Political Geography

Mexico                                   

Federal Republic

Enrique Pea Nieto

 

China

Communist State

Hu Jintao

 

India

Federal Republic

President Shri Pranab Mukherjee

Afghanistan

Islamic Republic

President Hamid Karzai

Iran

Theocratic Republic

President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad

Israel

Parliamentary Democracy

President Shimon Peres
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

 

Germany

Federal Republic

Angela Merkel- Chancellor- power
President Joachim Gauck

United Kingdom

Constitutional monarchy and Commonwealth realm

Prime Minister David Cameron
Queen Elizabeth

 

France

Republic

President François Hollande

Brazil

Federal Republic

President Dilma Rousseff

Venezuela

Federal Republic

President Hugo Chávez

Saudi Arabia

Monarchy

Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia (King)

                              

Test Review

What does Buddha stand for? the enlightened one
Where do most of the hindus in world live? india
Holy book of islam?
official language in brazil? portugese
Where did columbus land? near bahamas
islam will be largest religion in world in 20 or so years if population stays
oldest monotheistic: judiasm
 oldest  religion: hinduism
columbus was italian
Nirvana: perfect happiness, highest happiness
muslims pray five times a day facing Mecca
what do islam christianity judaism have in common: all are abrahamic, and have same God
what was the land bridge called the native americans crossed over: Beringian Straight
How many non religious people in world? billion

Twin Towers Part II

Today, our school was supposed to get bombed and fortunately it was not. I was kind of hoping it would mean we would not have to go to school anymore since it was bombed, but I guess it is never a good thing to wish to bomb a school. All of our classes today are shortened and I am extremely happy about it. We do not have time to do anything real hefty so it is going by quickly for me and I like that a lot. The only problem is that I did not get to finish my lunch so that was upsetting. For Human Geo class, we went to our normal classroom, but Mr. Schick was not there. How upsetting. We were sent to room 321 and waiting at least five or ten minutes for our sub, which I did not mind cause that added to the less time for class. When the sub got here, we were assigned to make 15 definitions that could make up our test which I need to study for for Friday.

Test Test Test Test

If I were to make a five question test on all the material we previously learned after our very first test, my questions would be:
1. Did the Vikings take care of the land? 2 parts.
They took very good care of their own land, but they did not respect other's.
2. What are the three cultural characteristics?

• language
• religion
• ethnic heritage

3. What does bilingual mean? Speaking two different languages
4. Which religion is one of the Abrahamic religions? Islam
5. What are the two holy cities in the Islam religion? Mecca and Medina

Mr. Schick's Hate List

Today in class, I learned a lot. At the very beginning, I am not sure how, but we started to tell horror stories about our adventures with stinkbugs. Mr. Schick's story almost made me want to pass out because I absolutely hate stink bugs. Even though I am a billion times their size, they scare me. I would not be surprised   if I have nightmares about them. We finally realized that we should start getting on task and learn what we are supposed to learn so we turned out attention to the Smart Board Mr. Schick had his power point shown on. As expected, we took a good ten or fifteen minutes talking about and trying to figure out how to slide the screen up and down. You can add that as number two on the list of Mr. Schick's pet peeves. Then as he started where we left off the last class, everyone was on there computer, but not me of course. So that took another five minutes to discuss Mr. Schick's hatred of open computers. #3. Then finally, for the rest of the class, we finished learning about our five religions and then we carried on with our lives because the bell rang.

Octubre 15, 2012

Today we did a lot of note taking. After all of the groups had finished presenting their power points on their research of the first settlers, it was Mr. Schick's turn to present. Our homework from Friday was due by midnight on Saturday and we had to look up the five main religions in the world. It was fairly easy and I knew a lot already coming from a Catholic School. In class, we finished the lesson about world characteristics and continued it with going over one of the main characteristics, religion. There are many types of religions in this world and Christianity is the most populated. There are over two billion Christians and the rest are close in comparison. There are many things that can bring our world together, but there are most likely even more ways to separate each ethnic group through discrimination. We are all from the same species, how is it that we are so different, we feel the need to kill each other for it.

