Class 10/31, Halloween and Test Grades

Today in class we celebrated Halloween with some candy. We actually had a lot of candy. Amon came and got some and then he got yelled for not tucking in his shirt. I had fruit snacks and Kit Kats. I was rather pleased. Then Mr. Schick started handing back our tests. I actually did way better than I thought I did. I thought I got a C. I didn't thank God. We went over the test questions so that we could address any problems that people may have had. Mr. Schick also said that he needs to start making his tests harder which I strongly disagree with. I felt as though the test we took was pretty difficult I had to think about some of the questions for a rather long time.
Notes:
Why do people migrate?:
-Push Forces

• Civil war 
• Environmental degradation
• Unemployment or underemployment
• Religious or ethnic persecution 

-Pull Forces:

• Better economic opportunity 
• Better health services
• Religious or political freedom 

Class 10/30, Life Expectancy

Today in class Frankie brought in doughnut holes from Dunkin Donuts. This was very much appreciated. Especially since he said that he was more than likely going to completely forget to bring anything in.  In class we continued to talk about life expectancy and the different things that can contribute to it.
Notes:

• Crude Birth Rate: number of deaths per 1000 of the population
• Rate of Natural Increase (RNI)- produced by subtracting the death rate from the birth rate, this gives us the annual natural growth, in percentage form, for a country or region
• Net Migration Rate: the difference between the number of persons entering and leaving a country during a year
• An excess of persons entering the country is net immigration, written as a positive number, example: Canada has 5.65 migrants per 1000 population, United States: 2.45 (it was 3.62 in 2015)
• An excess of persons leaving the country is net emigration, written as a negative number, example: Mexico has -1.68 migrants per 1000 population, -3.31 two years ago, -3.11 last year

Class 10/26, New Unit

Today in class we started out new unit called "Population and Settlement".  We had candy that Ashley brought. We did not get out test grades back which was rather upsetting, not going to lie. I just hope that I didn't fail. This is the last class the I am waiting on for my final grade for the end of the first quarter.
Notes:

• People on land- population and settlement
• Over 7.5 billion people on the planet now 
• Increasing by over 73 million people per year
• increasing by approx. 200,000 people per day
• 90% of this population growth takes place in the developing countries of Africa, South and East Asia, and Latin America
• the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year- life expectancy 
• High: Monaco (89.52 total: 85.63 men, 93.58 women)
• A billion people on Earth was reached in 1804 
• Now every 12 years we grow 1 billion people 

Class 10/25, Test Day

Today we took our test on Thinking Geographically. It wasn't the most pleasant of experiences. My poor shadow had to endure the pain of this test with us. Mr. Schick gave me a tissue during the test to help dry my nonexistent tears which was very helpful. The test itself made my head hurt. Plus it was already hurting before the test so I was not in the best mood. I really wanted to just take a nap in all honesty. I really do not know if I did good or not on that test. Sydney on the other hand thinks she failed the whole thing. I may have done the same. I'm just really not sure at this point. I also don't think it is fair for teachers to be shoving all this information at us at the end of the quarter and giving a big test so that they can enter more grades. It is killing a lot of people's grades.

Class 10/24, Test Questions

Today in class we started our food schedule with Jamie and Sydney bringing in food. Sydney brought cookies and Jamie brought Snickers. We then all made three questions we would like to see on the test and shared them. Mr. Schick said the ones he thought were good questions and had us write them down.

My Three Test Questions:

• What is a geographic coordinate system?
• Which map shows an accurate representation of the world? - Peters World Map
• Is time real? Explain. 

Class Questions:

• Every place occupies a unique location/ position on the Earth's surface, true
• Geographers use maps as their primary tool for not only identifying points on the Earth's surface but to compare phenomenas between different places, true
• What is the art and science of making maps?- cartography
• How many different time zones are there?- 27 time zones 
• the Prime Meridian- starts at the North Pole, ends at the South Pole, 0 degrees longitude, goes through Greenwich, UK
• Latitude- ladder, east to west
• 0 degrees latitude-
• 0 degrees longitude is always the Prime Meridian- true
• GPS- Global Positioning System
• What is Sir Sanford Fleming famous for?- He proposed a world wide system of time zones in 1879. 
• What is the difference between a place and a region?- a place is the unique location of a feature while a region is an area of unique characteristics. 
• What is globalization?- a force or process that involves the entire world and results in making something worldwide in scope. 
• Give an example of thinking globally and acting locally, describe the advantages and disadvantages of this approach? Ex: to help reduce air pollution put out by cars, you could ride your bike to places that are close instead of driving. this could only really make a difference if large groups of people did this.

Class 10/20, Stitches and Test Overview

Today in class it started with food. Sydney had doughnuts and Faith brought in cookies. We also decided to make a food schedule so that we can have food in class everyday. We then started to share tragic stories involving stitches, golf clubs, and forks. Then started to review for our test next week.

