Trends in Population and the Environment

What is a population Start with a population lab using Daphnia which is a water flea. Have students count the number of daphnia in the container the first day. Students should count the number of daphnia for the next 5 days. They should graph results at the end of the 5 days

What is a population Fill out a personal census form of your family Use forms found in Environmental Science Book Lists include how many children did you great grandparents, your grandparents and parents have

What is a population They should make a bar graph of the data Have then answer the question what has happened to population in your family over the past century and why. Have a class discussion of this Students should find family sizes have declined. Discuss why

Population Growth If a families are getting smaller why is the population of the worlds population increasing Show video called World Populations Ask questions about video Around what year did you notice a large population change

Population Growth What historic events, scientific advances or changes have contributed to the population increase? Look at the following website and explain what is happening and why wthproj/worldpop.htmlhttp:// wthproj/worldpop.html Students should note that better medicine, technology,and better nutrition have people living longer

Understanding Birth rate and Death rate Do paper clip lab to understand how birthrate and death rate affect population time.com/htmls/investines/updated/u1/43.pdfwww.its-about- time.com/htmls/investines/updated/u1/43.pdf After lab have students explain how do birth and death rates affect the size of a population Students should understand that birth rates have increased and death rates have declined adding to population growth

Is there a limit Populations are dependent on resources to survive Unchecked population growth can lead to imbalance between a population and the resources The size of the population that an area can support is called carrying capacity Personal decisions can change the resources we use

Is there a limit Carrying capacity refers to the number of individuals that can be supported in a given area within natural resource limits without destroying the environment for future generations Carrying capacity is not fixed It can be altered by improved technology

Is there a limit Mostly carrying capacity is changed for the the worst by pressures from an increasing population With increased population we have increased consumption of natural resources Human populations tend to be wasteful and add to the increasing pressure No population can live beyond the environments carrying capacity very long

Is there a limit Read the following website on the Reindeer on St. Matthews Island Ask what are the two factor that helped the reindeer explosion What accounted for the reindeer population crash

Is there a limit How is the Reindeer story similar to what could happen to human populations Watch the following video from NASA to sum up somethings we learned on populations /NVA2~20~20~54489~125255:NASA-SCI- Files---Animal-Populations

Finish up Do the final count of the daphnia lab Graph the data that you obtained What happened to the daphnia population over time It should have gone up and then declined because of lack of resources

Assessment Students should write an essay on how the Reindeer and daphnia lab are similar to human populations. They should research things that they could do to live on an earth that has an increasing population but yet save our limited supply of environmental resources for future generations