Population Growth is becoming a huge issue in our country and world today. The reason that it has become such a pressing issue is that our growing population needs a growing economy and has growing needs. As our population grows, the needs of the population become bigger. Very large population becomes a problem when there isn’t enough space to live, and not enough food and supplies to live off of. We can predict population size in the future by examining the recent past. This can give us good ideas about what we will have to do to accommodate all of the people in the US and the world, or start to put restrictions on babies being born like our fellow country China. In this activity we were given the populations of the United States and the world from 1950 to 1990. We used the calculator to get two different equations, One a linear regression, and exponential regression. These models were compared to see which one fit the data best. In part one the linear regression model fit the United States data best. The equation was y= 2423350x + 154659200, r= .9986796569. The values predicted by the model were almost exactly like the data. The exponential model wasn’t as good of it. The errors in the linear model were random, but not off by much each different year. The population wasn’t off by more than 2,000 people at most in one year. Using the linear model we made some predictions like what will the population being the year 2000? By putting the equation into the calculator and going into the table, we predicted that in the year 2000 the population would be 2.76 billion. Another prediction that was made was what will the population be when I retire. Most people retire when they are about sixty- five, so that would be in the year 2045. The population in 2045 is predicted to be 3.8 billion according to the linear model. The population will double from the current population in the year 2114. The population wi...
