ShmoopTube

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[Dino and Coop singing]

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What would the world look like without humans? [A busy street]

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Well there would definitely be some upsides,

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There would literally be more more fish in the sea. [Lots of fish]

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Bigger rainforests.

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More thriving wildlife. [Elephants]

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No pollution.

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No global warming.

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No Kardashians. [Stop sign appears over a picture of the Kardashians]

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But on the downside, the Earth wouldn't have...

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Mount Rushmore!

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So that's a fair trade off, right? [Picture of Mount Rushmore]

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Well whether or not planet Earth would have been better off without us, we're here to

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stay. For a while at least.

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And that means we're here to be studied – by sociologists, psychologists, and even geographers. [Scientists watching people in cells]

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That's right, because geography includes the study of the population that [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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lives in a particular location.

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Population studies include the number of people in a location, majors towns and [Dino pointing at a blackboard]

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cities, and specific data about the people that live there, like their age, gender and

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type of home they have.

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This information is collected by the U.S. Census Bureau through phone calls, surveys

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and door-to-door visits,

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if one of them approaches you with a questionnaire while you're having lunch at subway,

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You should report them, they're not supposed to do that [Man about to eat his sandwich looks angry]

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If a geographer were to look at population data about Alaska, they might find that as of 2012

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the population was 731,449.

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Alaska is the largest state in the U.S by land area, and only 1.2 people live in each [Man appears with a woolly hat]

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square mile. Which means people can really blast their music without worrying about complaints [Guy in winter dress with his thumbs up next to a speaker wall]

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Anyway a geographer could then compare Alaska to Hawaii, which had a population of 1,392,313

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in 2012.

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With a much smaller area composed of small islands, Hawaii has a wopping 211.8 people

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per square mile. [Lots of people crowded together on a tiny island]

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Still not downtown Manhattan but still more crowded than Alaska.

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Washington, DC is the smallest of the three by size at only 68 square miles, but had a

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2012 population of 632,323, which means that 9299 people live in each square mile of DC. [A huge crowd with people packed together]

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And roughly 8000 of those are lobbyists." [Lobbyist holding sweets]

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By analyzing population data, geographers can gain insight into how the physical geography,

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climate and economy might impact changes in population.

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For example, if the change in climate began to cause a particular area to have more

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hurricanes than before, you could understand why the population might shrink as people [Guy with a briefcase is blown away]

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to more comfortable safer and less blustery locations. [Guy sits down on the couch with his hair messy because of the wind]

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Or the opening up a brand new gigantic factory which might encourage people to move nearby in order [Factory workers]

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to get a job there.

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There are plenty of other reasons related to climate, geography or economy – that

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might cause individuals to move to or from a particular area. [Guy freezing in the snow wants to move to Florida]

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Usually though it's not because thousands of people are trying to move closer to the Cold Stone creamery. [Big crowd appears outside the Cold Stone]

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Although it's almost worth it. [Guy says he was he here first]

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