Population: Teaching Ideas
Visual Learning Students will need to draw on their visual learning skills to understand the Demographic Transition Model and population pyramids. Observing these diagrams is crucial to achieving this. Often I find that learning is easier if you draw your own version of a diagram with added explanations if you need them. When you have to re-draw a diagram you have to pay attention to detail and it is much easier to remember information from that than it is if you just observe one. Similarly students might prefer to mind map the causes and effects of over-population and under-population rather than writing endless paragraphs and becoming uninterested. This would be much easier for pupils to revise in the future. |
Group work
To understand the similarities and differences between living in countries at different stages of development and with different population situations we could ask students to work in small groups and create a five minute news report. Alternatively the focus of the report could be push and pull factors of migration. The idea would be to allow pupils to be creative by creating characters for journalists and citizens, and to write their own script that includes all of the facts but that can have entertaining moments as well. Once the reports are completed students can perform their reports to the class. This task would build on student's communication skills including their speaking and listening abilities.
To understand the similarities and differences between living in countries at different stages of development and with different population situations we could ask students to work in small groups and create a five minute news report. Alternatively the focus of the report could be push and pull factors of migration. The idea would be to allow pupils to be creative by creating characters for journalists and citizens, and to write their own script that includes all of the facts but that can have entertaining moments as well. Once the reports are completed students can perform their reports to the class. This task would build on student's communication skills including their speaking and listening abilities.
Other Activities
Population has a lot more basic key definitions than other topics. To learn these we could produce card sets with key words and then definitions on separate cards. If you provide every pair of students with a packet of these cards they can work together to match them up. After ten minutes or so we could then discuss the correct answers as a class before asking the students to writing them down in their books. If you prefer you could cut and stick definitions from pages; however it can be easier for student to pay less attention to their work this way.
Population has a lot more basic key definitions than other topics. To learn these we could produce card sets with key words and then definitions on separate cards. If you provide every pair of students with a packet of these cards they can work together to match them up. After ten minutes or so we could then discuss the correct answers as a class before asking the students to writing them down in their books. If you prefer you could cut and stick definitions from pages; however it can be easier for student to pay less attention to their work this way.
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