World Population History - An Interactive Map and Timeline

Last night on the Practical Ed Tech Facebook page I shared a post from Randy Krum that included a visualization of U.S. population growth. Watching that visualization led me to a related visualization about world population growth.

World Population History is an interactive map and timeline of the world's population growth from 1 C.E. to today. The map is essentially a heat map of population centers. The timeline at the bottom of the map features little placemarks that feature developments in science, trade, and major political events. Students can click on the markers in the timeline to learn more about each development.

Applications for Education
The combination of the map with the timeline can help students see the correlation between scientific advancements and changes in population growth. For a classroom activity you could have students create a similar map and timeline of population changes in their local areas. For example, my students in Maine might make a map and timeline that depicts changes in forestry practices and the corresponding changes in populations throughout the state.

7 Billion Actions - The Stories Behind 7 Billion People

7 Billion Actions is a campaign of the United Nations Population Fund to build awareness of the challenges and opportunities that accompany our growing global population. One element of the 7 Billion Actions campaign is a set of population data analysis tools for the public. The 7 Billion Actions Explore Your World tools enable users to compare demographic, economic, and social data sets related to population change. The video below provides a demonstration of one of the ways that you can use the Explore Your World data analysis tools.



Another aspect of 7 Billion Actions that teachers may want students to explore is the Stories section in which people all over the world can share their stories related issues of population change.

The campaign resources section of 7 Billion Actions has a handful of videos addressing issues related to population growth. One of those videos is embedded below.