Lesson video

Hello, my name is Mrs. Crow and I'm so excited that you've decided to learn geography with me today.

Today we're gonna be looking at our unit of population, where do people live, and our lesson is our global population.

By the end of the lesson you will be able to describe global population change over time.

There are some key words that we'll come across today in today's lesson.

They are birth rate, death rate, population, natural increase and natural decrease.

Birth rate is the number of live births per thousand people per year.

Death rate is the number of deaths per thousand people per year.

Population is the number of people living in a specific area.

Natural increase is when the birth rate is higher than the death rate and natural decrease is when the death rate is higher than the birth rate.

Our lesson today is split into two learning cycles.

How do birth and death rates affect population and how has the world's population changed over time?

So first let's look at how do birth and death rates affect population.

Population is measured by counts and censuses.

A census is an official survey of population done perhaps by a government.

In the UK census data is collected every 10 years and shows us birth rates and death rates.

Remember birth rates is the number of live births per thousand people per year and death rate is the number of deaths per thousand people per year.

Now if a town has a hundred babies born every year and a thousand people live there, what do you think the birth rate is?

Izzy suggests that the birth rate is a hundred and she's correct.

Now if ten people die each year in a town with a thousand people, what do you think the death rate is?

Lucas suggests the death rate is ten and he is also correct.

Well done Lucas and Izzy.

Okay we're now going to check what we've learned so far.

So true or false?

Birth rate is the total number of babies born in a country in a year.

Is that true or false?

Pause the video here and write down your answer.

Okay, let's check how you did.

Birth rate is the total number of babies born in a country in a year.

That's false but why is it false?

Birth rate is the number of live births per thousand people per year and that's a really important thing to remember.

It's per thousand people per year.

Okay, let's move on.

So birth rates vary around the world.

Have a look at the map.

The darker colours on this GIS map show countries with high birth rates.

Niger has one of the highest birth rates in the world with around 44 births per thousand people per year.

That's a country in Africa.

Japan in Asia has a very low birth rate at approximately 7.

1 births per thousand people per year.

Now obviously you can't have 0.

1 of a birth but that's an average.

Okay, so let's look at some reasons for high birth rates and low birth rates in a country.

So reasons a country might have a high birth rate if it's a low income country, if there's a lot of early marriage in that country, and if there's a lack of family planning.

Reasons for a low birth rate is if it's a high income country, if there's late marriage or if family planning is common.

Notice that they are opposites of each other.

So low income countries often have a high birth rate as children support the family, while high income countries raising children is costly and they are not expected to work.

So in poorer countries if families don't have very much money, children are expected to go out to work to help support the family resulting in a higher birth rate.

People have more children so there are more children in the family to be able to go out and work and support each other.

But in high income countries it's expensive, it's expensive to raise a family, it's expensive to have children.

So people in high income countries tend to have less children therefore there's a lower birth rate.

Niger is a low income country and they have 44 births per thousand people so that's a high birth rate.

If people marry young they often start families earlier and have more time to have children which can lead to higher birth rates.

Which country do you think has a lower average marriage age Niger or the UK?

Izzy thinks it's Niger and Izzy is correct.

Lucas checked the average age people marry in Niger is 21 whereas in the UK it's 30.

Well done again Izzy and Lucas.

If countries where family planning is common birth rates are likely to be lower as people choose when to have children.

In countries like the UK many women want to go to university and establish a career before having children, so they often have children later which means there's less time to have as many children and so birth rates are lower.

The UK had 10 births per thousand people in 2020 which is a low birth rate.

Okay, so let's check what we've learned so far again.

Which two of the following are reasons for a high birth rate?

Is it early marriage, late marriage, high income or low income or poverty?

Pause the video for a minute and then write down your answer.

Okay let's check how you've done.

So which two of the following are reasons for a high birth rate?

Early marriage and low income or poverty.

Well done.

Okay, so death rates also vary around the world.

The darker colours on this map show countries with higher death rates.

Lesotho has one of the highest death rates in the world with around 13.

8 deaths per thousand people per year.

That's a really high death rate.

Qatar has one of the lowest death rates globally at only 1.

3 deaths per thousand people per year.

Isn't that a big difference?

Lesotho 13.

8 deaths per thousand people and Qatar 1.

3 deaths.

So death rates can also be high or low just like birth rates depending on a number of different factors.

So let's have a look at some reasons for high death rates and low death rates in a country.

So reasons for a high death rate, poor health care and sanitation, war and disasters and an aging population.

What do you think the reasons for a low death rate in a country might be?

Good health care and sanitation, a peaceful country away from a disaster zone and a young population.

So notice again that they're opposites of each other very similar.

For birth rates the reasons for high and low birth rates and the reasons for high and low death rates are opposites of each other.

So poor sanitation often means that drinking water is not clean so diseases can spread.

