Just came across this video, based on what is now a widely-read summary of some key demographic and economic statistics. These statistics do need to be verified, as the opening shot states, if not for any other reason than the age of the data. This notion of the world as a village of 100 (and the associated data) first emerged in the early 1990s.

As David Truss argues, this could be really useful for cross-curricular discussion. I’ve used the Village of 100 idea a few times – in Geography, Economics and as part of an assembly. I first received an email with this idea in 1998, and used some of it when visiting a Secondary School in southern Ghana in 2003. Teaching a Geography class of nearly 70 students, I tried to apply the same concept for some of the issues covered by asking the appropriate proportion of the class to stand up. The Ghanaian students were blown away by the proportion of their class that would live in Asia (having guessed Africa and Europe to carry the highest populations, by far).  The ICT teacher at that school (who commanded a suite of 16 computers for a school of c. 2,500 students) was fascinated by the internet access statistic.

For another way of visualising global economic inequality (which features in the Village of 100 idea), I highly recommend this website:

Global Rich List

Update:

This impressive and simple website helps you to make quick comparisons between your own country and any other – this can call up statistics that call to mind the inequality depicted in the Village of 100. Watch out for the adverts though:

http://www.ifitweremyhome.com