class participation.

I think that I should get a 90 for the class participation grade. I feel that this is an appropriate grade for me because even though I was not one who was constantly throwing out ideas, but when I did, my ideas were relevant and generally brought up good points.

End of Guns, Germs, and Steel.

We are finally finished with the Guns, Germs, and Steel videos! We started yesterday’s portion by re-watching the part that shows all of the different types of animals just so we could have the privilege of seeing the Jesus Christ lizard run across the water again. After satisfying our Jesus lizard needs again, we continued where we left off at the Mesopotamian villages which are long since abandoned. Friday’s portion consisted of some very fascinating facts. For example, we learned that the inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent were not only the first to move to a concept of home, beyond it just being a place to sleep every night, but they also were the first to really decorate their homes. This would make logical sense since many other civilizations at the time were wanderers. Another fun fact that we learned on Friday was that if you take any two points generally along the same line of latitude, those two places will have about the same climate and day night intervals. For example, look at the Fertile Crescent. They had the necessities to sustain a more advanced nation, and if you look at other ancient civilizations (i.e. Rome, Egypt, or Greece) they all were located at about the same latitude, so many places along those particular lines of latitude, also had what they needed.

lockdown drill

Today in Human Geography class, we got back to business and continued to watch “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” However, we did not get back to this until after the lock down drill. During the lockdown, it got sort of boring just sitting there, though we were whispering quietly during the drill. Once we started the video again, in one part of the video, Jared Diamond did some research on which animals were domesticated. He did this by taking all of the 2,000,000 species on the planet and eliminating animals that weren’t likely to have been tamed. Right off the back he eliminated birds, rodents, and insects because they did not have the muscle power to perform tasks like plowing. He also eliminated similar mammals, such as dogs. Carnivores also got put on this list because you would need to breed other animals to feed the carnivorous ones, thus making them impractical. This narrowed it down to the Herbivores. From here, Jared narrowed it down to just 14 different species. These consisted of cows, sheep, pigs, horses, Bactrian camels, Arabian camels, water buffalo, yaks, goats, and a couple others.

initiate lockdown, initate lockdown, initiate lockdown

“Hey! Gunman, I’d like to see you get past our fool proof lockdown plan!” If someone actually thought that their lockdown procedures were actually fool proof and would keep everyone 100% safe, they would be delusional. That’s because it’s impossible to have lockdown procedures like this. Even in Connecticut, people were killed even though they knew exactly what to do. The best any emergency plan can do is minimize the damage done, NOT prevent the damage entirely. One could probably pick out flaws in any given emergency plan for hours, maybe even all day. For example, what if, the attacker placed bombs in the rooms? What if, Mrs. Drawbridge was forced to give the all clear? As you can tell there will always be flaws in an emergency plan, especially if you apply “what ifs.” Does that mean we should all just live our lives in complete terror that something MIGHT happen? Of course not! We just need to trust that if we ever did need to put our plan into action that it is as good as it will get and move on with our lives. Plus, the chances of that ACTUALLY happening are slim

More Guns, Germs, and Steel

Today’s portion of Guns, Germs, and Steel discussed when early civilizations started to advance. For the most part, many civilizations started with farming. Archaeologists have found out that people have started to domesticate crops even as far back as 11,500 years ago. One great example of this is an Archaeological dig site called Draably/Drah. This is the site in which possibly the oldest permanent settlement was discovered. What’s so great about this you ask? Well, the archaeologists that dug it up found the world’s first granary which looked like wood planks supported by stones with (if I had to take a guess) an adobe structure built around it. Sometimes for people like the New Guineans who live a hunter/gatherer life style leave out the hunting part of that. This is not because they are against hunting and killing animals, but because they realize that it is inefficient. Hunting does not yield as much food because it requires you to spend 90% of your day actually tracking the animal.

