To work through the assignment materials students should examine the data tables and prepare some graphs, in which the various demographic indicators of Canada can be compared with the assigned country. We are interested in how population indicators change over time. There is a how-to video below which shows you how that might be done.

The assignment submission should be in the form of a 500-word (or so) text document in which you consider the following: How can we best make sense of the changes in population indicators of the two countries?

There are a couple of things we can suggest as working methods:

You could do some research (via CBCA and the scholarly literature, or via the United Nations websites) to find out about the countries demographics, and the circumstances which might help you understand these changes.
To understand the two countries it may help to look at some of the other countries in the data package. If you are assigned Jamaica, would it help to get Haiti onto the graphs just to show you a comparable country from the same region with a contrasting experience?
You will need to offer some analysis of the two countries (Canada and other), but the data is well-designed to reveal the Demographic Transition. Some of the transitions may have already happened. (Canada’s mortality transition happened before the data begins) but others will unfold before your eyes. See if that Demographic Transition Model is a useful basis for analysis. If you think it does apply, you may sense from the data that the transitions still occur unevenly. The demographic future may have arrived, but it isn’t yet evenly distributed.

In the write-up you can include the more useful graphs. We probably don’t need all of them, and you have a file size limit. When you write the text, try to engage the reader with any graphs or illustrations that you include. Write them into the text of the argument. Sometimes students just seem to throw graphs in for decoration and hope that TAs will somehow derive meaning from them. If you are going to include a graph, use the text of your assignment to point out its significant features: “as you can see from figure 1 ….” etc., If you think a graph shows that Jamaica went through a fertility transition, then point that out in the text. Make the illustrations do some work in your argument. It’s all good technique.