What if you could challenge your seventh-grade students to explore mathematical principles as well as global population issues as they consider population density? With this volume in the STEM Road Map Curriculum Series, you can! Global Population Issues outlines a journey that will steer your students toward authentic problem solving while grounding them in integrated STEM disciplines. Like the other volumes in the series, this book is designed to meet the growing need to infuse real-world learning into K–12 classrooms. This interdisciplinary, four-lesson module uses project- and problem-based learning to help students to devise a model for counting populations of a given species on Earth and develop a formal presentation of their models for consideration by a panel of experts. Students will examine species’ ecosystems, explore global populations with an economic and geographical lens, take on the role of an urban planner to develop a megacity that incorporates what they have researched and learned about the consequences of population density and overpopulation, and share literature relevant to their applied species model. To support this goal, students will do the following: Explore how to gather information about a population and make valid generalizations and inferences from this information Utilize mathematical practices to complete mathematical explorations Explore the impact of population density on humans and the environment Communicate learning and experiences about population density and its influence on humans and the environment through various forms of writing, speaking, and analyzing non-fiction text Explore the historical, social, geographical, and economic factors related to population density The STEM Road Map Curriculum Series is anchored in the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Standards, and the Framework for 21st Century Learning. In-depth and flexible, Global Population Issues can be used as a whole unit or in part to meet the needs of districts, schools, and teachers who are charting a course toward an integrated STEM approach.

October 31, 2011, marked an uneasy milestone for Planet Earth. On this day, the global population surpassed seven billion. What does that mean for a world that, until the nineteenth century, was home to less than one billion people? Experts say it means the planet is in trouble. Some wonder if Earth will even be able to sustain human life at its current rate of growth. Will there be enough food for everyone? Will conflicts over land increase? How will the environment be affected? Can humanity survive the predicted disasters? More than a simple case of running out of space, the population crisis is interwoven with a host of other issues?from climate change and resource management to war, disease, and poverty. Discover how all these factors converge to place an entire planet in crisis mode?and explore what sort of responses that crisis may require.

Give your students the opportunity to think, discover, and learn together in social studies! Teamwork helps students strengthen individual retention, improve performance, and promote meaning-making in the classroom. To give adolescent minds practice in critical thinking, the authors use their considerable teaching experience to present more than 40 problem-solving activities that are ready for immediate use in the social studies classroom. This updated edition of Catch Them Thinking in Social Studies demonstrates how to use collaborative learning strategies to fully engage students in meaning-making. Cooperative Problem-Solving Activities for Social Studies, Grades 6–12 offers lessons in five areas of social studies instruction: geography, politics, economics, culture, and history. Each activity includes background information, clue cards, objectives, tasks, and worksheets. This updated edition helps teachers: • Develop students' decision-making, analysis, and communication skills • Foster teamwork and interdependent learning • Construct cooperative problem-solving activities using their own curriculum Through the activities in this book, students will work together to learn about social topics while developing important, real-world skills. Featuring current research and new activities, this hands-on resource helps teachers facilitate cooperative problem solving in social studies and provides teacher tips throughout the book.

The world is witnessing a dramatic demographic population growth explosion across all age groups that had it beginning around the early 1800s when the first billion people in population was recorded. Most importantly has been an increasing growth in the older population. Does population aging matter in the twenty-first century? Yes, it matters, because as research has pointed out, the increasing older population globally will have a significant impact on all essential societal systems—the family, pensions and retirement, and financial institutions, as well as medical, health, and social systems. This growth explosion or phenomenon will affect all continents, countries, and regions regardless of economic, political, and military power. Causative factors for this global growth in population have come about primarily as a result of medical advances/innovations, agricultural development, and the industrial revolution, especially the development of railways, seaways, and highways. A major emphasis of the book focuses on several very important factors: the growing older population as aforementioned, especially its impact on all of essential societal systems and the subject of ageism. Ageism becomes extremely important considering that the growing older population, the “silver tsunami,” represents the new majority. This new majority will no longer be ignored. Gerontologists for years have attempted to call attention to the fact. “Expectations for old people are based on negative age stereotypes. Members of American society generally expect and even encourage the aged to be asexual, intellectually rigid, unproductive, ineffective, and disengaged. Seniors are supposed to stay out of the way, sit in their rocking chairs, and enjoy the golden years. They are expected to be inactive, invisible, but happy” (Levin, J and Levin, W, Ageism, Prejudice and Discrimination Against the Elderly, California: Wadsworth Publishing, 1941, pp. 97–98). Speaking of being ignored, why aren’t more members of the older population involved at the decision-making tables in shaping a society for all ages? After all, they would bring years of experiences, skills, knowledge, and values for creating a society for all ages in the twenty-first century with justice and human rights for all. Currently, there is a global movement with a goal of the eradication of ageism in all of it forms. Some will recall from several decades ago the Grey Panther Movement in America with a similar mission of the eradication of all injustices at the time being experienced by the older population. The current movement says, “The time is now not later!” One major social injustice being experienced by the growing old population globally is the lack of income security in old age, including the lack of access to other essential services such as medical, health, and social including long-term care. More than 50 percent (51 percent) of older persons globally do not have basic income security or a social pension in retirement. A more alarming statistic is that in Sub-Saharan Africa (forty-seven countries), eight-two percent (82.5) of retirees do not have a social pension. Yes, for the older population, the new majority, the time is now for correcting the aforementioned injustices. Maybe what is needed is a human seismic force comprising the new majority to initiate a social movement with a goal of the eradication of all forms of ageism and ensuring that the growing older population will live in dignity and respect in later life including social protection/pensions.