THIS WEEKTuesday – Central America &

Population Pyramids Wednesday - Google EarthThursday – Welcome Mrs. Julie

Vargas, Haiti/Dominican RepublicFriday –

Work Day for Demographics Project

CENTRAL AMERICA

Beginning with the late 1800s, giant corporations dominated

Central America. These corporations built railroads and

planted bananas on the land adjacent to the railroads, making it easy for them to transport the

fruit to U.S. markets.

BANANAREPUBLIC

S?

It’s a cycle in history!

PUSH-PULL FACTORS

It’s called an ISTHMUSA narrow strip of

land, with water on both sides, that connects two larger bodies of

land.

What did the Panama Canal mean to the

shipping

industry?

How do they work?PANAMA CANAL Another viewHistory Chan

nel

The Mountainous CoreHuge mountains- Difficult to

crossProblem for transportation -

Volcanoes Caribbean LowlandsDense rain forest vegetationTropical wet climate, hot &

humid Pacific Coastal PlainTropical wet and dry climates

DIVERSE LANDFORMS & CLIMATES

Central America is the size of France or Texas

Central America has only 0.5% of the world's land mass, yet 7% of the world's species.

In 1950, tropical rain forests covered about 60% of Central America. Today, it's about half.

The worst offender is El Salvador, which cut down 95% of its forests.

CONSIDER THESE FACTS

SLASH-AND-BURN AGRICULTURE

Farmers cut down vegetation with machetes (“slash”), make

small piles of the cut brush, and set them afire (“burn”).

One of the traditional types of

farming in Central

America.

video

POPULATION PYRAMIDS

These tell us a lot about a country’s population makeup

http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGateway.php

What does this tell us?Stable pyramid - A population pyramid showing an unchanging pattern of fertility and mortality.

Stationary pyramid - A population pyramid typical of countries with low fertility and low mortality, very similar to a constrictive pyramid.

What does this tell us?Expansive pyramid - A population pyramid showing a broad base, indicating a high proportion of children, a rapid rate of population growth, and a low proportion of older people. This wide base indicates a large number of children. A steady upwards narrowing shows that more people die at each higher age band. This type of pyramid indicates a population in which there is a high birth rate, a high death rate and a short life expectancy. This is the typical pattern for less economically developed countries, due to little access to and incentive to use birth control, negative environmental factors (for example, lack of clean water) and poor access to health care.

What does this tell us?Constrictive pyramid - A population pyramid showing lower numbers or percentages of younger people. The country will have a greying population which means that people are generally older, as the country has long life expectancy, a low death rate, but also a low birth rate. This pyramid has been occurring more frequently, especially when immigrants are factored out, and is often a typical pattern for a very developed country, a high over-all education and easy access and incentive to use birth control, good health care and few or no negative environmental factors.

More Examples

More Examples