The Philadelphia Eagles' football stadium can seat almost 70,000. Could you have picked your brother out of the crowd? Yep. There are over 8 million people living in New York City. Could you recognize your mom out of all those people? Of course. And the population of the entire world is more than 6 billion. Could your family possibly mistake you for someone else? No way!

Although there's bound to be a person who looks something like you, you are totally unique and special. Your brother, your mom, and the other members of your family are each unique, too. And so is every person who has ever lived, is living now, or will live in the future. Pretty cool, right?

But what if everyone actually did look exactly the same? What if everyone talked and moved in exactly the same way? Boring! We'd no longer be one of a kind. We'd lose our uniqueness. We'd lose our diversity.

What Is Diversity?

The word diversity means a variety or assortment of different types of things. Think of how many kinds of fruits, or T-shirts, or books there are. How about all of the many types of houses and cars that exist? Or the amazing variety of birds, plants, and fish found all over the world?

In the same way, human beings have a great deal of diversity. Although our basic structure is the same (we all have a head, body, arms, legs, etc.), there's diversity in our looks. Skin, hair, and eyes all have lots of interesting colors. Our bodies are different, too, in size and shape. Even our fingerprints are unique!

People are diverse in other ways, too. We live in different places, have different kinds of jobs, and go to different schools. We have a variety of ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs. And we speak many different languages and differ in our thoughts and feelings.