Population Growth

Population growth is another environmental issue. “Issue” is the word we have used instead of “problem” because it has a better connotation. When we talk about pollution, whether it is air or water, it is a problem. I’m not sure population growth is a problem, per se, but it is something that figures into every equation when we talk about the environment.

I have decided on this topic because there is an article in this week’s Time for Kids that we read today in class. The students automatically drew a correlation between the population’s growth and the impact on natural resources. As of this year, the world’s population was expected to pass 7 billion people. That is more than double that of just 50 years ago. In another fourteen years, that number is expected to reach 8 billion.

Population growth increases at an exponential rate. Many factors play into the rise of the population, including better medicines that are keeping people alive longer, better prenatal care, which decreases the number of miscarriages and stillbirths, and better fertility drugs for those who have trouble conceiving.

Since I’m taking STEM classes, this is an excellent opportunity to incorporate math into the topic, particularly reading a graph (like the one above). A simple line graph can show us the increase of the world’s population since 1900. If we follow the pattern, we can see an obvious increase and project what the next numbers on the graph will be in fifty years, 100 years, or even later than that.

I asked my student’s if they ever didn’t finish their dinner, and had their parent say, “There are many starving people in the world, so eat your food!” Mine too. Now that I’m the parent (of a finicky five-year old girl) I’m always about to say it. But this is a big deal if the population continues to grow. Experts believe that there is enough food per country to feed everyone, but that we need to work harder to create less waste.

One of my students raised their hand and brought up natural resources. I served up the questions and they hit them out of the ballpark, including:

• If there are more people in the world, hence more people driving in the world, how does that affect the atmosphere?


• If more people need more paper to write on, what does that mean for trees?


• If we cut down more trees, what happens to all the extra carbon dioxide not getting absorbed?

If a family gets big, they can simply add an extension to their house. There is nothing we can do to make the earth bigger, so we need to be vigilant in protecting our resources and limiting our waste as much as possible.

Source: Time for Kids, lenntech.com