World Population World Poverty Inquiry Unit | Global Issues Human Geography

Explore everything from our enormous global population, our varying demographic statistics and contrasting standards of living, and the persistence of extreme world poverty with this eye-opening unit.

This is the first unit of a thematic, inquiry-centered curriculum, Global Issues, a semester-long course that blends Current Events, Human Geography, and Environmental Science.

This curriculum is intended to meet the requirements of a Current Issues or Contemporary World Problems course.

Human or World Geography Teachers! These stand-alone versions dive a little deeper and are meant to integrate into your existing course

• Population Growth unit
• Extreme World Poverty unit

Unit At A Glance

• 16 Activities, 4 Projects, & End-of-Unit Essay
• “I Can” Standards Checklist & Skill Handouts
• Detailed Daily Lesson Plans, Answer Keys & Rubrics
• Instructional Slide Deck
• Printable PDF & editable Google files of every activity

Get a closer look >> scroll up and click View Preview above; also download this FREE Unit Overview.

Greatness is appreciating what separates and connects one’s self with the rest of the world.

Few teenagers know the world beyond their own surroundings and many have no idea that the vast majority of fellow humans live in the world of abject poverty, unsanitary conditions, and limited means of opportunity. Yet at the same time, they share tremendous similarities in human emotion, spirit, and dreams of the future.

Guide your students through a wide variety of accessible-for-all-levels sources (from children's books and graphs to news articles and documentaries) as they wonder and build towards answering this not-so-simple question: “Am I like most in of the world or am I unlike most?”

You will set each of your students up for success in this high-interest, multi-faceted inquiry unit, regardless of ability, with highly scaffolded graphic organizers, skill sheets, powerful projects, and supplemental resources included at each step of the way.

Empower your students to become globally-aware citizens in this 5-6 week unit!

Activities are interchangeable to customize your own unit- mix and match depending on time constraints, student ability, or personal interests.

Included in this complete unit:

Overview

• Teacher Unit Overview with general notes, links, standards, and a pacing guide
• Daily Lesson Plans with step-by-step details, planning, and lesson takeaways
• Detailed Answer Keys for each activity
• 65-slide Instructional support slide deck (PPT & Slides) to assist in daily lessons with student questions, images, step-by-step essay outlining support, etc.
• Student Unit Review handouts with review questions and "I Can..." checklists
• Student Unit Notes sheet for building deep and nuanced mastery of concepts
• Student Skill sheets including Annotating a Text, Analyzing News Media Sources, Deciding a Precise Position, Constructing a Thesis, Including Evidence, Creating a Works Cited, and Annotating a Works Cited

Student Activities

• Pre-Quiz: test incoming knowledge on current world issues
• World Population Count Activities:
  - simulate the world's current population with grains of rice
  - explore various other mathematical comparisons
  - create a poster project of the world's population
• Quality of Life Measurement Activities:
  - analyze and compare a variety of maps and graphs
  - explore aggregate indices (ex. Human Development Index)and singular data (ex. cell phone access)
• Photo Book Activities:
  - explore 4 different powerful books (like Material World and Hungry Planet) to assess how the world's people live
• Living on One Dollar a Day Activities:
  - infer about general poverty statistics
  - explore the backstory of Guatemala's instability
  - show the powerful documentary, Living on One Dollar a Day,
  - culminate with a micro-loan project to help a real-life fellow human
• Poverty Solutions Activities:
  - analyze data using graphs from Our World In Data
  - explore the United Nation's Sustainability Development Goals and its solutions

Projects & Assessments

• Current Event Analysis Project & Discussion:
  - research a chosen issue, comparing countries and exploring solutions
  - share and reflect with classmates in a Socratic Seminar-style discussion
• Reflective Poem Project:
  - using a step-by-step template, create a powerful evidence-based poem to encapsulate both knowledge and perspective gained
• Unit Essay:
  - culminate learning and takeaway with this DBQ-style essay
  - support students with a collaborative brainstorming activity, detailed instructions, outline template, sentence stems, and rubrics, that ask them to answer “Am I like most people in the world or and I unlike most?”

Note on Resources Used

All video clips, the full-length documentary Living on One Dollar a Day, news articles, and limited book images can be accessed free online at the time of this latest update. However, it's encouraged to acquire the books (Material World, Hungry Planet, Toy Stories, and If the World Were a Village) and videos.

What Other Teachers Are Saying

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Thank you so much for updating this unit! I bought this in 2019 and just downloaded the new version. I really appreciate the work you did to make the lesson plans clear and detailed and how you added several great activities. :) - Cara

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was the best TPT resource I have purchased. Great materials linked to clear easy-to-follow lesson plans. If you do the photo book assignment plan ahead! Order the books from Amazon and check them out from the library. There are links to some of the pictures next to the assignment slides but having the books would be better. - Jean

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I didn't use all of this unit but most of it honestly saved my geography course this year when I found out I would be teaching it last minute! - John

Also available are stand-alone units intended to better "plug and play" into a traditional human geography course and deep-dive a bit more into these topics.

• Global Population Growth: a 3-week unit exploring the exponential, yet very uneven growth in recent decades, and what this all means for the future
• World Poverty: a 2-week unit exploring the crushing strain of surviving on roughly $1 a day and the solutions that are easier than you'd think

Want to try just part of this unit?

• World Poverty Unit: see what living on one dollar a day really looks like
• World Population Poster Project: combine calculations and creativity in this impactful project
• Photo Book Analysis Bundle: explore 4 eye-opening books about how the world lives with these accompanying activity sheets
• Living On One Dollar Activity Kit: watch the powerful documentary with accompanying activities

Like this unit? Grab the rest of the course!

Global Issues is a semester-long current events, human geography, and environmental science all-in-one course that will create global citizens out of your students

• World Population, Demographics, & Poverty Unit: explore worldwide population numbers, extreme poverty, and demographics
• Growth, Globalization, & Natural Resources Unit: explore the growth and shrinking of our global population, connectivity, and resources
• Sustainability & Consumption of Water, Energy, & Garbage Unit: explore the ever-increasing water, fossil fuel, and garbage footprints
• Global Priorities Research Project: culminate learning with this capstone project that strengthens research, sourcing, and writing skills to turn your students into global citizens

This listing is for one license for regular, non-commercial classroom use by a single teacher only. Commercial use like online teaching (ex. Outschool) or sharing with other teachers (ex. shared drive, in a Facebook group, in a professional development training) is strictly prohibited.

By purchasing a license to this resource, you have access to all future updates at no cost, available under “My Purchases." Multiple and transferable licenses are available for purchase. PDF files are uneditable, other files have editing abilities, unless otherwise stated. All files are protected under federal copyright laws.

To request a complete terms of use prior to purchase or if you have any questions about this resource, please leave a question below under Product Q&A.