"At this moment, there are over 6.7 billion people on the planet! It's hard to picture so many people at one time--but what if we imagine the whole world as a village of just 100 people?"If the World Were a Village: A Book about the World's People by David J. Smith tells us who we are, where we live, how fast we are growing, and so much more.
How might you use this book with students? What activity can you envision for your group of preschoolers, fifth graders, high schoolers, adults? Use the Comment feature below to add your thoughts after reading this book. If you dream up a cool graphic organizer or find an interesting Internet connection, e-mail it and I will link it to this blog.
While you're at it, you may want to check out these related Internet links:
Good luck, and may the... village... be with you.
I teach 8th grade mathematics, and one thing that I thought of as soon as I read it was ratios, fractions, and percents. I would have my students calculate the percentages of countries, languages, etc. and have a discussion based on this information. I also thought it would be interesting to make bar graphs based on some of the information, such as world religions, languages, and other topics from the book. There are numbers involved on every page, so any type of graphing or calculations with percentages would be relevant to 8th grade mathematics indicators. It would also be interesting to make a diagram of the information for students to visualize the numbers and percentages.
ReplyDeleteI already use this book in my first grade classroom. We read it throughout a unit we do in Social Studies on Children Around the World. Once the book is finished we talk about how we can help God take care of all the people and things on our Earth. We put our ideas in our writing journal. Then we write a promise letter to God. "I promise to _____ in order to help God take care of our Earth." I then hang these in the hall for all to see and think about.
ReplyDeleteHow I would use this in my classroom:
ReplyDelete1. Talk about the limited availability of water and why it is important to preserve the finite amount of it. Link this book with the water cycle and the importance of limiting pollution.
2. Give perspective about the rate that the population is increasing/ urbanization.
3. Competition and limited resources
I thought the book was really good. Many ideas came to mind. Diversity and the make up of the villages population related to languages spoken, religion, food, age, etc.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the parts on population growth and the fact that what is the maximum capacity of people to live on Earth. In addition, the othere factors that can come from a bigger population such as lack of food, clean water, and pollution.
This book offers many situations that can be discussed and targeted. It is not just a science book.
If I were a math teacher I would use the book by dividing kids into partnerships and having them select different aspects of the book (literacy, electricity use, etc) to graph. I would have them do this online at http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/
ReplyDeletewhere they could make a really cool online graph.
As a language arts teacher, I could use this book for creative writing. I would have kids select a group/person in the village to represent and make a "diary in the life of" that person. Then they could share how lives would be so different from the perspective of the villagers.
Our school always has a big peace day celebration. The book mentions how we may bring about more peace if we understood each more. I agree.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what about scientific notation or functions? Is the population growing at an exponential rate or is it constant? We could discuss and pose "what if" questions. Also in an upper level civics class you could debate on whether there is an ethical way to have population control. Discuss the measures that China is practicing.
I really enjoyed reading this book. This book could be used in content areas not just science. You could teach students about many different things such as income, religion, schooling, basic needs and schooling and how it is different with the different villagers.
ReplyDeleteYou could have a discussion with your students about population growth and how it will affect our basic resources.
I would use this book with the M&M game. I think it would work great with our Earth Week activities or I think the book really speaks to a need to recognize we are part of a community and giving. So I think it would also fit with our homebase character study in November and December that focus on giving. I think we have a responsibility to help our middle school students enlarge their view of the world. They tend to focus on their peers and immediate surroundings and have a difficult time seeing a global perspective.
ReplyDeleteMath/Environment Connection: Begin by reading the book aloud to students and briefly discuss each section. It might be best to spread the reading out over several days. After reading, assign groups of 2-4 students to create an illustration with math connections that shows the data from a particular page (i.e., group 1 works on the Air and Water page, etc). Pull students together to share their illustrations as a group. Display these illustrations in the hallway for others to see. Extension: Research/brainstorm ways in which to take constructive action to help reduce the impact of a particular issue in our world.
ReplyDelete- geography using latitude and longitude to find places mentioned in book
ReplyDelete- using page 29 figure out exponential factors
- using poster sized graph paper, color in amounts for different topics
I teacher 7th grade science and this book will fit into our Energy Resources Unit to express the need for depleting all of the Earth's resources. If we all equally used the resources, we would have enough right now. Unfortunately, we do not use them that way. I also think that this would be a great graphing activity to have the students use several of the pages to compare information (world population and ages). The pictorial view of a graph is sometime more eye opening that reading it.
