Western Civ 2018

In human geo today we went over the test questions and discussed grades. Then we continued with the slide show and learned about why people migrate to different places. Some of the reasons are civil war, environmental degradation, unemployment or underemployment, and religious or ethnic persecution. Those are examples are push forces that push people out of the country. Some examples of pull forces which attract people to a country are better economic opportunity, better health services, religious freedom, and political freedom. I'm very excited to see what lies ahead in the slide show presentation.

In human geo we started talking about people and settlement. We even went on a website that showed the world's current population and still kept on counting. There are 7.5 billion people on the planet and is increasing by 73 million per year. Also, 90% of the population growth takes place in developing countries of Africa, South and East Asia, and Latin America. We also saw this chart about population growth over very many years and it started like I don't even know how long ago. Maybe by 2025 the population could be doubled or it may not happen for a really long time but only time will tell. I'm really excited to continue this next class.

Today we took the test and it was very easy I mean it should've been because we designed it. The essay was easy and the multiple choice questions were easy. That was all we did in class today. Some of the questions involved maps and meridians. Others involved site ad situation. I just hope that I got a good grade on it. There were twenty-five multiple choice questions and two essays but we only had to pick one of them. Today wasn't an interesting class because of the test but at lest it was an easy test and we actually knew what was on it. I hope we get more tests like this one but it probably won't happen again.

Today in human geo we discussed the questions everyone thought should be on the test. The one I said was which city does the Prime Meridian pass through which is Greenwich, England. Other questions involved what we learned on the C.I.A. World Factbook. Some of these included name the country with the most square miles and name the country with the highest population. One involved site and situation while others involved globalization. We also need to know what a cartographer is which is someone who makes maps. The United States has no official language and Sir Sanford Fleming introduced time zones, which there are 27 time zones instead of 24. The advantage of Peters over Mercator is that it has a more accurate representation of the size of the continents. The circadian cycle is your body's natural and biological clock. Think global act local means that you should change small local things and eventually it would make a global change. I hope that I ace this test.

Some questions I want to see on the test include, name a country and a fact about that country from the world factbook. Another one is, name the advantage of the Peters map projection over the Mercator map projection and the answer would be that it has a more accurate representation of the continents size. The final question I want to see is, which city does the Prime Meridian pass through and the answer would be Greenwich. All we did in class today was discuss the test and the questions we wanted to see on it. I just hope that the test is easy and that I will ace it.

Today Mr. Schick isn't here so we have sub work. My three items are my notebook from Vietnam, my shirt from Peru, and my binder from the U.S. My shirt's company doesn't say where it's from. My notebook's company is from Taiwan. My binder's company is from the U.S. My binder was made in the U.S. and has some foreign parts as well. My shirt is made in Peru and my notebook is from Vietnam. Some of the girls were freaking out over a bug, me, I offered advice to them but they were too scared to do anything. I hope next human geo class is just as exciting.

Today we talked about the phrase "think globally, act locally." This means that if you do something small and local like using less gasoline then eventually it would effect the entire world. Other examples involved everyone growing their own fruits and vegetables than we would use less gasoline to transport food all over the world and eventually people all over the world will do it to. It took us a while to figure out what the "act locally" part meant but the "think globally part we got right away. Once Mr. Schick explained the "act locally" part then we learned that the two ideas were connected. I hope that next human geo class is just as exciting as this one.

In human geo class we talked about facts from countries all around the world such like on Christmas Island, about two-thirds of it is declared a national park and 2,205 people live on the island. Also if another world war broke out Antarctica would be a safe place, if you have proper equipment to survive its harsh conditions. Also on the Coral Sea Islands there are no inhabitants except for staff of three or four people at the meteorological station on Willis Island. Fiji is made up of 300 islands and in Greece at a certain age you must serve in the military in some way. This was one of my top favorite human geo classes.

Today in human geo we did an activity where we went to the C.I.A. website and went to the factbook. We had to find 25 countries on the website and place them on our maps and figure out what ranking they were. There were a lot of countries I didn't know existed they included the Christmas Islands, Latvia, Oman, Coral Sea Islands, and many more. Most of the places I selected were places I either knew about or sounded cool. I learned that the Coral Sea Islands are not inhabited by people. This activity was very fun to me because I got to learn about countries I didn't even know existed and got to see what there ranking was out of all the countries in the world. When we placed the countries on the map, we had to do it on two maps: the Mercator projection and the Robinson projection. I hope we do another activity like this soon.

Today we talked about cultural regions. We learned that beliefs, material traits, and social forms are ways geographers refer to culture. The word culture comes from the Latin word cultus which means "to care for." Culture is a complex meaning because "to care for" has two meanings. First is "to care about" which means to adore or worship something. Second is "to take care of" which means to nurse or look after something. Culture can also refer to small organisms such as ones under microscopes or in yogurt. Geographers also distinguish groups of people according to important cultural characteristics, describe where particular cultural groups are distributed, and offer reasons to explain the distribution. That was what our class discussion was on so there you have it and I hope next human geo class will be more spectacular.

In human geo today we talked about time zones. We mentioned a guy named Fleming who said in 1876 should be a 24-hour clock in the center of the Earth. In 1900 almost all time on Earth was in standard time zones. We even talked about that if you were in a plane traveling the same speed of the Earth's rotation that you could watch the sun set for 18 hours. Mr. Schick said that we are always in the present and that the present doesn't exist because it is so small. We also mentioned the circadian cycle which is your natural and biological clock. We also talked about he three dimensions of time which is the past, present, and future. One of our classmates had a shadow that could do a very interesting trick with his hands. We had to leave and got to a football game but other than that it was a normal human geo class.

Today in human  geo we finished up our election map assignment from the previous class. We learned that elections are won by the most electoral votes. So basically if you have the most popular votes doesn't mean you're going to win because your opponent could have more electoral votes. Our job was to classify regions depending on whether places voted Republican or Democratic or if they swapped each year and if they are close to each other. So Maine and California couldn't be in a region because they're not close to each other yet they both voted Democratic in the elections. I'm unsure what will happen in our next human geo class but I'm sure it will be interesting.

In human geography today we talked about region and cultural landscape. Region is an area of earth defined by one or more distinctive characteristics. Cultural landscape is a combination of physical and human characteristics that uniquely define places and areas. Some examples of cultural landscape include: language, religion, climate, and vegetation. We also learned that the designation of a region can be referred to larger than a point and smaller than the world. We also were in groups of three and started an activity where we took a map of the United States showing which states voted for which president for three different years. Then we took those that were close to each other and voted for the same candidate and placed them into regions of their own.