Visualizing how a population grows to 7 billion

The U.N. estimates that the world's population will pass the 7 billion mark TODAY. WOW! How do we even begin to visualize the size of the world's population when it gets this big?

Check out this video and supporting story from NPR's Adam Cole that helps us to visualize the size of our current world population.

How might we use this video in math classrooms? The video applies to

• rates of change
• proportional reasoning
• mathematical modeling

For high school students, the video presents several topics of potential study within mathematics. Not to mention that it makes lots of connections to social studies and world history.

Check it out now.

For more information...

As NPR's Adam Cole reports, it was just over two centuries ago that the global population was 1 billion — in 1804. But better medicine and improved agriculture resulted in higher life expectancy for children, dramatically increasing the world population, especially in the West.

As higher standards of living and better health care are reaching more parts of the world, the rates of fertility — and population growth — have started to slow down, though the population will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

U.N. forecasts suggest the world population could hit a peak of 10.1 billion by 2100 before beginning to decline. But exact numbers are hard to come by — just small variations in fertility rates could mean a population of 15 billion by the end of the century.