World Population Film Questions
1. What is the sound you hear during the DVD? What does it symbolise?
The sound is of a heartbeat and the rate of the heartbeat symbolises how fast the world
population is growing, i.e. it is quicker when the population is growing faster.
2. During what years did you see the most drastic population growth?
The biggest increase was between the start of the 20 th century and the present day. During
this period the population has gone from around 1 billion people all the way to over 7.5
billion people. This is partly due to population increase being exponential as the people
there are the more people there are to have children. Also due to a massive advance in
medicine the rate of fertility deaths has massively decreased from 8.8 million deaths in 1990
compared to 4.1 million in 2017.
3. What two areas of the map have the highest density of dots at the beginning of the film? Do
those areas still have large populations today?
The two areas with the highest density of dots were North East China and North India. These
countries still have a he population compared to other areas in the present day with each
country have well over a population of 1 billion people as well as the next largest country
the USA has less thana third of that.
4. At the beginning of the film, the areas with fairly dense dots are mostly in places where the
climate is good and the land is fertile. Often along river banks and near deltas people have
developed forms of agriculture. What link is there between agriculture and population
growth?
People need a favourable climate, warm and wet, to grow crops as the majority of
people were subsistence farming, farming for themselves. There was also a lot less
trade of food and crops between country.
Fertile land leads to greater potential for crop growth and therefore results in an
increase in population.
Also, the advancement in technology has led us to be able to produce more crops in
a smaller areas well as in other areas. For example, the ability to irrigate can help
grow crops in drought prone areas. There is also machinery, modified crops,
transport, fertilisers and pesticide.
5. There were no dots in North America prior to 1150 but were there people? If there were
people, what might be the reason that they are not shown here?
There were people living in North America as about 15,000 years ago the Indians went
exploring into the western hemisphere however they were pretty much the only inhabitants
and there wasn’t originally 1 million of them so there weren’t any dots.
6. The bubonic plague killed approximately 75 million people. What areas were hit hardest by
the plague and why? How might increased population density contribute to a virus’s ability
to spread?
1. What is the sound you hear during the DVD? What does it symbolise?
The sound is of a heartbeat and the rate of the heartbeat symbolises how fast the world
population is growing, i.e. it is quicker when the population is growing faster.
2. During what years did you see the most drastic population growth?
The biggest increase was between the start of the 20 th century and the present day. During
this period the population has gone from around 1 billion people all the way to over 7.5
billion people. This is partly due to population increase being exponential as the people
there are the more people there are to have children. Also due to a massive advance in
medicine the rate of fertility deaths has massively decreased from 8.8 million deaths in 1990
compared to 4.1 million in 2017.
3. What two areas of the map have the highest density of dots at the beginning of the film? Do
those areas still have large populations today?
The two areas with the highest density of dots were North East China and North India. These
countries still have a he population compared to other areas in the present day with each
country have well over a population of 1 billion people as well as the next largest country
the USA has less thana third of that.
4. At the beginning of the film, the areas with fairly dense dots are mostly in places where the
climate is good and the land is fertile. Often along river banks and near deltas people have
developed forms of agriculture. What link is there between agriculture and population
growth?
People need a favourable climate, warm and wet, to grow crops as the majority of
people were subsistence farming, farming for themselves. There was also a lot less
trade of food and crops between country.
Fertile land leads to greater potential for crop growth and therefore results in an
increase in population.
Also, the advancement in technology has led us to be able to produce more crops in
a smaller areas well as in other areas. For example, the ability to irrigate can help
grow crops in drought prone areas. There is also machinery, modified crops,
transport, fertilisers and pesticide.
5. There were no dots in North America prior to 1150 but were there people? If there were
people, what might be the reason that they are not shown here?
There were people living in North America as about 15,000 years ago the Indians went
exploring into the western hemisphere however they were pretty much the only inhabitants
and there wasn’t originally 1 million of them so there weren’t any dots.
6. The bubonic plague killed approximately 75 million people. What areas were hit hardest by
the plague and why? How might increased population density contribute to a virus’s ability
to spread?
