K S 3 G E O G R A P H Y T E AC H E R S ’ TO O L K I T : M OV I N G S TO R I E S

LESSON 2: Activity Sheet 1

How has the UK’s population changed in the past?

1. Look at the graph of UK births and deaths 1901-2001.

a) How many births were there in 1901? _________________________________________

b) How many births were there in 2001? _________________________________________

c) What has happened to the number of births since 1901? __________________________________

d) How many deaths were there in 1901? _________________________________________

e) How many deaths were there in 2001? _________________________________________

f) What has happened to the number of deaths since 1901? _________________________________

g) For almost every year since 1901, which was greater, the
number of births or the number of deaths? _________________________________________

h) Which year was the only exception? _________________________________________

1.2

1.0
Births

0.8
Millions

0.6
Deaths

0.4

0.2

0.0
1901 1921 1941 1961 1981 2001
Year

2. From the graph, predict how the UK population changed from 1901-2001.

a) Do you think the population got bigger or smaller? ______________________________________

b) Why? __________________________________________________________________________

c) Do you think that the rate of population change

increased or decreased? ______________________________________________________________

d) Why? __________________________________________________________________________

On Activity Sheet 2 you will next draw a graph of population change in the UK to see how accurate your
predictions were.