1. List the five years with the highest number of births, in order from highest to lowest.

2. Why do you think the children born in the late 1940s and the 1950s are called the baby boom? Based on this chart alone, are there any other years that you could label a baby boom?

1. What is the trend in U.S. population since 1910?

2. Using this graph, can you tell where the baby boom occurred?

3. Both this graph and the one above measure some aspect of population -- in what was are they different?

4. What other aspects (besides births) might contribute to the increase in population?

Answers for birth rates: 1960 -- birth rate was 23.75 per 1000; 1990 -- birth rate was 16.72 per 1000.

1. Looking at this chart, do you see why statisticians call the 1940s and 1950s (the decades ending in 1950 and 1960) the baby boom?

2. What was happening in the 1980s and 1990s? The number of births was almost as high, but the birth rate does not show a boom, like the 1950s and 1960s. Statisticians call this an "echo" of the baby boom. This "echo" is the babies of the baby boomers!