Activity Plan
World Population day
Topic
Population, poverty and global issues.
Nationalities, Languages, Population, Religion, Food, Air and Water,
School and Work, Money, Possessions, Energy, Health.
Age Group: Any
Time: 60 minutes
Aim:
Success Criteria:
To teach about global issues by scaling down global statistics
to a village of 100 people to make them more digestible.
By learning about our world population it opens the door
to many other issues such as resources, consumption and
poverty that we face today.
ALL
Will be able to learn about some global statistics
MOST
Will be able to relate these global statistics to
their own country and talk about similarities
and differences.
SOME
Will be able to discuss the reasons for these
problems and potential solutions.
Objectives:
Resources:
• A selection of photos to insert from your time overseas.
This lesson plan is very much a blank canvas in terms
of what topic(s) and how you wish to teach it
• Look at global statistics on a number of issues
• Examine how these issues are depicted in your
community overseas.
• Explore what these issues are like in the UK.
Activities:
• Starter activity
• Main teaching
• Development (group or individuals)
• Plenary
© Project Trust MMXV | www.projecttrust.org.uk/global-citizenship/
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starter activity
If the village of 100 people represents the population of the whole
world, have participants guess how many people one person in the
village represents.
Answer: 72million
Main Teaching
The following is a series of statistics that offer a global perspective
on a broad range of issues. Pick the topics that interest you and
for each topic ask the question
“In the village of 100 how many people…”
eg How many people are from Asia?/ How many people speak Chinese?
Select a number of these topics that you would like to present about.
Ask participants the questions prepared on the topic(s) you’ve chosen,
having them write down their answers before comparing them with the
actual answers.
Looking at the questions you will be asking, try to find out the comparative
information for your country/ community (e.g. How many languages are
spoken in India, how many people are illiterate in your local community)
1.
Nationalities
How many are from:
Asia? Africa? Europe? © Project Trust MMXV | www.projecttrust.org.uk/global-citizenship/
(60)
(15)
(10)
3
2.
Languages
True/False quiz. Learn a phrase or two.
How many languages are spoken in the village? (6000)
How many people speak English? (9)
How many people speak Spanish?
(8)
How many people speak Hindi?
(9)
How many people speak Chinese?
(21)
Video with animations explaining answers to these two questions...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtYjUv2x65g
3.
Population
More than half the population come from 6 countries – what are they?
China (19)
India (17)
United States (5)
Indonesia (4)
Brazil
(3)
Pakistan
(3)
Ask the class how many different nationalities are represented
in the class (or including families).
4.
Religion
How many are:
Christians?
Muslims?
Buddhists?
© Project Trust MMXV | www.projecttrust.org.uk/global-citizenship/
(33)
(21)
(6)
4
5.
Food
Food security in the village and the most common animals.
How many sheep and goats? How many camels? How many chickens?
How many people do not have food security- they
cannot always be sure they will have enough to eat.
(31)
(3)
(2100)
(44)
You could run an activity where pupils have to budget a weekly
shop on a low budget. Find out how many people suffer from
food insecurity in your country or in the UK.
6. Air and water
How many have access to safe drinking water at home
or within a short distance? How many have access to adequate sanitation, public
or household sewage disposal?
How many breathe clean air? (87)
(63)
(68)
There could be an activity where pupils carry water for a distance
7.
School and work
How many are illiterate? (14)
How many go to school?
(30 of 36 who are of school age 83%)
What do the other 6 do? (3 work around house/family farm/small
business—3 are child labourers fields/
factories/mines/ streets seller/ child soldiers*)
*Ask how many children that is in the real world (216 million)
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8.
Money
How much would the yearly wage be if all money
was divided equally?
(£8500)
How much of the world’s wealth do the richest
10 people have? (85%)
How much do the poorest 10 live off per day? (less than £1.40)
How much do half the people in the village average? (£4)
What is the average annual cost of food, shelter
and other necessities in the village (£3400)
9.
Possessions
How many telephones? Televisions?
Computers? Cars? Bicycles? (118 - 100 of which are mobile phones)
(45)
(28)
(10)
(20)
What possessions would a typical person in your community
overseas have? You could get pupils to make a list of their families’
possessions and compare them to a list of possessions of a family
from your overseas community.
10.Energy
How many have electricity? How much of the world’s energy is fossil fuels?
Nuclear? Renewable energy? © Project Trust MMXV | www.projecttrust.org.uk/global-citizenship/
(76)
(73%)
(17%)
(10%)
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11.Health
(38)
(68)
(6*)
What was the life expectancy in 1850? What is it today on average? How many people contract malaria each year?
*And what’s that in the real world?
12.
(432 million)
World population, past and future
How many people lived in the village in 1900? How many people will there be by 2150? (32)
(250*)
*250 is the limit that experts think the world can sustain
development/further activities (Group or Individuals) Different activities depending on Level/ Size of group.
Creative: Participants could make their own world villages. Before giving
any answers each participant could make their own world
village based on how they answer your questions. They could
then compare their world village to the correct answers that you
provide and see how accurate their predictions were.
Debate: What are the biggest problems in this village? What surprised
you most about this village?
You have been appointed president of the UN - which of these
issues will you prioritise and why? Assign one issue to each
group - they must argue for that one.
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development/further activities (continued) Writing: Without specifically mentioning any of the statistics provided,
you must describe the village in 300 words. Depending on the
participants level this could be more/fewer words. This is
essentially a task asking to describe the state of the world today.
Maths: Create a series of maths questions based on the information
given. You could ask each participant to come up with
three questions.
eg
Fractions: The numbers of villagers can be expressed as a
percent. For example, 32 of the 100 villagers = 32 percent of the
villagers, or 32 percent of the world’s population. The numbers
of villagers can also be expressed as fractions. For example,
25 of the villagers = 25/100 of the village. Students can reduce
these x/100 fractions to their lowest common denominator
— so 25/100 becomes 1⁄4.
Art: Draw a picture of what you think this village will look like,
including three key features from the information you
have learned.
eg Only 76 people will have electricity so some houses won’t have
lights/ Only 68 people have clean air so some will have clouds
or smog overhead.
An additional task could be to combine different factors to
show inequalities in the village
eg The richest 10 people will have cars, computers, lots of food.
Whereas the poorest might not attend school or may not have
enough to eat - what will these respective areas look like?)
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Research: Pick one of these topics and explain how they compare between
your country overseas and the UK.
Look at comparative stats between your country overseas and
the UK in terms of answers to the questions you have chosenwhat issues are there- what can we do?
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child:
Look at the charter and identify what Rights relate to the topics
discussed in the session.
eg The Right to Education
plenary
Have each pupil write down one thing they have learned
from the session.
© Project Trust MMXV | www.projecttrust.org.uk/global-citizenship/
Question
Your World Village
World Village
9
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