UbD Lesson--Population

Essential Questions
-How do people and their environment influence one another? [content-based]
-How can we learn more about a group of people? [skills-based]

Unit goals
Students will understand how the environment affects the where people live.
Students will learn why people live in certain places and not in others.
Students will learn how to calculate population density...and why it is important to recognize that population density is an averaged statistic.

Key Questions
Why do people live in certain places...and not in others?
How can we quantify how "crowded" an area is?
How can statistics be misleading?

Lesson Goals
-Students will know that population throughout the world is not distributed evenly. People tend to live in areas of flat, fertile land near a water source. All ancient civilizations, and most U. S. cities, were developed according to such guidelines.
-Students will learn how to calculate population density.
-Students will use information about an area's population density and distribution to gain a more accurate understanding of its human geography.

Performance Tasks
-Students will physically act out instances of even and uneven population distribution
-Students will solve diagram problems of population density
-Students will create their own population density problems
-Students will discuss the misleading nature of statistics.

Lesson
Students will first listen to teacher example of spreading peanut butter on bread evenly vs. unevenly [population distribution]. Students will then work together to spread themselves evenly or unevenly throughout the classroom. Teacher will prompt students to respond regarding the "crowdedness" or "even-ness" of the population distribution.
Students will then work on a sample population density problem with teacher. Students will then work on similar problems individually. Students will create their own population density problems and share their problems with classmates in jigsaw fashion. Students will receive peer feedback on their problem setup and response. For homework students will create a sample town and create a gridded diagram of its population distribution/density. Students will respond to the prompt...How can population density be misunderstood when we don't know the population distribution?

This lesson is meaningful to student's in that it helps us to answer our larger year-long class questions such as "How do people and their environments influence one another?" and "How can we learn more about a group of people?". Students will be able to use the skills gained from this lesson on an upcoming project involving analysis of the 2000 US Census. At the close of this unit, students will brainstorm and explore careers where it is important to use demographic data.

In creating this lesson, it is difficult to generate student interest amongst the entire class. The best I've been able to do to make learning meaningful is to let students work with me to create essential questions and unit goals [though they are usually steered towards an intended goal]. I also try to include lots of information about relevant careers so that students might connect learning to their future. I suppose in the future I could have them learn about potential careers before the unit as a means of generating more interest.