Just think if the water is not clean and people are drinking unclean water, that's gonna cause them to have diseases and diseases to be able to spread.

And if we've got that and poor health care so people aren't being looked after very well or aren't able to get the care that they need if they've got a disease then death rates are likely to be high.

Now, war or natural disasters that can also increase death rates.

Countries at war often have the highest death rates in the world.

War and natural disasters can cause a lot of people to die, and so it's understandable that countries that are suffering from war or suffering from natural disasters do have high death rates.

Now, we call countries with lots of elderly people an aging population which means their population is older.

Countries with an aging population are likely to have a higher death rate because we've got more older people.

Look at the map.

What do you notice about many of the wealthy countries in Europe?

Lucas suggests countries like Italy and Germany have high death rates and that's correct because Italy and Germany have an aging population.

They've got a lot of people who are older.

So let's check what we've learned again so far.

Which of the following are reasons for a low death rate?

Is it poor sanitation, good sanitation, later marriage or poor education?

Pause the video for a minute and write down your answer.

Okay, let's see how you did.

The answer is good sanitation.

Well done.

Okay, so now we come to our first task of the lesson.

I'd like you to write a definition for these key terms.

The first one is birth rate and the second one is death rate.

So pause the video, write down your answer and then come back and let's see how you did.

Okay, let's see how you did.

So birth rate is the number of live births per thousand people per year.

Death rate is the number of deaths per thousand people per year.

Did you remember to put per thousand people per year?

Well done.

Okay the second part of the task will categorise these reasons into low birth rate, high birth rate, low death rate and high death rate.

So we've got a few different reasons here and you need to decide whether they contribute to birth rate or death rate and whether they contribute to a low birth rate or a high birth rate and a low death rate or a high death rate.

So the options are, peaceful and low risk locations, later marriage, clean drinking water, poor nutrition or famine, funded health care, children needed to work, poor family planning, poor sanitation and disease.

Pause the video again, write down your answer and then come back and let's see how you did.

Okay, how did you get on?

So the options that cause a low birth rate are later marriage because if people get married later they tend not to have as many children and so the birth rate tends to be lower and funded health care.

So we've got a really good health care system.

Options that cause a high birth rate, children needed to work, so we've got children needing to work so more children are being born, people are having more children so they can go out to work to contribute and poor family planning.

Low death rate, peaceful and low risk locations and clean drinking water so people have got clean drinking water they're less likely to get diseases and die and then things that contribute to a high death rate, poor nutrition and famine, poor sanitation and disease so people not being able to get clean drinking water and getting diseases can cause a high death rate.

Well done.

Okay, so now we're gonna move on to the second part of the lesson which is looking at how has the world's population changed over time.

So we've looked at birth rates and death rates and how that affects population, and now we're gonna look at how the population of the world has changed over time.

So the population of an area is influenced by the number of births and deaths over time.

When the birth rate is more than the death rate the population gets bigger and that makes sense doesn't it, so we've got more people born than we have people dying that means that the population is gonna get bigger and that's called natural increase because increase means getting bigger.

When the death rate is more than the birth rate, the population gets smaller, so if more people are dying than are being born then the population is gonna get smaller isn't it and that's called natural decrease because decrease means getting smaller.

So let's check what we've just learned.

True or false?

When the birth rate is higher than the death rate the population increases.

Is that true or false?

So pause the video while you write down your answer and then come back and let's see how you did.

Okay, how did you get on?

So true or false when the birth rate is higher than the death rate, the population increases.

That is true.

Why is it true?

So when more people are being born than are dying, the number of people in the population grows because more people are added to the population than being taken away.

Did you get that right?

Well done.

Okay, so let's have a little look at this graph.

The change in the world's population is shown in this graph.

Can you describe how the world's population has changed over time?

Have a little look at the graph.

What's happening?

What's happening to the world's population over time?

So in the year 0 there were 190 million people.

In 1700 AD there were 600 million.

In 1900 AD 1.

65 billion people, and in 2023 8 billion people.

So look at how the population is increasing over time.

You see we have a steady increase and then relatively recently we've got a huge increase and the increase gets much much bigger.

So the population rises very rapidly from 1.

65 billion in 1900 to 8 billion by 2023.

The population rises very slowly to 600 million by 1700 AD.

So we have a slow rise in population followed by a very rapid rise in population more recently.

Now the changing scale of the graph in the GIF shows how rapidly population has been increasing over the last 50 years.

So you can see the population increasing, and if you look at the scale on the left hand side you can see how that scale really rapidly changes to account for the amount of people that are being added to the population and the amount that the population is growing.

Have a look at how it changes over time.

So let's check again what we've done so far.

In which year did the world's population reach 8 billion?

Now the graph's there to help you so have a little look at the graph.

In which year did it reach 8 billion?

