Today in Human Geo 9.30.14

Today in Human Geography, we viewed a video  about population pyramids. It was quite a fascinating class that left me thinking. I never thought about how industrialized countries have fewer childbirths than pre-industrialized countries because women have more opportunities to get good jobs. Also, the women who do have children are typically older because they wait until they get out of college to raise children. After we watched the video, we answered some questions as a class. From these questions,our minds began to generate ideas. We realized that 3 of the many things that affect the population pyramid of a specific country is industrialization, natural disasters, and education of women. A country such as the united states has a rectangular pyramid because the amount of childbirths decreases. I really enjoyed today's human geography class and am excited to see what is discussed tomorrow.

class today 9.26.13

Today in class, we met Jessica's shadow student, Rachael. We did alot of discussion with the CIA world fact book. Trish took us to the section with countries dealing with a lot of HIV/aids. The country that suffers from that problem the most is Swaziland. In fact, twenty-five out of the top 26 countries with aids are a African Nations.  Carson also shared some pretty interesting facts using the CIA world fact book. We discussed other topics such as infant mortality, and lack of clean drinking water. It scared me that so many African coutries do not have clean drinking water. The reason for this is because they do not have a sanitary way of disposing human waste. In one country only about half the people in cities have bathrooms that takes human waste away sanitarily. In the rural areas the number drops to a quarter of people.   What this means for the environment is that people dump their waste into a field and it leaches into the ground and infects their clean drinking water, thus having higher death rates. Hopefully more countries will become as developed as the USA, and I especially hope that the African countries get their bathrooms to be more sanitary.                

class 9.25.14

Today, Human Geography class was hilarious, as in most of students participated with humor. The people who were on retreat yesterday received their tests back. We discussed the written answers on the test because we went over the rest of the test yesterday. We discussed  Globalization, Socrates and the Hemlock he drank. On top of that he used one of the short answer questions as an example of what a good short answer should look like. We used the question about Socrates quote, "The unexamined life is not worth living". A good answer would explain that quote deeply, and in a "down to earth" term. A bad example would be using a cliche expression, such as "live life to the fullest". That expression has no definite meaning. It is unclear whether or not that expression means to take dumb risks, or to be the absolute best person that you are physically able to be. Hopefully with these pointers in mind, the next test will be much more successful for everyone.

World Factbook and power point 9-19-14

Although I was not in class today, I sill found Mr Schick's power point and the CIA word fact book very interesting. In the world fact book, I was glad to see the the United States of America has the largest and most technologically advanced economy in the world. I was however surprised to see that the amount of African American was very low, at only about 12 percent. I was also surprised to see that there are more Protestants in the United Sates of America than Caucasians. Looking at a poor country, Haiti, I was shocked to see that it as in fact a free market. I will do more research later on why the country is so poor, I assume the four-year recent earthquake,which caused 7.8 billion dollars played a huge role in their poor modern economy. I did not spot anything wrong in the power point, but did find it very interesting. I found the graph about life expectancies quite fascinating.

Test

Although I did not take the test today in class, I still feel confident about taking it tomorrow. I understand " A message to Garcia", Socrates, and Globalization.  Using the website, Quizlet, that Mr. Schick recommended was helpful and fun for studying. However, if the test is more complicated than what I expected, I may have a problem. I hope the test is easy, simple and basic.  I do not think that it will be anything too extravagant. I am excited to get the test over with so I can catch my breath from all of this schoolwork. I am exhausted, and am ready for the weekend already. It is only 9:13 and am having the worst time keeping my eyelids open while finishing up my homework. Once the test is over, I will be excited to see what we will learn in the second unit.

today in class 9/12/14

Today in class, we discussed Globalization. We learned how America is not acting as a great influence on Japan. Japan originally had high life  expectancies because they ate fresh fish, sushi, and tea. America is influencing Japan to eat french fries, burgers,and soda.  Japan is also transitioning from traditional meals, where everyone would sit down, talk about their day. It was something that Japan felt was very important. Now, Japan eats things that are cheap, fast, and easy to eat in the car. We also learned about the silk road. I found it interesting how different small businesses would use the same path to trade and sell items. This was a fascinating class and am excited to see what we will learn Tuesday.

