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Study Guide Answers
1. How many more people are born each year than die? How many people are born every minute?
85 million/ 161 people
2. How often is the population doubling?
every 35 years
3. What happened about 12 thousand years ago that removed one of the limits to population growth?
birth of agriculture
4. When did the earth's population reach one billion? Two billion?
by 1850 / by 1930--80 years later
5. When was three billion reached? How many people were there by 1987?
by 1960/ 5 billion
6. Where does most of the population growth occur?
in developing countries and Third World Countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America
7. What two factors work in opposition to determine the growth rate of a population?
birth rate and death rate
8. What three things determine the birth rate of a population?
fertility rate, age structure of the population, and mother's age at the birth of her first child.
9. What is the fertility rate in the United States? In India? In Kenya?
fewer than 2 children per woman/ over 4 per woman/ 8 per woman.
10. What does replacement-level fertility rate mean? What is this rate for the world?
The rate at which the world's population would eventually stabilize, neither increasing nor decreasing/ 2.4 children per woman.
11. Discuss what "age-structure" is and how it affects population.
discussion
12. What is the childbearing age range? What are the prime reproductive years?
15 to 44/ 20 to 29
13. Why is it important to consider the relative number of girls below childbearing age when predicting future population growth?
They are the mothers of the future.
14. What percent of the United States' population is under 15 years old? What is this percentage for developing countries?
22%/ 50% or more
15. Discuss why, despite the fact that fertility rates are beginning to decline around the world, population growth is accelerating.
discussion
16. What is the definition of "carrying capacity" of an environment?
the maximum number of individuals that an environment can support
17. Historically, what have people done when they exceed their local carrying capacity? Discuss this solution and why it will no longer work.
discussion
18. How many of the people in the world are hungry or malnourished? How many children die from hunger each day, throughout the world?
1/3 to 1/2/ 40,000
19. Discuss why emergency relief does not effectively help the hunger problem.
discussion
20. Even though India has had a population control program since 1952, its population has doubled since the program started. Why is this?
Because, though densely populated, the villages and cities are seldom connected by means of transportation or communication.
21. Why did China start its "one-child family" program?
To cause the population to shrink to 700 million, their optimal population.
22. Discuss zero population growth and why this is neither a political statement nor a moral mandate.
discussion
23. What is the estimated level of zero growth for the earth? When is this estimated to be achieved?
10 to 15 billion/ at the end of the next century--2090s
24. "How many humans can the earth feed?" is the wrong question. How must the question be phrased?
What is the best number of humans for the earth? What is the number that can be sustained in a life worth living?
25. If the human species does not have the wisdom or courage to control its numbers, nature will do it for us. What can/will you do to help to control the population problems of the earth?
discussion
© Educational Video Network, Inc. 2005 - www.evndirect.com Your leading source for curriculum-based educational videos and DVDs.

Study Guide Answers