Population Education for K-12 Students

Population Education (PopEd) provides K-12 teachers with innovative, hands-on lesson plans and professional development to teach about human population growth and its effects on the environment and human well-being. As the only national program for teachers that focuses on human population issues, PopEd fills an important need within U.S. classrooms.

With an emphasis on interactive learning and balanced discussion of different viewpoints, our program has earned a reputation for educational excellence. All Population Education curriculum materials are classroom-tested, rigorously evaluated, and frequently updated to be leaders in their content and approach. They are interdisciplinary, well-suited for a cooperative learning environment, and classroom-ready. All of the materials are matched to current national and state academic standards and frameworks.

We provide hands-on training to 12,000+ teachers and future teachers annually in North America. Tens of thousands of educators are introducing important population concepts to their students using these outstanding resources and millions of students are benefiting from them. In fact, our bi-annual surveys of participating educators allow us to estimate that each year we reach about 3 million students with our curriculum resources!

Since 1975, Population Education materials have encouraged students of all grade levels to think critically, engage in real-world issues, and work to become the next generation of informed leaders, voters, and global citizens.