POPULATION, GLOBAL WARMING, AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Overview: Students will have an opportunity to use Microsoft Excel to examine actual
data to look at environmental trends and to form their own conclusions. They will be able
to compare annual CO2 Data for the past 450 thousand years, and to compare these data
to annual global temperatures to see if there is a relationship. Other data sets include
annual populations and energy use data. The students can do just one graph or the whole
series. Activities 2 and 3 show data that are most relevant to the CO2-Global Warming
Trends.
VSC:
Standard 6.0 Environmental Science
Topic A. Natural Resources and Human Needs
Indicator 1. Recognize and explain the impact of a changing human population on
the use of natural resources and on environmental quality.
Objectives:
1. Based on data identify and describe the positive and negative impacts of an
increasing human population on the use of natural resources
2. Recognize and describe the decreasing dependence on local resources due to
the impact of available transportation.
Topic B. Environmental Issues
Indicator 1. Recognize and describe that environmental changes can have local,
regional, and global consequences.
Objectives:
1. Identify and describe a local, regional, or global environmental issue.
2. Identify and describe that different individual people or groups of people are
affected by an issue in different ways.
Technology Needs:
 Microsoft Excel
 Microsoft PowerPoint or Word
 File: Temp_CO2_Data_1880_2007.xls
 File: Population Resources Energy Data.xls
Student Technology Skills Needed:
Students should be able to:
1. Open different worksheets in an Excel file.
2. Highlight series of data in the spreadsheet.
3. Construct a line graph for a series of numbers, adding the years as the Category
(X) labels.
4. Construct a line graph for 2 series of numbers with 2 Y-axes (Custom Graph“Lines on 2 Axes”).
5. Construct an X-Y graph (Scatter plot) for 2 series of data.
6. Add main and axes titles to an Excel graph.
7. Copy and paste Excel graphs into a Word or PowerPoint file.
Student Content Knowledge Needed:
Students should be able to:
1. Describe the basic carbon cycle.
2. Explain why fossil fuel burning contributes to CO2 atmospheric levels.
3. Explain the connection between human population size and the demand for
natural resources.
4. List alternative energy sources which do not contribute to CO2 atmospheric levels.
Activities:
To Students:
You will be constructing graphs and then answering questions. The graphs can be copied
and pasted into either a Word file or PowerPoint Show. You can then answer the
questions in this same Word file or can answer each question on the corresponding
PowerPoint slide.
1. Open the Temp_CO2_Data_1880_2007.xls file and the “CO2_420000_Years”
Worksheet. Scientists are able to get CO2 reading from long ago by measuring the
amount of the gas trapped in ice in Antarctica, where they can date when the gas was
trapped.
Construct an X-Y graph looking at CO2 levels (Gas Age) over this period of time.
Question # 1: Has the Earth ever experienced an increase in atmospheric CO2 before?
2. Open the Temp_CO2_Data_1880_2007.xls file and the “CO2_1000_2007
Worksheet”. Once again construct a line graph of the at CO2 levels over this period of
time. Use the “Insert-Picture-AutoShape” feature to add 2 arrows to the graph pointing at:
 The point where the CO2 level just starts to increase.
 The point where the CO2 level starts to increase dramatically.
Question # 2: What years are your arrows pointing at? What technological changes were
happening in the world that could have caused these increases in CO2 gas being put into
the atmosphere?
3. Open the Temp_CO2_Data_1880_2007.xls file and the “Temp_CO2_1880_2007
Worksheet”. Construct a double line graph (with 2 Y-axes) for both CO2 levels by year
and annual temperatures from 1880 to 2007. Use the decade as the Category (X) Labels.
Question # 3A: What does the graph show to be the relationship between CO2 levels and
annual temperature? Use what you know about greenhouse gases to explain a possible
cause for this relationship.
Question # 3B: Looking at this graph, make a prediction for what will happen to
temperature if CO2 levels continue to increase.
4. Open up the Population Resources Energy Data.xls file and the “Population”
Worksheet. Construct a line graph of annual world populations.
Question # 4: What information does this graph give us?
5. From the same worksheet, graph the Percent Growth Rate by Year. Extend the X-Axes
to the right and predict in what year the Growth Rate will hit 0.
Question # 5: Does this graph of the growth rate give us good or bad news? Explain/
your answer.
6. Look at the data again in both spreadsheets. Find another set of data you can graph.
Question # 6: What information does this graph give us?
Extension: Knowing what these data show, draw up a plan to halt the rise in CO2 levels
and global temperatures. Keep in mind what the population data show. Add these ideas to
your Word file or as separate slides in your PowerPoint show.