10/30/13; 5 Major Religions Notes

Today in human geo, we continued to talk about the five religions for our test on Friday. But we don’t have class tomorrow and we haven’t finished all the power points so I don’t know how that will work. Some notes from today’s class are;

·      Hinduism, Judaism, & Christianity are Abrahamic religions

o  There first five books are the same

·      Judaism’s holy site is Jerusalem

·      Buddha = Siddhartha Gautama

·      Most Hindu’s are in India

·      Most Buddhist’s are in Asia & 10% of India

·      Buddhism is one of the fastest growing religions

·      (Judaism) call God El or Yahweh

·      (Judaism) The Temple; the center of Jewish worship, very sacred place to pray.

·      (Judaism) Holy Book is Torah

·      (Judaism) Official Language is Hebrew

·      (Hinduism) God is broken up into three parts; Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva

·      (Hinduism) believe deeply in karma and that one omniscient being controls everything

Most of this information and more will be on the test Friday.

10/29/13; 5 Major Religions

Today in human geo we went over the test we took that was supposed to raise our grade and started presenting our power points on religion. Apparently while I was absent we started to make power points on the five major religions. (Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism) because I wasn’t here on Monday, I don’t have to present a power point. But everything that is presented in the five power points are going to be on the test Friday, along with all the stuff from the last quiz. Today we started with the power point on Hinduism, created by Grace. And she had the very good idea of a fill in the blank type of power point. So instead of writing down her whole entire power point, we only fill in a few words. Sadly I don’t think that this will be the case for the other power points. But tomorrow we will continue with the Hinduism power point and advance to the others.

10/28/13

absent from class

10/25/13; ONE LAP DOWN THREE TO GO

Today in human geo, we took a quiz that was supposed to “help raise our grade” but it was very stupid because I did ok on the quiz. The quiz covered everything we have learned so far in the cultural geography power point. Sometime next week we are going to have a one hundred point quiz covering everything in the power point. Before the quiz we went over some of the stuff regarding it and that honestly helped me a lot. Some of the questions were about religion, language, and the organizations around the world. The religion questions included; what religion out of the important ones have the most people, which one has the least? And so on. Some language questions included; what is the main language in Brazil, which is Portuguese and not Spanish. Then the organizational questions included things like; the name for the oil company around the world which is OPEC. For the one hundred point quiz I think it will also cover things from this quiz.

 

10/23/13; The Best Country in the World

Again in today’s human geo class we continued cultural geography, but the new segment was nationalism. Nationalism is when you think would country is superior to all other countries. We watched a video and it was from a TV show. There were two politicians and one talk show host who were answering questions from college students. One girl asked “why is America the best country” and the talk show host answered “It’s not”. Which threw everyone off, but it lead us into our discussion for the day. Most of us agreed that there cannot be one supreme country over all. But each country can be the best at different things. I went on Wikipedia and found a section about the international rankings for each country and there was not one country. It truly showed how one country cannot be superior over all other countries in everything but it can be the best a certain things. There is no “best country” without using your opinion.

10/22/13; Cultural Geography - Religion

For today’s human geo class, we continued talking about cultural geography. Today was mostly about religion because it is a very important and lengthy topic. We also heard Mr. Schick’s six cup of coffee rant and you could defiantly tell how strongly he felt on this topic. Some of the notes include; Abrahamic religion; believing that you descend directly from Abraham, some example religions include; Jewish, Christianity, and Islam. Also, religion can be the start of deadly wars and fights in general, for example, the Catholics and Protestants fought in Ireland. Another example that is still carrying out today is that, Christians, Jews, and Muslims all claim Jerusalem as their holy city. Most of the fights that happen are between a religions that believe the same things yet disagree so much on one topic that they feel the need to split. And finally, spatial divisions are how we divide the liable space found on the earth by social, economic, and political differences.

10/21/13; Cultural Geography Day 1

Today in human geo, we had a very long class. So we got to listen to the story of Mr. Schick re-living his dream. And then we also talked about cultural geography, then tomorrow we will listen to Mr. Schick’s six cup of coffee rant on religion. The story that Mr. Schick told us was about him going up to Boston to visit his daughter and how he ended up being with these news crew guys. And also, Mr. Schick lives by the quote “Just walk in like you own the joint” and he is going to get that on his gave stone and on a tattoo. But after his story was over, we went into cultural geography. Cultural geography has to do with the people from different cultures. The three main groups are; language, religion, and ethnic groups. So tomorrow we will continue to talk about cultural geography and we will listen to Mr. Schick’s six cup of coffee rant on cultural geography and religion.

10/18/13; AP Human Geo Test

Today in human geo, Mr. Schick was absent and we took an AP Human Geo class. The test was very hard, and I did not finish. Which explains why I am in normal human geo classes. The questions were based around certain countries and what happens. Also, there were some religion questions and some other questions that were worded to confuse you. In my opinion, the test was extremely hard and covered a lot of stuff that we as a class did not study or learn yet. Which made the test even more difficult. I found myself re reading a lot of the questions because of the vocabulary used and the way the questions was written. The test was not counted against us if we did do poorly on it, which is good for me. And because I did not finish the test we could possibly continue the test at school on Monday.

10/15/13

Absent from class.

