December 2009 Interaction 47 Middle Years Can you imagine this? Close your eyes. Imagine one person. Now imagine 10 people. Try to imagine 100 people. Can you imagine 1000 people? How about one million … or one billion people? On the September 8, 2009, the world’s population was 6 941 183 200. It is dificult to imagine a number as large as this. However, if we imagine the world to be a village of 100 people, it is easier to understand population statistics. The following activities are a simple way to represent population statistics and distribution around the world. A live population clock can be viewed at www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop Context The activities below could be used to engage students in inquiry based units relating to: • culture and identity • sustainability • social justice and human rights • interdependence and globalisation. VELS Level 4 Geography Students identify and collect information from maps and record and represent data in different types of maps, graphs and tables. Imagine the world as a village … 1. Write the names of the world regions on cards and place them around the room. Ask students to move to the card that represents the region where they were born. Work out the percentage for each region and ill in the table below. When the table is complete, ask the students to record some relevant questions to go with the data. For example: a. What world region has the highest population? b. What world region has the lowest population? c. Where do most of the people in our class come from? Table 1 World Regions Number of people in our class If the world were a village of 100 people Actual number of people in the world Africa 14 924 000 000 Asia 57 3 750 000 000 North America 5 332 000 000 Latin America 9 566 000 000 Europe 9 589 700 000 Russia 2 142 300 000 Middle East 3 218 000 000 Australia and the Paciic Islands 1 34 000 000 Data Source: www.prb.org/pdf06/06WorldDataSheet.pdf Here we grow! Natasha Ziebell, Global Education Officer