What if the largest states of Australia had the biggest populations?
Saturday, 04 December 2010
You might have seen this map featured around the place recently:
So I wondered, what if the largest countries had the biggest populations?
The map is interesting, and I wondered how we could complete an activity like this in class. So, a more achievable activity is to map a similar map for Australia. That is, What if the largest states of Australia had the biggest populations?
Conveniently, Wikipedia has the data required in one easy spot: States and territories of Australia.
Geoscience Australia has a Outline map of Australia.
The worksheet below provides a scaffold for students to complete the activity.
Here’s the answer:
| State | Area (km2) | Population | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| Western Australia | 2529875 | 6967200 | New South Wales |
| Queensland | 1730648 | 5297600 | Victoria |
| Northern Territory | 1349129 | 4279400 | Queensland |
| South Australia | 983482 | 2163200 | Western Australia |
| New South Wales | 800642 | 1601800 | South Australia |
| Victoria | 227416 | 500001 | Tasmania |
| Tasmania | 68401 | 344200 | Australian Capital Territory |
| Australian Capital Territory | 2358 | 219900 | Northern Territory |
Update See also some extension ideas from Joshua Harnwell on maths.net.au.
Download: Australia, biggest populations - Worksheet (DOC 119 KB)
Comments
I like this activity simon, one that makes them think and also makes area a little more meaningful. Will try and do this before end of the year – even though I am not doing this topic it could be good as a one of interest lesson in the lab with year 7.
What would be great is if we had an easy tool to redraw the internal borders to preserve the positions of the states, but shrink or grow them so their areas are proportionate to their population size. I wonder what tool might do that … perhaps put them on a grid somehow and have a way to count the squares?
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