Peopling of Our Planet

Visit www.PopulationEducation.org for more classroom

resources and www.WorldPopulationHistory.org for the full lesson plan.

Students watch the video World Population and participate in guided exploration of an online timeline to explore how improvements in medicine, food and agriculture, and public health and sanitation during the Industrial Revolution contributed to population growth.

To Access and Use This File:

1. Sign into your Google Account.

2. Click on File in the top left corner. Select Make a copy to create an file you can edit.

3. In your copy, click Share in the top right corner. Change Restricted to Anyone with the link and change Viewer to Editor.

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4. Click Copy link and share this link with your students.

Assign students to each reading card in the table to the right.

Answer the questions and watch the video on the next slide.

Your group leader or teacher will share their screen and lead you through the reading cards and discussion following the Activity Instructions.

Group Leader or Teacher:

• Activity Instructions give step-by-step instructions to leading the activity.
• Using the Interactive Timeline gives tips for navigating through the interactive timeline at www.WorldPopulationHistory.org.
• The Discussion Guide is the script you’ll use to accompany each Reading Card with discussion questions, topics, and milestone events.
• You may wish to delete or skip the green slides (slides 16-20) before sharing this file with students.

In this file:

Introduction

World Population History Video

Reading Cards 1-12

Activity Instructions

Using the Interactive Timeline

Discussion Guide

Introduction

World Population History 1 C.E. to 2050 C.E.

Discuss: are these

statements true or false?

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Human population growth has remained constant throughout human history.

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A rising birth rate is the main contributing factor to population growth.

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Watch the video your teacher shares (or click here then click Watch the Video). Did your answers change?

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Reading Card #1

For much of history, human population has grown at a slow to moderate pace. This slow rate of growth is attributed to a relatively even ratio of births to deaths. A lot of people were being born, but a high percentage of them died, primarily from what we now consider preventable causes. Changes in the birth rate or death rate of a population can have a great impact on population size. From 1 C.E. to 1700, death rates were high and we find that population did not grow as fast as it would in more recent years.

Reading Card #2

The Industrial Revolution began in England in the late 1700s and had a significant impact on the death rate of the newly industrializing countries of Europe and North America. Advancements in medicine, food and agriculture, and public health and sanitation all played a large role in reducing mortality and improving quality of life, which in turn, increased population growth rates. Europe’s population was estimated at 125 million in 1700. Two hundred years later, its population had nearly quadrupled in size, reaching an estimated 420 million by 1900. Innovation and discovery during the Industrial Revolution, coupled with extraordinary increases in overall rate of natural increase, had profound impacts on the economy, environment, and society.

Reading Card #3

During the 1800s and 1900s, advances in medicine dramatically improved quality of life in Western Europe and the United States. Discoveries in biology and chemistry led to the development of new medicines, adoption of innovative medical techniques, and aseptic practices. Many of these advances would not have been possible without the invention of the microscope in 1676.

Reading Card #4

Further important medical discoveries followed the microscope. In 1796, Edward Jenner discovered a cure for smallpox. The idea that many diseases are caused by micro-organisms was later scientifically proven by French chemist Louis Pasteur and called germ theory.

Reading Card #5

Germ theory was fundamental in the development of antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines. Penicillin, later discovered in the early 1900s, provided quick and complete treatment of previously incurable bacterial illnesses. Years later, strategic vaccination campaigns were able to eliminate common diseases like measles, mumps, diphtheria, and tetanus in Europe and the United States

Reading Card #6

During the Industrial Revolution, improvements in how we grow and transport food had a great influence on population. Greater quantities and access to food lessened the dangers and impacts of famine and improved overall nutrition on a grand scale. The British Agricultural Revolution (1700-1850) resulted in unprecedented increases in labor and land productivity between 1600s and 1800s. Advances in farm machinery made it easier for farmers to ready and harvest greater expanses of agricultural land with ease.

Reading Card #7

New agricultural methods, such as the four-crop rotation method, greatly increased crop and livestock yields by improving soil fertility and reducing fallow. By the 1800s, many British agricultural practices had been adopted by most of continental Europe and natural fertilizer, along with other agricultural implements, was being produced commercially at a large scale. Later, the development and widespread use of chemical fertilizers often replaced natural fertilizer and led to even heartier and more bountiful crop yields.