Guns, Germs, and Steel video

Today in our second class since break ended, we started to watch “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” One of the main points made in what we have watched so far is "Why do some civilizations advance and others don’t?” The answer to this is that the civilizations that advance have more advanced technology, a large population, and a well-organized work force. Also, Europeans and other white men used to see themselves as genetically superior to other races of people such as the natives of Papa New Guinea. This has to with Jared Diamond’s second major point. Even though we are more advanced than the New Guineans, it does not mean we are superior to them. Jared even points out that the only reason he survived in Papa New Guinea, was because of the help that he had from the natives. To illustrate what Jared is saying that we have all these awesome skills like how to use utensils, operate machinery, etc. However, if we were thrown out into the wilderness with no electronics or even food like you’d get from a store; we would be like “How do you expect us to survive!!!” In my opinion, I think that many modern Americans have become too dependent upon electronics and other luxuries that we take for granted. For example, I have heard of people who don’t even bother to learn their own phone number because they can just look it up on their phones.

Jared Diamond/Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jared Diamond has written two books one of which called Guns, Germs, and Steel. He said Asia and Europe are doing better than other places because of their economy. He has also made multiple trips to Papa New Guinea. He is very environmentally friendly. He speaks some of their languages and has conversed with their people. He is a professor at UCLA. He is a scientist, author, and has gotten many awards, such as the National Science Award. A big part of his visits to Papa New Guinea is to study the vast variety of birds there. He is also very respected by his peers.

Guns, Germs, and Steel was written by Jared Diamond and was originally subtitled “The Fates of Human Societies.” The book has also been translated into 25 different languages. It is a great summary of Human History and serves as a foundation of understanding for it. Generally, superior weapons lead to military superiority. It talks about how some societies have been able to progress and advance and others don’t. This book relates to our class because earlier in the year we learned about Christopher Columbus who were able to conquer the Native Americans even they were severely outnumbered. The explanation for this is stated in the book, they had superior weapons.

Exams

On Friday, in Human Geography class, Mr. Schick reverted back to teaching us again. On top of that he also finished the exam review with us. Since we don’t have class again before exams, I think that it is appropriate to devise a prayer for exams. How does “Lord next week we have exams, help us pass without a peek,” sound. Mr. Schick was also, dong his best to make sure that we were ready for his exam, by telling us exactly how many questions are on the exam for each concept as well as what the short answers would be. For today’s review, we picked up right where Ben left off and started with Religion. We also covered World leaders and Economic Geography as well. Although we might not of gone over each individual piece of material, Mr. Schick still effectively helped us figure out exactly what we would need to study to prepare for his exam properly. Also, since this will be our last BLOG before Christmas, and possibly our last BLOG for the year depending on our teacher next semester, I would like to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I would also like to add that I am lucky enough to be in your Western Civilization class next semester.

Exam Review part 1

Mr. Schick officially quit teaching us today!! His reasoning behind this is because he believes that Ben Does a much better job of teaching class than Mr. Schick does. I however, disagree with this statement. I say this because honestly, Mr. Schick is way more knowledgeable on this topic than Ben could ever probably dream to be. Well in any case, let’s get to the more important occurrences in today’s class. For starters we finished the presentation’s today; in fact we heard the last presentation TWICE!! That’s right we heard the fifth and final presentation a second time because Mr. Schick/the class requested that Ben presents the last group’s advertisement again after they went.  Then, Mr. Schick started our exam review at the end of class and some people probably found that they need to do some studying for Human Geography. For example, when we were reviewing the vocab from Socrates and the CIA World Fact Book, some people were unable to come up with a sufficient answer or an answer at all.

economic geography project presentation

PRESENTATION TIME!!!!!! Today in Human Geography class, we began presenting our advertisements to the class. Only this time there’s a twist, before the first group went, he passed out a sheet for us to grade the other groups’ performance. So far, I gave most of the groups an A because they had fairly decent, professional-looking advertisements. However, I took off points because they made feel-like I could not read and just read the slides to their audience, one person even turned their back to my side of the room, GASP!!! I feel I am authorized enough to point these things out because I have successfully earned my communications merit badge and we were even required to prepare a five minute speech and deliver it to the rest of class. For this requirement, we were judged on time and number of umm’s. Honestly, I think we should just have a class centered around public speaking and how to properly get up in front of your peers and effectively deliver a speech or other presentation.