10/11/13; Pyramid Population Test

Today in human geo, we took a test on the population pyramids and the vocabulary for that section. I found the test fairly easy, it mostly covered the things we just learned about. I also learned that you can you the CIA world fact book to discover a certain countries population pyramid. The test had multiple choice questions, fill in the blank, and matching the population pyramid pictures. The terminology consisted of; birth rate, death rate, total fertility rate, life expectancy, etc. The fill in the blank questions has to do with; the acronyms for TFR and RNI, and a few push and pull factors. Finally, the matching population pyramid picture consisted of three population pyramid pictures and you had to answer the questions accordingly. Mr. Schick has not explain what we will talk about next week but it could most likely have something to do with population again.  

10/9/13; Population Test Friday

Today in human geo, we learned that there will be a test on Friday covering; the pyramids and the terms that we have covered. Those terms include;

Life expectancy- The number of years believed to be lived by a group of people who were born in the same year.

Crude Birth Rate- Number of Births per 1,000 people of a population

Crude Death rate- Number of deaths per 1,000 people of a population

Developing Nations-Countries without infrastructure

Developed Nations- Countries with infrastructure

Rate of Natural Increase (RNI) – (subtract the death rate from the birth rate, then dividing by 10) the annual growth rate of country (no immigrants)

Net Migration Rate- The difference between the number of people entering and leaving a country

Net Immigration- Is the total amount of immigrants that come into a country

Net Emigration- The total amount of people leaving a country

Push forces- War, low amount of jobs, and wanting religious freedom

Pull forces- high job opportunity, and religious freedom

Total Fertility Rate (TFR) - Average number of children born per woman

And the pyramid population pictures can vary on what that city has to offer, for example; jobs, colleges, military, retirement, land, etc.

10/8/13; Populaion Pyramids

Today in human geo, we took our “God Grew Tired of Us” quiz. It was a fill in the blank type of quiz, and the plus was that we got to use our blogs. Because we got to use our blogs, it also reminds us that our blogs should be detailed just in case we are ever allowed to use our blog on a quiz again. The quiz covered most of the basic stuff for the documentary, the boy’s names, where they came from, but importantly, what they did after they went to America. Then we got into our new topic, which is Population Pyramids. We have talked a little about population because it concerned the CIA world fact book website. A true statement is that women live longer than men, why I don’t know yet. Also, there are three types of pyramids, 1. The Christmas tree shape, for developing countries like a lot of the countries in Africa. 2. The Box, for developed countries with a growing population, like the USA. And finally, 3. The Cup, for developed countries with a shrinking population, like Italy. Tomorrow we will continue with the power point.

10/7/13; God Grew Tired of Us; Family

Today in human geo, we finished the documentary. The documentary was honestly very inspirational, especially John Bul. I felt that he, out of the three boys, was the most worried about everyone back in Sudan that they left. Another inspirational moment was when John saw his mom and sister after being separated for sixteen years. His mom is so happy and if you didn’t tear up of feel touched during that part I’m questioning if you have feelings or not. Another important point Mr. Schick made was that this wasn’t a Disney movie, meaning that everyone has a happy ending. And you see that threw Daniel, he never tried to contact his family and never tried to help back in Sudan, he just continued to go to school for a good education. Which is wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but his story compared to Panthers or John’s is very different. Panther’s and John’s were more focused on family and everyone back home. Tomorrow we have a quiz on the documentary and cupcakes because it’s my birthday!

10/4/13; God Grew Tired of Us - Finally Adjusting

Today in human geo, we took a brief break from watching the movie “God Grew Tired of Us” and we went over the correct answers to the test. After that we continued to watch the documentary. For the first test of the year, it wasn’t terrible but now I know what to expect for the future. During the documentary, we learned that John Bul comes from the Dinka ethnic group in South Sudan. That certain ethnic group is known for having abnormally tall people. The famous NBA player, Maunte Bol, came from Dinka ethnicity and is ranked fifteenth is the NBA record for the most blocked shots. Also in the documentary, it explains how the boys did get a job. Daniel works at a factory and also at McDonalds. The boys also stated that the people in the US are closed and mean compared to their former country. On Monday we will finish the documentary.

10/2/13 - God Grew Tired of Us - Finally at America

Today in human geo we continued to watch the documentary called “God Grew Tired of Us” now that the three boys are in America, you can experience how lucky we are and what certain things can do to you. What I mean by that is that because the three boys are now in America, it is easy to forget where they came from. A few of the boys still eat with their fingers to keep their culture. They talk about getting weird and different looks, obviously because that is strange in our culture. So now you can tell how different two cultures can be, America and Africa are more different then you think. You would never think that 27000 boys, age’s five to ten, would risk their lives to try and make a better one? No, you wouldn’t, because that never happens in America. Tomorrow we will continue to watch the video.

10/1/13 - The Lost Boys

Today in human geo class as expected, we watched the movie “God Grew Tired of Us” which is surprisingly an hour and thirty minutes long. So we will be watching that video for a few more classes. So far the video is interesting, it’s about the journey of three boys that fled from Sudan during their Civil War. The Civil War started when North Sudan wanted to ethically cleanse Sudan, which basically meant that they wanted all Christians and other religions in the South to leave. But they were nice about it, they didn’t care if you left dead or alive, the North just didn’t want you. Because of this, about 27000 boys started walking to the nearest boarder to escape. With little to no food and water, they made it to Kenya. But after three years they were kicked out and had to continue their journey to another place. Tomorrow we will pick up on the trip the three boys take to start a better life in America.