Learning Module 1

Exercise 1 - Mortality and Life Expectancy

How changes in age-specific mortality rates influence mean life expectancy

Exercise 2 - Fertility and Doubling Time

How changes in age-specific fertility rates influence a population's doubling time

Exercise 3 - Mortality, Fertility and Age Distributions

How changes in age-specific mortality and fertility rates influence how a populationís age distribution changes with time

Exercise 4 - Stable Age Distributions

How the shape of the stable age distribution is related to a populationís age-specific fertility and mortality rates

Exercise 5 - Constructing Stable Age Pyramids

See if you can meet the challenge of coming up with fertility and mortality curves that yield a variety of different shaped stable age pyramids.

Independent Investigations and Presentations

Suggestions for posing your own questions, designing and performing modeling experiments to test hypotheses that emerge from those questions, and preparing presentations

Learning Module 2 - Oryx Conservation

You have been named to head the international recovery team to develop a conservation plan for an endangered species of oryx. Your job is to use Demography to explore and evaluate a variety of conservation management options.

There are two versions of this activity, both modified from an activity written by Jim Berkson at Virginia Tech University.

Introductory Version - Saving the Arabian Oryx

For use in introductory biology or environmental science courses or courses for non-majors. This version links to web sites describing the current situation with this endangered species. It requires a little familiarity with Demography, but does not involve higher-level math.

Advanced Version - Saving Darwin's Oryx

For use in more advanced courses, this version links the graphs of fertility and mortality to the Leslie Matrix.

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