Alex's Western Civilization Blog

I was home-sick today, so I don't know what we did in class today.

Today in class we finished reviewing our population and settlement test, then we watched the Ted-Ed video on population pyramids. Since we only got through the first page of the test last class, we quickly went through the other three pages of the test. After that, we played "okay, stop" while we watched the Ted-Ed on population pyramids. Mr. Schick had us take some notes on the video, but since I had already watched the video last class and took notes, I didn't have much to copy down. I learned that rapidly growing populations are pre-industrial, slowly growing populations are industrial, and decreasing populations are post-industrial. As we were talking about the different groups of reproduction, we went back to the topic of birth rates in countries due to certain circumstances. Some of the circumstances being no access to birth control/condoms in some places, and religious beliefs that are against the use of birth control. We also talked about how nowadays families con

Today in class we took notes on population pyramids and went over part of our population and settlement test. While Charlotte took her population and settlement test, the rest of the class watched a short Ted-Ed video on population pyramids. I learned that it is divided by gender with males on one side and females on the other. There are three groups pre-reproductive (0-14), reproductive (15-44), and post-reproductive (45 and older). After that, we went over the first page of our test. I got 81% on my test. I am not upset with my grade, but I want to aim for higher next time. I will definitely prepare myself more for the next test. I got all of the CIA World Factbook questions right, but I struggled with the other three pages. I think the hardest part for me was the third page because I had to guess for most of them. As we went through the first page, we discussed the importance of a few of the questions. We also learned today the US is one of the top three countries for crude oil prod

Today in class we took a test on population and settlement. The first 15 questions were ones that we had to look up on the CIA World Factbook. We had 20 minutes to do so, and I was able to finish with plenty of time left. I feel like I have started to get the hang of using the world factbook. After that section, the next part was fill in the blank section where we would match terms with their definitions. All of the terms were ones that we had learned from the population and settlement powerpoint. In the third section, we had to do some math and use our knowledge from our CIA World Factbook questions to answer questions about Net Migration rates and other questions that have to do with population. On the last page, we had to list two pull forces and two push forces from different countries. The four countries I wrote about were the United States, Libya, Mexico, and Burkina Faso. This was probably the hardest part of the test for me because I had studied for this section the night befor

Today in class we talked about what will be on our test tomorrow. Mr. Schick told us that the first 15 questions will be questions that we will have to look up in the CIA World Factbook in 20 minutes. He told us that we won't need to write full sentences, there's just going to be a blank that we fill in. After those questions, we are going to have multiple-choice questions on the topics that we covered in the population and settlement powerpoint. We went through the powerpoint today, and Mr. Schicck asked us what questions he might put on the test from looking at the powerpoint. One of the questions was why do women have a higher life expectancy than men. We talked about this yesterday, but no one could remember all of the reasons, the only ones we could remember were that women go to the doctors more and that men typically have riskier jobs. He told us that we will have to name two reasons for the test. He also told us that we are going to have to name two pulling forces and t

Today in class we went over the answers for our homework last night. The homework was to go onto the CIA World Factbook and answer the 21 questions that Mr. Schick posted on his blog. Mr. Schick did the assignment too, and he told us that it took him about 25 min, while it took almost everyone else around an hour. I finished in about 35 min because I did mine during my off mod so I was focused. As we reviewed each question, we would have a short discussion on each of the answers to determine if these facts were significant or important to us. One of the main discussions we had was about Mexico. The fact was that 82.7% of Mexicans are Roman Catholic, and this somehow leads to a discussion about how you wouldn't want to live in Mexico because it is very poor, has a high crime rate, and has many drug cartels. Then, Mr. Schick pointed out that there are also a lot in South America, and Colombia has the largest cartel of cocaine. One of the facts that stood out to me most was that  1.20

Today in class we watched a short video about how America isn't the greatest country. We had a short discussion about the video. After that Mr. Schick gave us the assignment to go onto the CIA World Factbook website and answer the following questions. 1) China’s population is 1,384,688,986. India’s population is 1,296,834,042. 2) Japan’s total fertility rate is 1.42. 3) The death rate in El Salvador is 5.8 deaths/1,000 population. 4) 23-28% of the French identify none as their religion. This is not verifiable because the French has a law that prohibits them from collecting data on peoples’ religious identity since 1872. 5) 82.7% of Mexicans identify as Roman Catholic. 6) The GDP per capita in the United States is $59,800. 7) The GDP per capita in Nigeria is $5,900. 8) The GDP per capita in Luxembourg is $105,100. 9) 76.2% of the United States’ population is internet users 10) There are 13,513 airports in the United States and 1,218 in Russia.

Today in class we continued to take notes on the population and settlement powerpoint. We learned that the birth rate is the number of births per 1000 of the population, and the death rate is the number of deaths per 1000 of the population. We also learned about the net migration rate which is the difference between the number of persons entering and leaving a country during a year. The powerpoint showed us that in 2016 the net immigration was 2.45, and it was 3.62 the year before that. We also learned that the net emigration rate in Mexico is -1.68, and the year before that it was -3.11. We learned that the net migration net in North Korea is 0 because no one is allowed to leave, and no one wants to come. Mr. Schick showed us that all women have a longer life expectancy than men. Then he asked us why we think this is true and some of the reasons were that women go to the doctors more frequently than men, men tend to do more reckless things than women, and there are usually more men th