Japanese shadows day 1

Monday’s Human Geography class brought us more project time, and Japanese students. That’s right Japanese students La Salle high school. The reason for this visit is because they wanted to come to OUR school and shadow here for a few days. Therefore I would like to say Konichiwa to our Japanese students. Honestly the visitors we had were probably the most exciting thing that relates to Monday’s Human Geography class. I mean this would probably be labeled as opinion since all we did in class was work on our advertisements with our groups. Though my group’s presentation is definitely coming along we got our bibliography (some facts to go with it), a slogan (two actually: “We love cheap,” and fast, cheap, good), a product, and a way to sell foreign labor. With that, I would like to give Mr. Schick the impression that my group actually has a decent presentation.

Economic Geography project time

Guess what! There are no more “The People’s Republic of Capitalism” videos. Which only means one thing, it’s PROJECT TIME!!!! That’s right Mr. Schick assigned us a project to do which we will present on Wednesday of next week. For this project, Mr. Schick would like our groups to advertise either all-American products or products that were made over-seas in some foreign country. In addition to the advertisement, we have to find a product to use in our advertisement. For example my group is advertising over-seas products, so we decided to use Mc Donald’s Happy Meal toys. Part of the objective of using our product is to talk about how the prices of foreign made products compare’s to American made products of the same category. On plus, side to this project, in addition to it being somewhat fun, it means that we will not be having a test on this unit! However, we still want to do well on the assignment since Mr. Schick is yet to decide, whether it will be worth 100 or 200 points.

Look at that Chinese car...ouch!

Today in Human Geography class we finished “The People’s Republic of Capitalism: part 3.” One of facts that we were told about was that some American automobile brands like Ford and Buick are plummeting in America but are doing really well in China. On top of that, but jobs in the automobile industry are starting to go to China. Another point brought up is that China wants to start selling Chinese cars in the United States. Unfortunately, for the Chinese, people in America want stylish, luxurious, safe, and cheap cars. The problem is that many Chinese cars may cover stylish and cheap, though to sell a car for only $2,000; it would not be able to be the least bit luxurious nor would be anywhere near safe! In fact the cars spectacularly fail our safety testing!!! On the plus side, for us anyway, OUR JOBS ARE COMING BACK!!!! Which can only mean one thing, our economy might just make a turn upward, thus our unemployment rate will go downJ!!

Vocabulary

Capitalism-(n) an economic and political system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

Communism-(n) 1.a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state. 2. (often initial capital letter) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party. It is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless society in which rich people distribute their wealth so that

Free Enterprise- (n) 1. An economic and political doctrine holding that a capitalist economy can regulate itself in a freely competitive market through the relationship of supply and demand with a minimum of governmental intervention and regulation. 2. the practice of free enterprise in an economy, or the right to practice it. Private business operating for business. The goverment can't tell you how to run your business, except for safety and minimum wage.

Free Market- (n) An economic system in which prices and wages are deterermined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses, without government regulation or fear of monopolies.

People's Republic of Capitalism part 3

Today in Human Geography class, we began watching part 3 of “The People’s Republic of Capitalism.” “Why we skipped part two?” You ask. That would be because Mr. Schick did not deem part 2 important enough for us to watch. In any case part 3 still deals with the economy the only difference is that it focuses on China’s economy on wheels, in other words cars and auto-insurance. One of the main points that the video made was that one of the most dangerous places to be, especially in China, is on or around a major road or highway. The reasoning behind this is that a vast majority of Chinese drivers have never driven before or are fresh out of Driver’s Ed. As a result of this, accidents are not a rare phenomenon; in fact over 400 accidents occur DAILY!!!! That’s why they brought American insurance companies to China. The biggest difference in accident cases in China vs. in America is that insurance companies pay off every penny of damage to the other driver’s car with no deductible!   

