Alex's Western Civilization Blog

Today was the day of the test, but I had to leave for my track meet, so I was not in class today.

Today in class we had more time to work on our essays for the essay test tomorrow. I will not be taking my essay test tomorrow because I have a track meet at 1 so I will be missing class. Mr. Schick told me and everyone else to write Ms. Cathell and Mr. Hollin an email telling them we won't be there for the test and to see when we can make it up. I asked if I can make my test up on Wednesday at noon because that's the same day as our human geo exam so the information will be fresh in my brain. After I got that sorted out, I spent the rest of the class organizing my facts for the essay. Mr. Schick is letting us bring a notecard to the test to help us. I am going to write all of my bullet points from on the notecard and write an essay at home to practice for the test. I have written about half of my notes on the card, so I will finish the rest this weekend since I won't be taking my test until Wednesday. After that, the class ended.

Today in class we prepared for our essay test. The test is this Friday and we will have 55 minutes to handwrite a five-paragraph essay. We have three options to choose from, the first option is to choose three nations and discuss the challenges they face and things they are doing to improve, the second option is to compare, explain, and list ways to improve two different population pyramids, and the third option is to describe the stages of the demographic transition including countries as examples. The essay topic that I am going to write about is the third option, which is to explain the demographic transition. My plan is to have the first paragraph to explain the demographic transition, the second paragraph explain stages 1 and 2, and add some examples, the third paragraph will explain stages 3 and 4, and add some examples, the fourth paragraph will explain the fifth stage and will have some examples, and the last paragraph will be a recap of my main points. I spent most of the clas

Today in class we took our demographic transition test. I forgot to write down that we have a test in my notes, so I forgot that the test was today. However, I got to school pretty early today so I had some time to study before the day started. Even though I was unprepared, the test wasn't too difficult because we talked about most of this stuff during class. I think that I will probably get a B or a C on this test. I probably would've one a little better if I had better prepared myself but I tried to remember as much as I could from class. This test was worth fifty points, so hopefully, I do okay on it. After we all finished our tests, we talked a little bit about our exam and essay test. For the essay test, Mr. Schick is going to post the questions on his blog and we can write a practice essay before the test and have a friend read over it so you can be prepared. That is going to make this a lot easier since we will already know what we want to write about. That test will be

Today in class we rewatched the Khan Academy video in demographic transition video. At the beginning of class Mr. Schick to a vote on which of the three videos we liked the best from our assignment yesterday. The video that had the most votes was the Khan Academy one so we watched that again. I voted for the Kim Smith video because it had more pictures and her voice wasn't monotone. The Khan Academy video was the one I struggled with most because it doesn't show any pictures, and it just stays on the same screen the whole time. They draw stuff on the screen to show the different stages, but it feels kind of boring to me which makes it hard to follow. The Khan Academy said that there are five stages instead of four. Mr. Schick told us that most sources will say that there are four stages, but there could be a fifth stage in the future. The fifth stage isn't solidified yet because there aren't many countries that are in this stage yet, but there are countries that are get

Mr. Schick was out today so we had a sub. He gave us the assignment to watch the three videos that he posted about demographic transition and write three facts that we learned from each video. After we finished writing our facts and watching the videos, we have to write about which video we liked the best and why. Khan Academy Video: 1) The growth rate measures how much the population of a country grows or shrinks over some time period. 2) To figure out the growth rate of a country, you count how many people were added to the population, and how many people were removed. (growth rate = ((current - initial)/initial) x 100) 3) Most countries have positive growth rates because there are economic benefits since children can work to help support the family, the government sometimes provides incentives to families for each child, and religion influences population growth, because it usually promotes large families. Video from Kim Smith, Ph.D.: 1) Since the Agricultural Revolution t

Today in class we continued learning about demographic transition. We first went over the packet that we highlighted and read about each of the stages of demographic transition. Stage one is the low growth stage. During the first stage, there is a very high crude birth rate, a very high crude death rate, and a very low rate of natural increase. Most of human history was spent in stage one, but there is no country today that is still in stage one. During stage two there is a high crude birth rate, rapidly declining crude death rate, and a very high rate of natural increase. Europe and North America entered stage two as a result of the industrial revolution. In the late-twentieth-century, developing countries entered stage two due to the medical revolution. During stage three there is a rapidly declining crude birth rate, moderately declining crude death rate, and a moderate rate of natural increase. Countries move from stage two to stage three when people have fewer children. During sta

Today in class we read through and highlighting keys parts from a section of a new human geography textbook that we will be using sometimes. At the beginning of class, we talked about how we have less than 3 weeks left of school, and that we have an essay test on Friday, December 13. We will have the whole class period to work on our essay. After that discussion, Mr. Schick told us that we haven't had a textbook in the class for a while because the textbook that they used to use a way too complicated and wasn't made for a freshman in high school. They weren't able to find a book that was right for this class until now. Mr. Schick printed out a few pages from a chapter of this new textbook on demographic transition and we were supposed to read and highlight it.  It wasn't too hard to follow because it had a lot to do with our population and settlement unit. After we read and highlighted the packet, Mr. Schick handed back our 5 religions quiz and we went over the answers