B3. Understanding Geographic Context: Global Economic Development and Quality of Life
Specific Expectations
B3.1
identify and describe the significance of several indicators that are commonly used to measure quality of life on a global scale (e.g., infant mortality, fertility rate, life expectancy, birth rate, death rate, doubling time, access to medical care, access to clean water, literacy rate and access to education, poverty rate, per capita income, GDP, GDP per capita, unemployment rates, national debt)
- Why is the national literacy rate seen as an indicator of quality of life in a country?
- Why is it important to consider the fertility rate and the infant mortality rate when examining the quality of life of women in a country?
B3.2
compare findings with respect to selected quality of life indicators in some developing and more developed countries (e.g., infant and maternal mortality rates, literacy rates for men and women, and per capita GDP in Australia, Mali, and Bangladesh)
- What do you notice about quality of life indicators for the Netherlands, China, and Sierra Leone? What do these indicators tell you about life in those countries?
B3.3
demonstrate the ability to analyse and construct scatter graphs, both on paper and using a graphing program, when studying global development and/or quality of life (e.g., construct a scatter graph to illustrate the correlation between literacy rates and life expectancy for selected countries; analyse a scatter graph to gather data on infant mortality and the availability of clean water in selected countries)
B3.4
demonstrate the ability to analyse and construct population pyramids, both on paper and using a graphing program, when studying demographic patterns and trends in developed and developing countries (e.g., use data from population pyramids to compare the life expectancy of men and women within a developing country or of populations in developed and developing countries; construct a population pyramid to predict future population trends for a country)
B3.5
identify various groups and organizations that work to improve quality of life (e.g., Free the Children, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Médecins sans frontières/Doctors without Borders, Right to Play, Water for People), and describe their focus
- What are the eight Millennium Development Goals? What are some strategies that are being used to achieve these goals?
- What are some organizations that focus on improving the status of women in the developing world?
B3.6
identify different types of economic systems (e.g., traditional, command, market, mixed), and describe their characteristics
- What are the key differences between a command and a market economy?
- What are the advantages of a mixed economy? Are there any disadvantages?
- What are some countries that have planned economies?
B3.7
explain how the four main economic sectors (i.e., primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary) are related to global development (e.g., countries where most people work in the primary sector tend to rank lower on the HDI than countries with more balanced economies or those where more people work in the tertiary and quaternary sectors)
- What types of jobs characterize the primary sector? Why might it be a problem for a country’s economy to be highly dependent on this sector?
- Why is it likely that a country with a high level of employment in the tertiary and quaternary sectors will rank higher on the HDI than a country whose economy is dominated by the primary sector?
B3.8
identify and describe various factors that can contribute to economic development (e.g., access to economic and natural resources, patterns of trade, colonial legacy, corruption, government expenditures, debt load, foreign ownership of resources, war or political instability)
- What is meant by the term trade deficit? Why might it be a disadvantage for a country to import more than it exports?
- How might the colonial past of a country hamper its economic development?
B3.9
describe the spatial distribution of wealth, both globally and within selected countries/regions (e.g., the concentration of global wealth in North America, Europe, and parts of the Middle East; changing patterns of global wealth as a result of emerging economies such as Russia, China, and India; the concentration of the world’s poorest nations in Africa; patterns of rural poverty and urban wealth)