PRB's Population Education Program engages educators and students in the study of population dynamics to help them make the connections between U.S. and international population trends and their social, economic, and environmental implications.

Program activities include building the demographic knowledge of educators at both secondary and university levels and providing them with innovative, state-of-the-art teaching materials.

More than 30 lesson plans and other teaching tools, tailored to subject-area teaching standards, are available by clicking on the links on the left or clicking on one of these featured products:

Lesson Plans

Making Population Real: New Lesson Plans and Classroom Activities
This teaching package, especially designed for the population unit of AP Human Geography, helps students understand and master key population concepts, demonstrate research skills, and create charts and graphs.
Recipient of the 2006 Geography Excellence in Media Award, awarded by the National Council for Geographic Education.

Food for Thought
This is an interactive lesson to teach about the similarities and differences between populations in the world's major regions. Appropriate for middle to high school. Spatial graphic activity; includes data on population, density, growth rates, life expectancy, and consumption. (2007)

Teacher's Guides

Facts in Focus: World Population Data Sheet
This is a series of short activities to provide access to the wealth of data on the world, regions, and individual countries, and to introduce students to major demographic concepts. Five computational and data analysis activities to use with the World Population Data Sheet. Appropriate for middle to high school. (2006)

Human Population: Fundamentals of Growth and Change
This popular guide explores eight elements of population dynamics. Charts and graphs supplement each topic with one full-sized chart (in PDF) suitable for class distribution or transparencies. Along with each topic are a "frequently asked question" and teacher's guide.

Resources

The student activities above complement PRB publications and other resources for educators:

Training of Trainers Manual for "Making Population Real"
This manual provides a set of training materials selected from PRB's award-winning lesson plans "Making Population Real." The materials are designed for 45-minute or three-hour workshop lessons and include PowerPoint presentations and handouts on methods for teaching population. The manual includes background information that would be useful to any teacher developing lesson plans on population topics for their classrooms.

US in the World
A series of 42 fact sheets that compare U.S. and developing country trends and demonstrate how population structure, growth, and dynamics can lead to environmental degradation and threaten human well-being in both locations.