Was it 1000 AD, 1800 AD, 1975 or 2023?

So pause the video while you write down your answer and then come back and let's see how you did.

Okay, how did you get on?

So did you have a little look at the graph and see what year the population reached 8 billion?

So was it 1000 AD, 1800 AD, 1975 or 2023?

So if we have a little look at the graph, if we have a look on the left hand side all the way up to 8 billion and then we move across and we can see at what point that was and go down to the scale at the bottom you'd be able to see that the answer is 2023.

How did you get on?

Well done.

So a long time ago we had a period of low population growth.

Can you see that identified on the map?

Although birth rates were high at this time, the death rates were also really really high because of poor health care and frequent diseases and that means that the population was kept relatively stable.

So although birth rates were high, death rates were also high and that meant that the population didn't massively increase, it grew a little bit but only slowly.

But we had a period of rapid population growth relatively recently and that's because of improved health care, more vaccinations, improved sanitation so better access to toilet facilities and better water and clean water, better diets helped to lower the death rates and this led to a population boom.

So all of these different factors mean that we've got better health care, people are better looked after, that's gonna reduce the death rates mean less people are dying which means the population is gonna increase.

So let's check again, have a little look at the graph.

In this little section, are death rates increasing or decreasing during this period?

What do you think?

Have a look at the graph, pause the video, write down your answer and come back and let's see how you did.

Okay, the death rates are decreasing, excellent, and that's because we've got better health care, better sanitation and so people are able to live longer and not as many people are dying.

Well done.

Okay, let's have a little look at this graph which shows the population from 1950 to 2100.

Now you might be thinking 2100 is in the future so how can we possibly have a graph with that on?

Well from now until 2100 that's projected that's what people think are gonna happen based on lots and lots of different information that they've got.

So in 2080 the world's population is predicted to start decreasing so you can see that it's been increasing from 1950 up to 2020 and then they project that it's gonna continue to increase until we get to around 2080 and then it's predicted to start decreasing.

So it's actually slowing now because of falling birth rates around the world, so although the population is still increasing it's not increasing as much as it was, it's not increasing as fast as it has done, so it's slowing a little bit because less people are being born and so less people are being added to the population.

So let's check what we've done again.

Why is the growth in the world's population beginning to slow down?

Is it because of increasing death rates?

Is it because of increasing birth rates or is it because of decreasing birth rates?

Pause the video for a minute write down your answer and then come back and let's see how you've done.

Okay, let's see what their answer is.

So why is the growth in the world's population beginning to slow down?

The answer is because of decreasing birth rates.

Well done.

Okay, now on to our second task of the lesson.

So I'd like you to annotate the graph to describe how the population has changed from the year 0 to 1900 and from 1900 to 2023.

So have a little look at the graph and annotate it that means adding detailed labels.

So that means adding a little arrow and writing down a description of how it's changed so it's more than just one word or a couple of words, and annotation is a more detailed label and a really key skill in geography.

So describe how the population has changed from the year 0 to 1900 and then from 1900 to 2023.

Have a good look at the graph and use that to help you.

Pause the video while you do that and then come back and let's see how you got on.

Okay, how did you get on with annotating your graph?

So you had to write down how it changed the description of how the population had changed from the year 0 to 1900 and then 1900 to 2023.

So you might have written that the population rises very rapidly from 900 million in 1800 AD to 8 billion by 2023.

And the population rises very slowly to 600 million by 1700 AD.

How did you get on?

Did you include those things in your answer?

Well done.

Okay, the second part of the task explain why the population grew relatively slowly before 1700 AD and more rapidly after 1800 AD.

So why did it grow relatively slowly before 1700 but then more rapidly after 1800 AD?

And see if you can use the following words in your answer.

So can you use birth rate, death rate, diseases, vaccinations and healthcare?

So pause the video while you write down your answer and then come back and let's see how you've got on.

Okay, how did you get on?

So you were explaining why the population had grew quite slowly before 1700 AD but then more rapidly after 1800 AD.

So you may have written this.

From 1700 AD population growth was relatively slow.

This is because death rates were high due to poor healthcare and the ease which disease spread through the population.

After 1800 AD the world's population has risen rapidly.

This is because of better healthcare, more vaccinations, improved sanitation and better diets which led to falling death rates whilst birth rates stayed high.

How much of that did you include in your answer?

Did you manage to include all of the words?

Well done.

Okay, so let's have a little look at our summary then for our lesson on our global population.

What have we learned today?

We've learned that birth rates and death rates vary around the world.

The world's population is growing and has reached eight billion people.

Population has changed over time but increased most rapidly since the 1800s, and global population growth is slowing down but is still expected to reach 9 billion by 2037.

Thank you for joining me for our lesson today.

I've really enjoyed learning about our global population with you.

See you next time.