Population Density: How Much Space Do You Have?
Figure 1: 1990 Population distribution of the U.S. One dot = 7,500 people.Copyright U.S. Bureau of Census, http://www.census.gov/geo/www/mapGallery/ images/density90.jpg.
Students learn about population density within environments and ecosystems. They determine the density of a population and think about why population density and distribution information is useful to engineers for city planning and design as well as for resource allocation.
Population statistics are important parameters that engineers and scientists use to determine the development of open space areas, such as city planning, transportation development, water supply needs for communities and much more. Engineers monitor occupancy density or building occupancy data to plan for safe building emergency evacuations.
After this activity, student should be able to:
- Describe the biosphere and discuss its components.
- Describe how population and population density affect an organism.
- Identify how engineers apply knowledge of population density to the development of space, such as land and building capacity.