Today in class we talked about life expectancy. We learned that life expectancy is  the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year. Mr. Schick asked us if people born when he was will live longer or shorter than people born in 2004-2005. Most people said that we would live longer because of all of the new technology that we have developed. Another reason we will live longer is that we are now able to do transplants, which we weren't able to do when Mr. Schick was born. Some points as to why people born when Mr. Schick will live longer were that there are a lot more drugs now, and there are a lot more people that are abusing them. Another reason is that the food we eat now is a lot worse for us than it was when Mr. Schick was growing up. Food now is more processed, and everyone is eating out at fast-food restaurants because it is quick and easy when you're constantly running from place to place. Mr. Schick told us that the population has doubl

Today in class we started our new unit on population and settlement. Mr. Schick had us write down the terms  life expectancy, birth rate, death rate, Rate of Natural Increase (RNI), infant mortality rate, immigrant, emigrant, Net Migration Rate, Total Fertility Rate (TFR), push forces, pull forces. We only got to the first slide of the powerpoint since our class was 40 min because of the pep rally. The first slide told us that there are 7.6 billion on the Earth right now and that 90% of the population growth takes place in Africa, South and East Asia, and Latin America. We learned that this because those countries don't have all the resources that can prevent birth like we do in the US. Women in the US also choose to give birth a lot later than women in those countries because most of them have jobs. Mr. Schick put a world population clock on the board and we watched the population go up and down. We learned that there is one birth every 8 seconds and 1 death every 11 seconds in th

Today in class we reviewed our map tests. I got an 81 on my test and I'm okay with that because Mr. Schick told us that our class average was about 75% so I'm glad that I did better than that. We went over all the answers and filled them out on a blank test sheet. There were two questions that every class got right and they were about cartography and time zones. There was one trick question that everyone got wrong, the question asked us if 93.154 degrees N, 95.599 degrees E is absolute location, relative location or neither, and the answer was neither. It was neither because there is no such thing as 93.154 degrees N, 95.599 degrees E. At the end of class, Mr. Schick told us that he would give us a 2 point curve because of the question that everyone got wrong, and there was a question about UTC that we didn't go over in class, so it won't count on the test. After that, Mr. Schick showed us a video of Beyonce.

Today in class we had a test on maps. I felt like it was a pretty fair test and we had learned all of the material in class. I felt pretty confident with most of my answers, but there were a few questions that I was unsure of. On the pop quiz I got longitude and latitude mixed up, so I made sure to be extra carfeul with that on the test. The section where I probably did the worst on was the section on absolute and relative location because that is what I studied the least. I couldn't tell if some locations were absolute or neither. The section where I felt most confident was the first page because I feel like we talked about those questions a lot in class, and they were pretty basic questions. I probably could've studied a little more than I did so I could have been surer of myself. Overall I think that I probably got a B on the test.

Today in class we finished up our debate and had a pop quiz on maps. We had two speakers left for the debate and they were both on the abolishing time zones side. After the last two speakers went, each side got to say their last points to their defense. Mr. Schick had all of the people who were undecided choose a side to be on, and they all chose the maintaining time zones side. Mr. Schick told us that we did a good job of letting everyone speak without interrupting them. He told us how a lot of adults have a problem with this, and he told us how his dad and brother were always in an argument. After that, we had a 10 question pop quiz on maps. I did not do very well on it, I got a 5/10. We have a 28 question test tomorrow on maps, so I am going to make sure I study the material so I do better on that.

Today in class we had our time zone debate. The first presenter was from the neutral group, then the maintaining time zones group went, and after that, the abolish time zones group went. We followed this pattern for the rest of the debate. I was the first person from my group to present my research. I talked about how time zones should be maintained because the system now works fine as it, so why change it? I also mentioned how it would be dark during the day in some parts of the Earth meaning that there would be some sort of light source that allows them to do all the things they would normally do in the daylight, but that would take a great deal of energy. After each person shared their points we had the opportunity to ask questions against them to help our case. We were able to fit every one but two people's presentations. I feel like my group did a good job with our research and that we had a lot of good points as to why maintaining time zones are good, and we had good opposing

Today in class Mr. Schick divided us by asking us whether we want to maintain time zones or abolish them, and if you were undecided, you were in a group with everyone else who is undecided. In our groups, we are supposed to prepare a debate on the group that we chose. I chose the maintain time zones side because I feel like our system works the way it is now, so why change it? We spent the rest of the class researching and some of the facts that I found were... -  Scientists made different time zones according to how the Earth’s rotation corresponds to the sun - Earth rotates 360 degrees in 24 hours - If there weren’t time zones, it’d be dark in some places when it’s light in other places, and that’d be very inconvenient for certain jobs that require sunlight - The places that are always dark will have to put lights everywhere and they will have to be very powerful, this would require a lot of electricity that doesn’t need to be used. Our debate is going to be on Friday.

Today in class we had a quiz on the maps of the Americas. I feel like a did pretty well on the test, I may have mixed up a few countries. I felt like I did a good job of preparing for the quiz and it was a very straightforward quiz. After the quiz, we learned about time zones. We talked about how every country is able to have its own system of time zones, even though the most logical way of spilting up time zones would be to divide the time zones by splitting up every 15 degrees. We talked about how time zones don't make any sense, but we are used to them, so it's normal for us. We learned that Austrailia splits their time zones by 30 minutes instead of 1 hour which most everyone else does. Mr. Shick also told us that North Korea also recently changed its time zones by 30 minutes. We also discussed how it's weird that the days change in the middle of the night rather than the morning. It's also strange that 12:00 is the start of the day, and not 1, which we use to start