Friday, September 12, 2014
Population Game - Reflection Questions
Answer these in your notebook - or here in the blog comments section.
List the names of the member in your group and specify whether you are referring to your fixed population or floating rate population.
1.) At what round did your population terminate? Why? What would you do differently to ensure it’s survival if you could change that round?
2.) Did you notice any “interesting” patterns that emerged in either of your populations? What were they?
3.) How is the rolling of dice for mortality rates similar to real world conditions?
4.) As a policy maker, do you think it would be easier to control your population’s birth rate or death rate ? Why?
5.) Think about the example you could alter: You were deliberately manipulating your population’s birth rate – Why? Subconsciously, you were aiming for a “perfect” or “ideal” number in your head. Why did that even happen to you? What was that number? What made you choose it?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1) Isaac's population was terminated at round 4 – when his population overbore his resources. Cole made it to round 10, his resources and population staying relatively stable.
ReplyDelete2) In Isaac's chart, we noticed that his Fertile Population doubled every round (Doubling Rate), and that his New Births and New Children also doubled. That means that almost everything relating to children and birthrates double every generation in this chart. In Cole's chart, we noticed a balancing fluctuation between resources and the birth rate, which seemed to reverse exactly some rounds.
3) The rolling of the dice to decide mortality rates is similar to real-world conditions because nobody can choose who lives and who dies – and how many of each. Not matter how hard we try to save infants, and adults, from death – you cannot chose the day you die. It's very much a luck-of-the-roll thing, when you think about it.
4) As a policy maker, it would most certainly be easier to control the birth rate than the death rate, since the death rate is impossible to control. Like we stated above, it is impossible to keep people alive – though, we suppose, it is possible to end people's lives without consent. You can, however, urge people to have children, or not have children.
5) Cole made decisions about birth rates based on person to resource ratios, and what kind of mind-map those made for him. He used involuntary mathematical equations to decide how many births he could afford to have with the limited amount of resources at his disposal. Isaac's decision was easier, since he only had to pick one number and stick with it. He chose 2.5 because that (2.32 – closest rounded number) is the Fertility Rate in most developed countries – 2 to replace the mother and father, and .5 to account for deaths during childbirth, infancy, and adulthood.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMina recorded results for the floating population, and I recorded those for the fixed rate.
ReplyDelete1. The fixed rate population didn't make it past round three, because there weren't enough resources to sustain the population. Where as the floating rate survived till the end of the game.
2. We noticed that as the fertile population grew, so did the number new children in the fixed population. Also, that the adult mortality rate didn't do much to effect the population.
3. The rolling of the dice creates randomly decides how much of the population will die, and we can't anticipate or plan for that number. Similar to real life where we have no control over our own death rates.
4. It would be easier to control the birth rate because you can CHOOSE whether or not to have a child, where as it is impossible to know when members f your population re going to die.
5. With the floating rate we started off with 2.5 which we thought was the perfect number to replace the initial population, but when our resources started to lessen we realized we were going to have to lower that number. We had to continue to alter the birth rate in order to ensure survival of our population.
Rachel, Paige, Sarah Jane
ReplyDelete1) Our population never terminated and stayed sustainable in the tenth round. We would not have done anything differently.
2) We did not notice any patterns other than our numbers all staying relatively the same.
3) Rolling the die was similar to mortality rates in the real world because like with the die no one can predict deaths, or how many people will die.
4) It would be easiest to control Birth rates because you can put limits on how many children can be born but no one can have any control over who dies when.
5) We did not manipulate the birth rate in any way, we left it all to chance. We never had a perfect number in mind but stayed pretty sustainable at 1.5, although that number varied a little.
1) Emily's population terminated in the 3rd round with a fixed birth rate of 2.5. She would have chosen a much lower birth rate so as to decrease the population. My population survived to the end, as I was able to change the birth rate depending on the situation.
ReplyDelete2) We noticed that in both populations high birth rates were the main cause of overpopulation, the higher the number of "new babies", the greater the population, even with a large mortality rate.
3) You never know how or when you might die, most people die of unnatural causes like war, disease, getting hit by a bus, etc. When you roll a pair of dice, you can never be sure what the outcome may be, just like you can never be certain when one might die.
4) It would be far easier to control Birth rate, seeing as the problem in question would not have even been born yet. Death rate could not be controlled naturally, because as previously mentioned, nothing controls when people die. The only way to control death rate would be to kill mass amounts of people of a certain age, which probably wouldn't go over so well.
5) I had the changing birth rate. I tried to vary it at first to see what it would be like in different situations, but by round 4 I decided to keep the birth rate low, in the 0.5-2 range. I decided to have my goal set on a 50:50 population to resource ratio, so everyone would have enough resources. Who needs babies if your population is starving to death? When the population decreased too much, I upped the birth rate again. Life is a circus.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHuman Population Game Questions
ReplyDeleteI had Eleanor in my group; she had a fixed birth rate of 2.5, while mine was floating.
1. While Eleanor’s population died off at round four, my population never terminated; there were always more resources than people in my fictional civilization. If I played again, I would use the same strategy that I used this time, which was to change the birth rate based on the growing population.
2. I noticed that the adult mortality rate heavily affected my civilization, even halving the population at times.
3. Generally speaking, death is uncontrollable and unforeseeable, like the outcome of a rolled die. Although death rates can be influenced by factors like health care, conflicts, and poverty, there is no way to completely control how and when a population of people die.
4. I think it’s much easier to influence birth rates. A population’s rate of birth can be changed with methods as simple as advertising campaigns and education, or as drastic as limiting the amount of children a family can have. Death, on the other hand, is less predictable; conflict, natural disasters, and pestilence are all factors that are can be devastating to a population, and are not easily foreseen.
5. My goal was to keep the population as close to 50 as possible without going over. I did this because I wanted there to be an equal balance between people and resources. My average population, however, was 33 over all 10 generations.