Playing with pyramids

This assignment introduces students to population pyramids, as a concept, an analytical tool, and a form of data vizualization. Population pyramids can assist in explorations of the demographic characteristics and dynamics, including the concepts of demographic transition and demographic dividend. They are also an entry point to discussing data sources and quality.

A. Explore the age pyramids for two of the five countries in the Horn by going to data at the US Census Bureau:

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

1. Look at changes over time. What factors might account for changes?

2. Compare to other countries (US, Germany, Brazil, China, etc). Document what differences you notice in the pyramids.

3. Look at the predictions. What factors in the models impact the predictions?

a.   Find, download and read the Population Estimates and Projections Methodology. (You may need to find the tab and click. This full document was available at this URL on 15 November 2012. http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/estandproj.pdf)

4. Explore other kinds of data visualization tools. Are there other ways to better present and analyze this population data? A list of data visualization tools is below.

a.