October 12, 2012

Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism - and answer these questions about each one.

• When and where was this religion founded?
• Is it monotheistic or polytheistic?
• If they have a holy book, what is it?
• How many followers does this religion claim?
• Who is the central figure of this religion?
• What is the geographical concentration of this religion?

Christianity approximately began around 30 AD in Palestine (http://library.thinkquest.org/28505/christianity/print.html). The belief of Christianity is that there is one overall God, therefor it is monotheistic. The Christians worship one God and one God only so He is their central figure of their religion along with His son, Jesus Christ. There are over two billion Christians all around the world all and they all study the books of the Bible containing sacred writings of events in their faith (http://www.pewforum.org/christian/global-christianity-exec.aspx). Christianity is mainly practiced geographically in North and South America.

The founder of the Islamic religion was the Prophet Muhammad in 622 in Saudi Arabia (http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_intr.htm) The Islamic worshipers are know as Muslims and they are monotheistic  They believe in one God and they call him Allah (http://www.nicheoftruth.org/pages/who_do_muslim_worship.htm). He is the central figure of their religion and they follow only him. The Muslims believe in the Quran, which is a sacred book authored by Allah that was made known to Muhammad (wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). The Islamic religion takes approximately 23% of the world's population with over 1.6 billion believers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_world). The Islamic religion is mainly practiced North of Africa.

Buddhism was founded in Northern India around the fourth or fifth century (http://answerplease.infoplease.com/node/33571). Buddhists are neither monotheistic nor polytheistic because they do not believe in a God or gods. Some of the Buddhists can believe in a God, gods, or no God and still be a Buddhist follower. Buddhism is most popular in the center of Asia.
Hinduism was founded in 1500 BC in India (http://www.religionfacts.com/hinduism/fastfacts.htm).Hinduism is polytheistic meaning they have many gods (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gods_are_there_in_Hinduism). Hinduism has four vedas which are the holy books they study, the Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/). There are 900 million Hindus in the world and they all worship twenty-eight main gods (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_Gods_do_Hindus_have). Hinduism is mainly practice South of Asia.
Abraham founded Judiasm in Isreal around 2000 BC (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_was_Judaism_founded). Judiasm is a monothestic religion because Jews only believe in one God (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_Judaism_monotheistic_or_polytheistic). Jews have a holy book called Torah and there are approximately 13.4 million Jews in the world (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Does_judaism_have_any_holy_books). Jews only follow one God but they have several names for Him such as Adonay or Elohim (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_do_Jews_call_their_God). Judiasm is practiced mostly in Israel.

October 11, 2012

Today my group finished their presentation on Christopher Columbus and for the rest of the period we listened to Mr. Schick's. As always, our class is hilarious and it makes everything ten times easily to learn because I enjoy the class and I want to be there. Yesterday, I forgot to bring my book at home and I needed to request permission to look at the slides, but I remembered to bring it today so I am going to put all of my notes as a lesson learned from our last test.
Native Americans:
found DNA of the modern day Asian heritage 14,300 years old
place of arrival- North America, pacific coastline
-east on Rocky Mountains
Indo-Europeans > migrating
How they got there- from russia, crossed land bridge (Beringian Straight) into Alaska
Were they first? Yes, reason they are called Native Americans> indigenous
Did they have to fight? No, the land was untouched
were the sent there? not really, just looking for a place to settle
Been living there for thousands of years
took care of land since it is what they lived off of, they believed it was spiritual, one w/nature

VIKINGS
looking for greenland, found america instead
Leif Erikson sailed over North America, passed through from Greenland
fight? no, did not find a point
came on their own, raiding people
stayed for about 350 years in little mass #'s
very respectful of their own land, destroyed other's

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
1492
sailed 4 voyages on the Santa Maria, Nina, Pinta
He sailed across the Atlantic Ocean that led to the American continents
was not the first to arrive in America
Christopher Columbus  fought to conquer the Americas.He captured  many Indians using force to bring them back to the Queen. He also raped many young women.
 Columbus had stayed in America because he thought he had landed in India
He did not respect the land, took over from Natives by resettling, building, and conquering