Notes:

• Every place on Earth has a unique position/ location on the Earth's surface, true
• Geographers use maps as their primary tool for not only identifying points on the Earth's surface but to compare phenomenas between different places, true
• What is the art and science of making maps?- cartography
• How many different time zones are there?- 24 time zones
• The Prime Meridian- starts at the North Pole, ends at the South Pole, 0 degrees longitude, goes through Greenwich, UK
• latitude- ladder, east to west
• 0 degrees latitude- equator
• 0 degrees longitude always the prime meridian, true
• GPS- Global Positioning System

Class 10/19, Tears and Global Warming

Today was a sad day. No questions asked. I cried and I do not regret it. Dogs are great animals and we do not deserve them. After Sydney, Kelsie, and I had our moments in the back of the room, we moved on with the lesson. I was looking at pictures of my dog through out class to keep me going. We transitioned into the subject of global warming. We were discussing whether or not it is really a thing. Some people argue that it isn't because the world goes through cycles of temperature change all the time. Although there is real evidence supported by scientists everywhere saying that it is indeed a thing and it is already starting to become an issue in the environment. Some large coal and fuel companies are paying off scientists to say that there isn't concrete evidence to support the argument. These companies are the reason the green house gases are being released into the atmosphere. By them having scientists say there isn't enough evidence is supporting their company to keep selling their products.

Class 10/18, Sub and Global Thinking

Today in class we had a sub is was Mr. Torres. We were supposed to take notes on the rest of Mr. Schick's blog.
Notes:

• "Think global, act local"- there are problems effecting environment at large that can be fixed or helped by actions being taken in communities
• Geographers in today's society have revised this phrase and changed it to say "Think and act both global and local" 
• "All scales from local to global are important in geography—the appropriate scale depends on the specific subject. Geography matters in the contemporary world because it can explain human actions at all scales, from local to global. At the national and international scales, geography is concerned with such questions as where the population is growing rapidly, where the followers of different religions live, and where corporations place factories. Geography also studies why these arrangements can cause problems."
• This means that the type of scale used in describing a location is really important because it helps puts the answers to questions in perspective in a number sense 
• Globalization Scale- a force or process the involves the entire world and results in making something worldwide in scope
• Globalization- the scale of the world is shrinking—not literally in size, of course, but in the ability of a person, object, or idea to interact with a person, object, or idea in another place. 

Assignment:

Try answer these questions about each item: What company made them? Where is that company from? Where was your specific product made? Enter this information in your blog.

• My phone- Apple, Cupertino, California, China
• My laptop- Apple, Cupertino, California, China
• Globalization definitions: the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale, the act of extending to other or all parts of the world, worldwide integration and development
• Brands- Apple, American Eagle, Target

Class 10/16, Oil

Today in class we started to discuss the concept of local to global.
Notes:

• Geographers think about scale at many levels, from local to global
• At the global scale, encompassing the entire world, geographers tend to see broad patterns
• People all doing their part to grow or buy locally grown/ made products so that less products are being shipped from overseas causing less fossil fuels to be burned releasing green house gases into the environment/ atmosphere
• If large groups of people started to buy locally it would start to make a change in the economy
• The same thing would happen if large groups of people shifted to using solar energy
• Oil companies would suffer dramatically if this shift occurred so they have made an extreme effort to make it seem as though it is so expensive and it would take a long time to actually profit off it installing them 
• We are the number one importing of oil in the world even though we are the third largest producer of oil in the world 

Class 10/13, Pastafarian

Today in class I learned about a very interesting religion. Mr. Schick introduced to the religion of Pastafarian. In this religion they worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I found this so funny. I even found a Pastafarian prayer that mimics the Our Father. This is the prayer, "Our pasta, who art in colander, draining be your noodles. Thy noodle come, Thy sauce be yum, on top of some grated Parmesan. Give us this day our garlic bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trample our lawns. And lead us not into vegetarianism, but deliver us pizza, for thine meatball, the noodle, and the sauce, forever and ever.". Moving onto what we did in class,  in class we finished labeling the top 25 countries in the world on the maps we were given. After we did that we all shared a fun fact about any country of our choice on CIA.gov. I chose Guam. My fun fact was that Guam has been under the control of many different countries and that it is a very important U.S military base because of its location.

Class 10/12, Pop Quiz and CIA

Today in class Mr. Schick had a present for us. Our favorite present of all time, a pop quiz. It was not as bad as I thought it was going to be honestly. I thought my grade was gong to die when I took that quiz. Now, that I am reflecting on it, it probably didn't. I can hope it didn't at least. After we took the pop quiz we started to discuss Mr. Schick's favorite website, cia.gov. We learned how vital this website could be when doing a research project on another country. He showed us all the features available to us and much in-depth information the CIA has on different countries across the world. Using the different features on website we looked at the different growth rates, birth rates, and death rates in countries. We also were able to view the prominent religions within countries and their rank of importance within in the world. After we explored the website, we then worked on a worksheet in which we had to label the 25 most important countries in the world on a map.

