In this booklet, specialists in varied academic disciplines seek to determine how the classroom can function to sharpen man's understanding of the population problems and to prod him to the application of reason. Demographer and sociologist Philip Hauser places the problem in the framework of explosive world population growth, and highlights the fact that though the schools have been gravely overburdened by population increases, their curriculum in no way reflects the population crisis. Educator Sloan R. Wayland gives documented evidence that the problem is world-wide and schools everywhere lag in preparing students to understand this problem. Biologist Irwin Slesnick reports on an experimental high school program integrating instruction in population and family planning which show that the classroom can successfully handle the material. How a committee of specialists can plan so that models may be multiplied and become generally accepted is the subject of physicist Jerrold Zacharias. To these are added a report by Alan Guttmacher, M.D., President of Planned Parenthood-World Population, showing how initiative on the community level is already enriching teaching programs with population information and materials on family planning. An annotated bibliography lists books, pamphlets, articles, and films that deal with population and related problems. (Author/JLB)