Robotics Tour

Unfortunately, I was unable to make it to Friday’s Human Geography class. This wasn’t because of a fatal disease or a luxury cruise liner, I was absent from class due to the STEM academy field trip. Yes, that’s right I was missing class to go see robots. Upon arrival at Johns Hopkins we found our way to the robotics laboratory where we met up with our first tour guide. For the first part of our tour we were told about what goes on in the hydro-lab and the work they have done with underwater robots, which could be cleverly renamed fish-bots (I just made this up this name on the spot). After hearing about these aquatic machines, we continued on our way back to where we met tour guide #1 and switched to tour guide #2. This tour guide took us into a different laboratory and informed us about a robot call the Da Vinci robot (why it got that name I have no idea considering that Da Vinci most definitely did NOT have the materials to make this kind of advanced robot). Then after that we got play with it!!! YAY!!! Now, if you were there you may be thinking why in his right mind would he let us toy around with a $2,000,000 robot that we have never used in our life? The answer is: I have no idea. Well in any case, the robot operated by sitting in a chair with a machine in front of you. Then, you look into the binoculars after inserting your thumb and fore-finger into loops. Then you pinch your fingers together. Finally you move your hands around as the robot hands follow your motions. Once everyone got a turn we went back to the bus ate our lunch then returned to school and went to mod ten (once mod ten began).

People's Republic of Capitalism continued

We yet again continued to watch “The People’s Republic of Capitalism” in Human Geography today. How often do you shop at Wal-Mart? Do you enjoy shopping there because it allows you to save money? Now, have you ever wondered why Wal-Mart can sell their items and still be successful? It’s for the same reason that more than 90% of products we buy are made in China. There are plenty people over in China who are more than willing to work tedious monotonous jobs for only a buck or two a day so that even if you add in the cost to ship the products over to America from China it is still way cheaper to make everything in China. In fact, once you add it all up, it comes to be about $10,000,000 cheaper! Still, there are people out in this nation who think everyone should buy only products made in America. To that I say “Good Luck! Let me know if you can do this and still be living a decent life with everything you need.”      

The People's Republic of Capitalism

Today in Human Geography class we continued watching and discussing the video of China’s economy called “The People’s Republic of Capitalism” in today’s portion we saw how much money we get paid compared to a lot of people in china in the construction business. To be exact, the minimum wage in America is $7.50 per hour which amounts to about $15,000 a year. On the other hand in China, women, working hours on end moving heavy bricks in a dangerous environment make about $1-2 per DAY. Men doing the same type of job get paid a little better at $3-4 per day. You may be thinking that this is not fair. Well, it is, but fair does not necessarily mean moral. It is fair because, in marketing, if you work in China making Apple computers for little money (which it’s like that right now) Apple products are already pricy. Try increasing the cost of the work force (giving employees a higher salary) then the price of the computer goes up accordingly. Conveniently for sellers, there are mobs of people who are desperate for jobs like this. This way the cost of computers does not get so high that it causes a lack of customers.      

Economic Geography

At long last, we are FINALLY done with our political geography unit!!!! We also were given our tests back and went over the answers for those who heard a “ding, ding” when given their quizzes back (I was one of the people who got the double ding, the first if you want to be really specific). Unfortunately, we had the lowest average grade on the test. However, we are not completely out of the water yet for the world leaders. This would be because we are yet to know how we did on our 200 point research paper, so if you think that your grade is fine right now and are worrying about your paper, BEWARE!!!!! In the mean time we will be moving on to economic geography, in other words, MONEY!!!!! We kicked off this new unit by starting to watch a video called “The People’s Republic of Capitalism.” Which is basically about China’s economy.

independence discussion

Today, in Mr. Schick’s Human Geography class today, we discussed the BLOG assignment that we were given last night about nations’ independence and there beginnings as well as where in the world they are. Mr. Schick also planted a seed in us so that we can make a world where we are one of the world’s richest nations because we are a lead oil producer and we don’t even need any of it because we have other means of producing energy such as wind, water and the sun. Right now, we are nowhere near that goal because we are the number one oil consumer in the world so instead of working on getting our nation to be dependent upon an alternate source of energy instead of oil. Also, we have Saudi Arabia to worry about as well since they are currently the world’s leading oil producing nation, and they didn’t even know they had oil a couple decades ago when they were a really poor nation who thought that they didn’t have anything.