Description of Project:

The African Population Project is an interactive geography lesson that focuses on some basic concepts concerning total population, population density, population growth rates, and population distribution.  It is designed so that each student can work independently, but  it can also be used as a demonstration for the entire class. It is not intended to be an independent lesson, rather an interesting supplement to lectures that will help the students to begin thinking spatially. Many of the questions concern broad concepts of population distribution and cannot be answered unless the students have been exposed to the concepts prior to beginning the lessons.

The four lessons can be completed in one to two class periods depending on the amount of time that is available. Although the lessons are interrelated, they are designed to be flexible and it is possible to stop between any of the lessons.
 
 
 

Lesson 1:  This is an introduction to ArcView.  Detailed instructions are given in this lesson that are not given in the other lessons. There are links to Lesson 1 from all of the other Lessons so that students can refer to it easily if they forget some of the steps involved in a task.

Hint: The original project file has been locked to prevent overwriting.  The students should be instructed to save their work under a new project name by going to File, Save Project As.  After Lesson 1 is completed, the students can delete the Africa.apr file that they created.   A project file called Pop.apr is provided for Lessons 2, 3, and 4.

Lesson 2:  The students are introduced to the concepts of total population, population density, and the differences between them.

Hint: The students do not need to save any of the changes that they make during Lessons 2,3, and 4.

Hint: If the students have problems with the query in Step 2 have them check to make sure that the expression in their   query window is IDENTICAL to the one presented on the web page. Many times there is a problem with the parenthesis (too many or not enough).  If this happens you can edit the expression using the cursor and the keyboard.

Hint: When the records are selected (yellow) in the attribute table, it is important not to click anywhere in the table.  This will clear the selection and select a new record.  It is also important to use the clear selection button after a query or else the next query will be performed on the selected records instead of the whole data set.

Lesson 3:  The students determine which countries have high population growth rates and may be approaching their carrying capacity in the near future. Examples of population pyramids are used to help the students to visualize population growth rates.

Hint: Joining tables can be tricky. Pay attention to the order in which the fields are selected when the tables are joined.  The first table that you select will be joined to the second table.  If the tables join, but the Growth Rate attribute table disappears instead of growth.dbf, then the order has been switched and the attribute table has been joined to the .dbf table. Go to Table in the ArcView menu, Remove All Joins,  and try again.

Lesson 4: The students will produce maps and charts that show how population density is dependent on the proximity to water, vegetation type, yearly precipitation, and political boundaries.
 
 

eposton@cnr.colostate.edu