THIS WEEK Tuesday – Central America & Population Pyramids Wednesday - Google Earth Thursday – Welcome Mrs. Julie Vargas, Haiti/Dominican Republic Friday – Work Day for Demographics Project

Beginning with the late 1800s, giant corporations dominated Central America. These corporations built railroads and planted bananas on the land adjacent to the railroads, making it easy for them to transport the fruit to U.S. markets. BANANA REPUBLICS?

It’s a cycle in history! PUSH-PULL FACTORS

It’s called an ISTHMUS A narrow strip of land, with water on both sides, that connects two larger bodies of land.

What did the Panama Canal mean to the shipping industry?

How do they work? Another view History Channel

 The Mountainous Core Huge mountains- Difficult to cross Problem for transportation - Volcanoes  Caribbean Lowlands Dense rain forest vegetation Tropical wet climate, hot & humid  Pacific Coastal Plain Tropical wet and dry climates

 Central America is the size of France or Texas  Central America has only 0.5% of the world's land mass, yet 7% of the world's species.  In 1950, tropical rain forests covered about 60% of Central America. Today, it's about half.  The worst offender is El Salvador, which cut down 95% of its forests.

Farmers cut down vegetation with machetes (“slash”), make small piles of the cut brush, and set them afire (“burn”). One of the traditional types of farming in Central America. video

These tell us a lot about a country’s population makeup

What does this tell us? Stable pyramid - A population pyramid showing an unchanging pattern of fertility and mortality. Stationary pyramid - A population pyramid typical of countries with low fertility and low mortality, very similar to a constrictive pyramid.

What does this tell us? Expansive pyramid - A population pyramid showing a broad base, indicating a high proportion of children, a rapid rate of population growth, and a low proportion of older people. This wide base indicates a large number of children. A steady upwards narrowing shows that more people die at each higher age band. This type of pyramid indicates a population in which there is a high birth rate, a high death rate and a short life expectancy. This is the typical pattern for less economically developed countries, due to little access to and incentive to use birth control, negative environmental factors (for example, lack of clean water) and poor access to health care.

What does this tell us? Constrictive pyramid - A population pyramid showing lower numbers or percentages of younger people. The country will have a greying population which means that people are generally older, as the country has long life expectancy, a low death rate, but also a low birth rate. This pyramid has been occurring more frequently, especially when immigrants are factored out, and is often a typical pattern for a very developed country, a high over-all education and easy access and incentive to use birth control, good health care and few or no negative environmental factors.

More Examples