ReplyDeleteUsing the grid would be a great way to show each of the pages' percentages. With a key each student or group of students could color in the number of people with and without electricity; money/possessions; literacy; religiions;etc. It would become more clear to the students the number of people with life's necessities and the number with limited or no necessities.
ReplyDeleteExtending the grid may be a way to show future growth.
I think that a good way to use this book would be to let students choose a number that they found interesting. Students would then try to figure out ways to increase or decrease this number. For example, only 17 of 100 have safe drinking water. Students would need to find ways to change that number to improve the number of people who have safe drinking water.
ReplyDeleteMy idea would take several class periods to accomplish...
ReplyDeleteI would begin by reading the book to the students without showing them the illustrations. I would ask them to create a story board as the book is being read. One drawing for each page/aspect. Students can compare their drawings to the drawings of the book and of their peers. I imagine that the drawings will differ from the book because of some of the "unfair" distributions of resources. I notice that the illustrations focused more on the people who recieved more of the resources.
Students will make a graph of the increasing population of the global village. Ask students, What trends do you notice in this graph? As the book states, 250 people is the maximum number of people the village can sustain. How could the global village government be sure that there are basic rights for all?
I teach fourth grade math and I could use this book with fractions and percents to accomplish some GLI's. I could also use the numbers in the book to create different graphs; bar graphs. Students would be engaged in the data rather that just numbers from a textbook. Students will also gain knowledge about other cultures, religions, etc.
ReplyDeleteAs a language arts and social studies teacher, this book is very useful. The book would be a great introduction to the beginning of the social studies year and relates to the following units:
ReplyDeleteWater resources in Africa - we have a bead activity that we do with students based on the "village" of 100 - each student chooses "fate" cards and has to add or remove various beads based on contaminants or environmental factors such as climate changes
Religions and the basic history of the five major world religions
Timelines and Ancient History and use of BC/AD or BCE/CE
Food distribution in Africa - we use an activity with candy and pass out pieces based on real food distribution to students - a great way to show how some have most of the food and others have merely enough to survive - most students end up sharing their "stash" with the less fortunate students
Just a lot of ideas that we use throughout the year and can refer back to this book!
Another comment I had was that we also use David J. Smith's "Mapping the World by Heart" program in our classrooms to help students grasp geography concepts.
In my fourth grade classroom I could use this book in different areas. The first that pops in my mind was to use it for math. There are many different numbers in the book that you can use. I would show different pages and read the words out loud and practice reading them correctly in my place value unit and then also writing the numbers in word form correctly. Also in math you could choose some of the number sets like on page 12 with the ages and have the students come up with sets of data. For example they would make a data set that would show 15 people between the ages of 30 and 39 then show the minimum, maximum, range, mode, and median.
ReplyDeleteMany social studies connections in the people of the world and communities units as well.
I can see this book being used as a part of Earth Week. It ties in well to the M & M Game that teaches about sustainablity. I would read this book and encourage discussions about how the decisions we make today might impact the village and then relate it to our activity with M & M activity.
ReplyDeleteThis book could be used in my first grade classroom as a cross-curricular lesson with social studies and math. The teacher could use sections of the book, while using other non-fiction books to study different cultures. A math tie-in could be used in the way of making graphs to show the breakdown of numbers for each topic.
ReplyDeleteIn my fourth grade classroom, I could use this book in several ways. I love how it takes the world population and puts it in the perspective of 100. Kids are familiar with 100, it is what our money system is based on. I would use the graph paper and have the kids graph out the different aspexts of the villages. I would have them use different colored pencils and do a different graph square on langauge, religion, food availability etc. It would be neat to hang them up and see a global representation in terms that kids can understand. It would alsobe neat to plot the population growth.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting book with beautiful illustrations. I would read this book aloud and assign a page/ topic to each group of 4 students. I would ask them to create a graph and a written explanation of each topic. I think it would be beneficial to use it in conjuction with water and pollution in science, or geography.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine using this with my second graders in a couple of ways. From a math perspective, using the grid paper would be a great concrete way for the children to see the ratios. I was thinking specifically about the Nationalities on page 8. I think that because our kids are not always aware that the United States is not the largest, most populated country in the world, it would be a great visual for them to see that only 5 sqaures of the 100 would include Canada and the U.S.
