Free printable worksheet · History
Free life expectancy chart worksheet with answer key
How long do Americans live, and how has that changed since 1900? A one-page worksheet on a chart of trustworthy public data, with three questions and lines to write on, plus an answer key for you. Free, no account needed, and the numbers are the newest the source has published.
The chart on the worksheet
A baby born in the US in 2018 could expect to live 78.7 years, up from 47.3 in 1900. The sharpest drop was in 1918, to 39.1 years, during the influenza pandemic. This CDC dataset stops at 2018; later NCHS reports put life expectancy at 78.4 years in 2023 and 79.0 in 2024, after a fall during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: CDC National Center for Health Statistics, Death rates and life expectancy at birth (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Dec 31, 2018 · Open the interactive chart and its numbers
What students answer
How to read this chart
Each point is how long a baby born in that year could expect to live, if death rates stayed as they were that year. It is an average, so it is pulled down a lot when many babies and young people die. Hover or tap a point to read its year and value.
Questions to discuss
- Find the sharpest drop on the chart. What happened in the world that year?
- Life expectancy in 1900 was under 50. Does that mean most adults died in their 40s? What else could lower the average?
- What changes in medicine, food or public health could explain the long rise?
The answer key gives the chart's key numbers (newest, highest, lowest, biggest change) and, for each question, the figures it asks about, written from the same data students see.
Or assign it online
Post this link in Google Classroom, Canvas or Moodle. Students see the interactive chart and the questions; they don't need an account.
A chart for class, every Monday
One fresh chart of public data, three questions to discuss and a link that opens it as a class assignment, in your inbox each Monday. Free, no account. See this week's.