Class 10/6, Longitude and Latitude

In today's class we learned about longitude and latitude. We talked about how it makes each point on Earth unique.
Notes:

• a geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to specified by a set of number, etc. 
• the geographic grid is a system of imaginary arcs drawn in a grid pattern on Earth's surface
• Meridians are arcs drawn between the North and South poles. Each is numbered, according to a system known as latitude
• Values range from 0 degrees (prime meridian) to 180 degrees east to west longitude 
• Parallels are arcs drawn parallel to the equator and at right angles to meridians, each is numbered according to a system known as latitude
• What's the difference between parallels and meridians? - parallels: latitude, east to west, meridians: longitude, north to south
• Tropic of Cancer: 23.5 degrees N
• Equator- 0 degrees
• Tropic of Capricorn: 23.5 degrees S
• the area between the Tropic of Cancer and Capricorn is known as the tropics
• Meridians intersect at the poles 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swKBi6hHHMA 

Class 10/5, Time Zones and Mind Blown

Today's class really took my mind to another dimension. Literally. We discussed in class why the whole word isn't on the same time all the time. For example, why isn't it 9am everywhere at once. My argument is that the reason that all around the countries around the world is because of the circadian rhythm that humans have keeps them awake during the day and asleep at night. If the time all around the world was the same, then this would interrupt the sleep patterns of different individuals across the world. Now that I look back once this, it was really the best argument. As the discussion went on, we came to the conclusion as a class that the present time really doesn't exist. I also made the point that time is essentially something that humans made up to provide order and structure in their lives. We could live without the reference of time it is just that it help us manage what we are doing. Animals are a perfect example of how organisms can live without time. Animals just simply react to their surroundings and their actions are based off what they instinctual feel. We then started to talk about the way time zones came about. Here are some points that I thought were important from Mr. Schick's blog:

• Sir Sandford Fleming proposed a worldwide system of time zones in 1879. He advocated his system at several international conferences, and is thus credited with the instigation of "the initial effort that led to the adoption of the present time meridians."
• His first proposal was for a global 24-hour clock, conceptually located at the center of the Earth and not linked to any surface meridian. In 1879 he specified that his universal day would begin at the anti-meridian of Greenwich (180th meridian), while conceding that hourly time zones might have some limited local use. 
• By about 1900, almost all time on Earth was in the form of standard time zones, only some of which used an hourly offset from GMT.
• Today, all nations use standard time zones for secular purposes, but they do not all apply the concept as originally conceived.

Class 10/4, Regions in the U.S.

Today in class we finished making regions in the United States based off their political affiliation and geographic location. We also had a discussion about how Mr. Schick believes that our uniforms should pilot suits. I do not agree with this uniform choice whether it or not it would be more fair towards the girls. I separated my regions by the sections in the United Staes they are.

My Regions:

West Coast Democratic Region:

• Washington
• Oregon
• California 
• Hawaii

Northern East Coast Democratic Region:

• Maine
• Vermont
•  New Hampshire
• New York
• Massachusetts
• Rhode Island
• Connecticut 
• Pennsylvania
• New Jersey
• Maryland 
• Delaware

North-West Democratic Region: 

• Minnesota
• Michigan
• Illinois 
• Ohio

Central America Republican Region:

• Texas
• Oklahoma
• Nebraska
• Kansas
• South Dakota
• North Dakota

South- East Republican Region:

• Louisiana
• Arkansas
• Georgia 
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Kentucky
• Missouri
• Mississippi
• Alabama

Mid-West Republican Region:

• Arizona
• Utah
• Idaho
• Montana
• Wyoming
• Alaska

Undecided Region:

• Florida
• Nevada
• Virginia
• Ohio
• Indiana 
• Colorado
• New Mexico
• Iowa
• North Carolina

Class 10/2, Regions and Cultural Landscape

Today in class we discussed new terms and started to create regions for the states based off whether they were republican or democratic in the 2004, 2008, 2012 elections.

Notes:

• Regions and the cultural landscape- a sense of place humans may possess
• Region- an area of Earth defined by one or more distinctive characteristics 
• Cultural Landscape- an area fashioned from nature by a combination of both physical and human characteristics that uniquely define places and area
• Several neighboring countries that share important features can be a region
• Regions can range in size from anything larger than a point to anything smaller than the planet
• Ex: Chicago and Latin America
• “Culture is the agent, the natural area the medium, the cultural landscape is the result.” Ultimately, Sauer and other geographers believed that it was the combination of both physical and human characteristics that uniquely defined places and areas."
• A cultural landscape is made up of "a combination of cultural features such as language and religion, economic features such as agriculture and industry, and physical features such as climate and vegetation."