and sort information (and to detect cheating). Were given funding from other countries to help pay the cost for the census to run. Census 2006

Y OUR TURN Read page 15 & 16 of the International Issues book. Answer the Credit questions on page 17. Extension: Finish the Extension questions on page 17 Q1-4 Extension 2: Finish the Extension questions on page 24. Q1-4

L ESSON PLENARY Comparing the UK to Nigeria “The UK does not face any of the problems that Nigeria does when it carries out a census” Write down the quote: Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Write down your answers in you jotter and be ready to feedback.

C ORE QUESTIONS : S TANDARD OF LIVING. P27 Core questions 1-7