ReplyDeleteI was also thinking about planting the seeds for vision and planning for the future. After sharing the book, I would pose the question, "What will our village be like in the future? How/what can you do to help?" They would draw and illustrate their thoughts.
I think one way I would use this book is to have students make various graphs to represent the information in the book. I would use one page at a time and introduce a specific type of graph for each page. I would not necessarily share the entire book at one time and I would not have students make graphs for every page.
ReplyDeleteWe would use this book in our third grade unit on Our Heritage in social studies. During this unit, we explore different aspects of culture such as food, clothing, religion, etc. We could read the corresponding sections of the book to introduce each topic. We would give the students a 10 by 10 grid and place value blocks to build and represent the statistical data. The students could use different colors to represent the numbers.
ReplyDeleteThis book was full of info and details. It was, well, deep. I think I need to spend more time reading it again to really process the info.
ReplyDeleteAs a language arts teacher for 6th grade I would do a writing activity with this story. The students at this age are very interested in their world and how to help it.
This book reminds me of an old book (I don't recall the title). The photographers went to a house from each country and moved the person who lived theres belongings outside and photographed it. They then listed how many tvs, phones, bikes, etc and had the family from the house stand for the photo as well. When you share the data with the students they can't believe that some homes don't have a tv or a car, etc.
The lesson I would try to do with this would be to ask the students to reflect where they would fall on each page (which category). I would then have them write how they could help a "lower" groups for now and the future.
Finally, the back of the book suggest a game called 6 degrees where you try to send a letter to someone you don't know and get it to them through 6 people.
When I first read this book, I thought about using it for math in our number sense unit. I thought I could break my students into groups and give them a page to find the 100 people in their "village" and draw it out and come up with their own conclusions. This is book is great and a real eye opener.
ReplyDeleteI teach younger students so I would use the questions at the back of the book to begin critical thinking skills about why there is inequality in the world. I could use references to local food and clothing drives we do at school and in the community to help the children associate with the inequality the book.
ReplyDeleteI loved Ashleys idea about writing a diary about one of the people in the book.
ReplyDeleteIn the second grade, I would use this book to teach an interdisciplinary lesson during my geography unit. It is hard for the students to grasp the scope of global diversity when their life experiences are so limited. After we learn about the continents, I would select a couple of pages to share. It would be interesting to have the students predict the numbers before showing the data. Then I would have the students color in the 10x10 grids in groups. It would make a terrific tie-in for Thanksgiving...we have so much to be grateful for!
ReplyDeleteYou could have a discussion with the children about the pages they thought were the most interesting, shocking, happy, or sad. Follow-up with having the children think of one small step they would like to take to help our village.
ReplyDeleteI would use some or all of the categories in the book, and assign a category to groups with four students in each one. They would read their assigned category, and create a visual representation of the numbers presented on their page. The representations would then be placed in a "village" made out of a large box cut down. The childrem then could share their group representations within the box, instead of getting up in front of the class. Viewing the data together in the box will better represent our earth's paramters. It will hopefully point out the significance of the data presented in the book, and of course, the many facts about our earth and our conclusions about its future...and ours.
ReplyDeleteI instantly wanted to play the mathematician, and I created a line graph to show the population growth. If the years reported had been at even intervals, it would have been interesting to develop an algebraic formula and try to forecast future population growth. I've read many similar pieces of literature in book and article form. To me, this ties in with the "M & M" activity John implemented with us in June.
ReplyDeleteCan be very easily related to social studies and ecomonic issues, as well as resource scarcity issues. Makes the case for better management of resources. CREATES ALOT OF WHAT IF QUESTIONS THAT CAN MAKE EXCELLENT INQUIRY QUESTIONS.
ReplyDeleteGraphing is an immediate connection for this book. First, I would have students choose the topics where the numbers do equal 100. Circle graphs could be created, where students are either using protractors and calculating the angle's degree, totalling 360 degrees OR using a computer program to create graphs. Other pages and topics have data that does not equal 100, such as the food page, however this would be a good ratio lesson. Many of the pages would make instant bar graphs, but more bars would be needed considering most of the data exceeds the 10 bar sample. So that's it.
ReplyDeleteWith my unit on sustainability, I would have the students graph the population information on a hundreds grid so that they can see how it is distribued. The after reading pages about food, water, air, and money. They would get in groups and have discussions about why people don't have what they need and what they would do if they were members of the UN
ReplyDelete