Name: Ms. Sanders
7 Billion and You!!
1. Go to this web site: http://www.7billionandme.org/
2. What is the current world population (write the whole thing (all of the numbers!) and write quickly
because it changes fast!)
Current World Population:__7,083,709,391________________________________________
3. Click “Get Started”
4. Fill out the form. For obvious reasons, skip the “When did you have your last child?” question.
5. Click “Proceed”
6. Read through this using the navigation bars at the top of the screen to guide you and answer the
following questions. I have bolded the navigation bar titles and subtitles.
7. Under Your World:
a. In the entire history of the world, how many people were born before you?
_____77,396,120,014_______________________________________
b. On The Day You Were Born, how many people were:
i. Living in cities and towns: ___1,206,952,750 (or 1.2 billion)
ii. Living in rural areas: _2,218,814,752 (or 2.2 billion)
c. Since You Were Born, how many of the world’s species have become extinct?
___944,033_______________________
d. Considering Your Age:
i. You are older than _____72.1______________ percent of the world.
ii. You were ____45___________ years old when the world reached 7 billion.
iii. You will be _____76__________years old when the world reaches 9 billion.
(For ii and iii it may not tell you, depending on your browser.. …but think we reached 7
billion last year (2011) and we will reach 9 billion by 2050…so you can do the math!)
8. Just look at Under Your Part of the World - you don’t need to write anything down!
9. For Your Countries:
a. The Day You Were Born, do you note any differences between your two countries? (For
example, look at urban/rural and male/female differences/similarities. You just need to note
the differences/similarities in general terms…like in the United States there were more
women whereas in Thailand there were more men) If you only have one country (this will only
happen if you were born in Thailand and live in Thailand) then just list the categories and the
numbers.
In the US a smaller percent of the population lived in rural areas whereas a larger percent of the
Thai population lived in rural areas. The US had more women than men compared with Thailand where
there were slightly more men than women.
b. Considering Your Age: Please note one item of interest:
I am older than 60 percent of the US population, however, in Thailand I am older than 66 percent of
the population. Twenty-one percent of women in the US are divorced or separated whereas in
Thailand only 4% of the women are divorced or separated.
10. For Your Cities:
a. Which of your cities has a larger population today? (If you only have one city, has that
population grown?)
At over 7 million, Bangkok has a larger population than New Orleans, at about 870,000. New Orleans
has lost population since I was born. When I was born New Orleans had about 919,000 people living
there. (I heard New Orleans lost population after Hurricane Katrina). Bangkok gained lots of people
since I was born. When I was born, Bangkok had about 2.7 million, now it has over 7 million. (I was not
actually born in New Orleans, rather I was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, but New Orleans was the
closest city that I identified with).
11. Go back to the http://www.7billionandme.org/
12. What is the current world population (write the whole thing and write quickly because it changes
fast!)
Current World Population:______7,083,712,221____________________________________
13. How many more people have been added to the world in the time it took you to do this assignment?
Number of new people: _____2,730______________
14. Reflection about this assignment (Write a thoughtful ONE PARAGRAPH reflection):
Wow! I never realized so much about population and I never realized that the population was growing
so fast. In the short amount of time it took to complete this fascinating assignment, we added 2,730
people to planet earth, which are more people than the enrollment of ISB. I think it is very sad that
944,033 of the world’s species have become extinct since I was born. It makes me think how quickly
we are losing our biological diversity. However, it is not clear if this is referring to just animal
species (like the picture) or if it includes plant life as well. When I explored North America versus
Asia, I was not surprised to see such big gender differences. There are about 3 million more women
in North America. However, in Asia there are about 49 million more men. This is a very striking
difference that I know occurs because some Asian societies (like India and China) place more value
on males. Furthermore, regarding cities, New Orleans, where I was born (okay…I wasn’t born there
but it was the closest large city to where I was born) actually lost population since my birth and
remains under one million people whereas Bangkok has experienced tremendous growth, growing from
2.7 million in 1966 to about 7 million today. Population growth and demographics are very interesting.