Reading Card #8

The Industrial Revolution also made food more accessible. The development of the steam engine dramatically changed the way agricultural goods were transported across Europe, providing quick and reliable access to cities across the continent. In the early 19th century, British engineer Richard Trevithick constructed the first steam locomotive. By 1950, Britain had more than 6,000 miles of railway track, which allowed it to transport goods and people faster than ever before.

Reading Card #9

What better farming methods did for crop yields, better sanitation and sewage regulation did for public health. During the Industrial Revolution, populations in Britain’s urban centers increased rapidly as people migrated into cities to fill new jobs in factories. London doubled in size between 1801 and 1841. As the population grew, demand for basic necessities outstripped supply. Overcrowded neighborhoods, often served by inadequate public water supplies with poor waste disposal systems, led to recurring outbreaks of cholera, dysentery, tuberculosis (TB), typhoid fever, and other water-borne diseases.

Reading Card #10

As cities grew, social reformers and physicians began to identify connections between the intolerable conditions of urban slums, poor sanitation, and the need for greater investment in public health. Edwin Chadwick led the British movement toward sanitation reform. Later, in 1854, physician John Snow discovered that cholera was transmitted through contaminated water. In the United States, chlorination and other treatments for public water supply became common practice by the early 1900s, further decreasing the incidence of water contamination and disease.

Reading Card #11

Increasing population and urbanization also meant a higher concentration of human waste. Early sewage systems discharged raw and untreated sewage directly into waterways. Later, as tolerance from cities downriver waned, municipalities developed more advanced methods of wastewater treatment. Modern sewer systems were developed in an attempt to dispel contaminated wastewater and fecal matter away from populated areas.

Reading Card #12

Through the beginning of the 20th century, advances in medicine, food and agriculture, and public health and sanitation affected populations primarily in more developed countries. But as these advances spread out from their epicenters in Europe and North America and into developing nations, death rates fell dramatically in these regions as well. Following World War II, human population grew explosively, reaching annual growth rates as high as 4 percent for some developing nations. World population hit 1 billion in 1804. It took 123 years for the population to double 2 billion in 1927. From there, it only took 47 years for the population to double to 4 billion. The global population reached 8 billion in 2022, this time having doubled in 48 years.

Activity Instructions

1. Before beginning the activity, open the video and the interactive timeline from www.WorldPopulationHistory.org in two separate tabs.
• Open the Interactive Timeline: Click on the website link above and then click the Explore the Map button.
• Open the Dot Video: Click on website link above and then click the Watch the Video button.
2. Review the tips for Using the Interactive Timeline.
3. It might be helpful to print the Reading Cards and Discussion Guide beforehand.
4. Begin the activity: assign reading cards using the table on slide 2. Everyone will need to have their reading card accessible while also watching your shared screen.
5. Ask the true/false questions on slide 3.
6. Share your screen and play the Dot Video.
7. Revisit the answers to the true/false questions on slide 3. Have the answered changed?

8. Share your screen so everyone can see the Interactive Timeline.
9. Students read their cards in order, starting with Reading Card #1 and moving sequentially through #12. For each reading card:
• The student reads the card.
• While they read, find the corresponding milestone(s) using the Discussion Guide. On the Interactive Timeline, navigate to the appropriate year and locate the milestone’s diamond. Click on the diamond to bring up additional information about the milestone.
• Find the corresponding discussion topics or questions on the Discussion Guide. Go over the topics and ask the questions for that reading card.
• You may want to expand on the significance of each milestone or discuss links between multiple milestones. In many cases, you will need to use prior knowledge to draw connections and make inferences about how and why the milestone impacted population growth.

Using the Interactive Timeline

Important navigation features of the Interactive Timeline:

• In the upper right hand corner, you can type in any year, hit enter, and the map adjusts to that date.
• Along the bottom of the map is a timeline from 1 CE to 2050 CE. Drag the white bar to the left or to the right to move backwards or forwards in time. Click on the magnifying glass to zoom in on a section of the timeline (like 1700-2030).

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• White diamonds represent milestone events contributing to population change. They are organized thematically on the timeline and are placed in their theme’s color-coded bar below the map as well as appearing on the map. Click on the diamond in the timeline or on the on the map to learn more about that event.
• Additional features and navigation tips are described here.

Discussion Guide: Cards 1-4

Discussion Guide: Cards 5-8

Discussion Guide: Cards 9-12