techonolagy in our lives

While watching the video, I was shocked. I did not realize how computers played such a large role in our lives. The fact about how current students will have 10-14 jobs by the time they are 38., wassort of scary. Isn't it easier to stay in one job? However, only one in two people currently  have not  had the same job for 5 years. The part about how 1 in 8 couples that did get married met online. I didn't know that online dating websites worked that well. I was also surprised how big Facebook is. It is shocking to see how social media is taking away from "good-old fashioned" talking on the telephone. It makes me wish that I had invested in Facebook, however I am concerned for Facebook that it will become less popular as more convenient ways of socializing come about. I do have a Facebook and a laptop, but am one of the few people at John Carroll that does not have  a personal cell phone, so technology does not seem to change how I spend my life.  However, Technology does make school a lot easier. Now thinking back on middle school, I don't know how I could get anything done without having my own personal computer. Technology is helpful, but can occupy a person's time in a bad way.

Socrates notes

Socrates was very heroic in Ancient Greece. He was a philosopher, that strongly believed in Greece's  form of government. Socrates wrote a quote that he expected people to live by. The quote said "The unexamined life is not worth living." What Socrates mean't by this was that people should learn from their experiences, reflect on their lives as human beings, as well as living in the present and not worrying about death as much as humans tend to do.   Later in his life he was accused of corrupting youth in his teachings. At his trial, he defended himself by continuously saying that he was not guilty for what he did and should be rewarded with  free meals for the rest of his life. The jury decided that he was guilty by death by drinking hemlock. His friends were shocked that he gave such a poor defense,  and was proven guilty. The friends said that they ad spoken to the guards, so the guards would turn their backs,while Socrates friends helped him escape. Socrates said he would not escape because that is how Greece's government works, and would not try to weasel out of what must be done to maintain justice in Greece.    

what we did today 9/4/14

Today in Human Geogeraphy we learned some new things. The day started out with cheers. Not understanding why, I laughed. It was a funny way to start class. We went over the blogs we posted yesterday, our homework. We found definitions of words. We spent a very long time on the word agora. However, a lot of interesting little facts came out of the conversation  We went through all the words, until we ended at Socrates. Mr. Schick told us an interesting story about Socrates' ugliness after a student pointed out the fact that he was ugly. In the story, Socrates pointed out the fact that because of his bulging eyes,he could see better. And also, due to his flared nostrils, he could smell better. This reminded me that functionality is much more important than appearance. Human Geography, as usual, is full of fun and  interesting content.

Ancient Greek Vocabulary 9/3/14

• Agora- (dictionary.com)
• a political assembly
• the place where such an assembly met originally a marketplace or public square  
• Arete-(dictionary.com)
• the aggregate of qualities,as valor and virtue, making up good character.
• Polis- (dictionary.com), (wikipedia)
• an ancient greek city-state
• The ancient Greek city-state developed during the Archaic period as the ancestor of city, state, and citizenship.
• 508 BC
• year of the pre-julian roman calender
• in greece-democracy in the City of Athens was established
• The death of Socretes- biogeraphy.com
• taught things suggesting that politicians were at the highest authority, not god
• accused of being an aethiest
• given the death sentence. 
• Socratic  method- law.uchicago.edu
• continually asking questions until a contradiction is found to prove if someone is lying. 
• Idiot
• originally greek
• person lacking a professional skill

       

In Human Geography class, we talked about our blogs. Everything was made much clearer. Instead of making a new blog, we are to make a new post. also the blogs are to be composed of one-hundred fifty  words. I took a look at the posts I made in the past to see if I had done them corrctly, and I did. Then, Mr. Schick told us that we were each challenged to take the ALS ice bucket challenge. After that, we saw Mr. Schick take the challenge, although the sound did not work.