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United StatesEnvironmental Science

Unit 3: Populations

8 dot points across 8 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

How can the shape of a population pyramid tell you whether a country will boom, hold steady, or shrink?

What sets the ceiling on how many organisms an environment can support, and what happens when a population shoots past it?

Why does population growth first surge and then slow as a country industrializes?

Why does a raccoon thrive almost anywhere while a panda survives only where bamboo grows?

What makes a human population grow, and how do birth, death and migration rates combine to set its growth rate?

When does a population explode in a J-shaped curve, and when does it level off in an S?

Why do humans, songbirds and oysters each leave a differently shaped line on a survivorship graph?

Why does a fertility rate of about 2.1 keep a population from growing or shrinking?