Sebastian Escoto

There are 65.3 million refugees worldwide, and we are receiving one million somalin refugees into
Houston. However, with such a large number of people moving in at the same time, we were to find out
where and how we can support one million people. We found that in Sam Houston National Forest we
have the space and resources to support the one million refugees for a few years.
Pre- Columbus Native societies lived in tribes and some even lived in large cities. Natives were advanced
people and worked as hunter- gathers, but also farmed. Contact with Europeans was disastrous for the
natives. The Europeans had more advanced technology in which they used to conquer, enslave, and
wipe out natives. If we are bringing one million refugees from Somalia into Houston, we have to make
sure the refugees can adapt to life in the US. Giving free English lessons to the refugees would be very
beneficial. Cultural changes in the city would be minimal since Houston is a diverse city. However, there
will be more strain on our resources and jobs would become more competitive.
Because we are taking a group of people into a new environment, we have to talk about survival and
reproduction. Reproductive strategies and survivorship curves are about a species way of surviving.
There are two types of reproductive strategies, k strategists and r strategist. K strategists are the type of
organisms that live in unstable environments and must reproduce in large numbers. R strategists are
organisms that live in stable environments and have few offspring. Survivorship curves represent the
number of individuals that are alive in a certain species at different ages. There are three different types
of survivorship curves: type one shows high early survival ship but rapid decline later, type two shows a
constant mortality rate, and type 3 shows low early survivorship and only few live to adulthood. Kstrategist and r strategist are represented in the survivorship curves. R strategists fall into type one or
type 2 and K- strategists fall into type 3 survivorship curves.
Demographic transition is a theory that suggest that a countries total population growth rate cycles as
the country develops economically. Each stage is characterized by a unique relationship between birth
and death rates. A country is said to progress through the stages overtime as a social and economic
changes affect the birth and death rates. Stage one has high death and birth rates, stage two has higher
birth rates than death rates, stage three has slowly declining birth rates, stage four has low death and
birth rates, and stage five has lower birth rates than death rates. Most countries dont fall specifically
into one of these categories. Bringing in the one million refugees will affect the demographics in the city,
state, and country.
The Sigmoidal growth curve contains three phases: exponential, transitional, and plateau. At the
beginning of sigmoidal growth, the population starts growing exponentially, meaning it starts small but
then grows rapidly due to abundant resources, low competition, and little predators. Then, the
population starts to transition as resources start becoming less available. Once the carrying capacity of
the environment is reached and can no longer support all the population, it starts to decline and
eventually goes into equilibrium. This curve can be used to predict when the population of refugees will
increase and when it will decrease.
In conclusion, bringing in one million refugees will significantly raise the cities birth rate and total
population. While there would be fewer resources, Sam Houston National Forest is abundant enough to
support the refugees.