CULTURE
Characteristics:
-parts of group's every day life
-ideas, themes they teach to members
-may link to dividing or linking a region

language: Arabic unites the Arab world
Spanish unites the Hispanic world
Brazil primarily speaks Portugese
-only south american nation to not speak spanish
Canada is Billingual
^ french and english
Switzerland- multiple languages, little conflict
English- considered world language for business transactions
Lingua Franca

October 10, 2012

Today we presented our second power point project of the year with groups. I was very interested in this assignment and I was glad that my group had to do research on Christopher Columbus. I thought that he was  a well rounded and decent guy until I learned about the things he did to the Indians when he arrived in America. We also learned about the Vikings and the Native Americans. Most people are taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America but in fact, he did not. He was the third person to find America and the Indians were first. They were nomadic people so it was not so much as an accident. The Vikings like to move place to place with violence. Christopher Columbus "accidentally" found America. I think that everyone's presentation was well written and easy to follow.

October 8, 2012

Today was the luckiest day of my life. I am very fond of where I sit in Human Geography class and I love the people who I sit near. I am probably the luckiest person in the class as of today because I have the privilege to sit next to our new student from Nigeria, Michael. Michael is really nice and I introduced myself to him and we worked together on our new group project. I could not have asked for a better group to do the assignment because they are all willing to do the work and I know they will do it. The assignment is fun because I have never really got into detail about Christopher Columbus and I want to know more. I am actually really excited to present tomorrow.

October 5, 2012

Today we took our second test. I had no idea we had a test and I started to panic. Thank God we were allowed to look at our notes for fifteen minutes and I was also thankful that I actually paid attention to the movie. I always remember things easier if I enjoy learning it. I knew everything on the test because of my awesome note taking and my memory of an elephant's. I did not know exactly how to spell Syracuse and I wanted to make sure I was guessing right so all I had to do was look down and my sweatshirt and read it since it is from Syracuse University. The only other word I did not know how to spell was fare and that was most likely the easiest word on the test. Carly’s third shadow of the year had read out all of the answers and I got one wrong and spelled one wrong as well. I knew that Pittsburgh had an “h” on the end, but I did not want to take my chances and knowing my luck, I was wrong. I wrote my answer down as "Pittsburg."

October 4, 2012

Today we had a shadow. We spent almost half the class admiring her and asking her questions about herself. Delaney was rather quiet, but I think she did not mind us one bit. We are a pretty humorous clan. We then talked about our organizations and I saw a lot that I knew and a lot that I had never heard of. I think it shows a lot when people give back and help out. Even though some may be struggling as well, they still find the money and time to help out others. That is exactly what John Bul Dau did and now he is more successful then anyone, even himself, thought he would ever be. I believe in karma. I believe that great things will happen to good people and even though bad things do happen to good people, it is how they react and change from it that make them a better person and that is always good.

October 3, 2012

Today was rather simple but frustrating. Mr. Schick had told us about the previous class and why they got in trouble and I thought it to be silly for that to happen with my class, but no. It was very frustrating to have everything I typed deleted. There was no way of telling who it was so that is why is kept happening. Eventually the goons stopped and I was able to write down my two organizations that I had listed from the top of my head. My partner was Melissa and it was a privilege to work with her. We finished early so we sat there playing with here turtles on her iGoogle page. They were so much fun watching and you can even feed them. As we were downloading a hamster to play with, the bell had rung because it took forever to download. Hopefully next class we will have spare time to play with the virtual hamster

October 1, 2012

Today was our last day of watching the video, God Grew Tired of Us. I was almost in tears the whole time while watching the video. If only every American had the heart and will of each and every lost boy, there would be hardly any wrong in this world. It was very pleasing to hear that many had found and reunited with their family and heartbreaking for those who were unfortunate to not. I think that this was a good way to show that in America, there is always room to help. We are a very fortunate country and it is almost impossible to believe that persecution is still going on in our world. I wish to help John Bul Dau in any way I can. I was thinking that maybe we could have a bake sale and sell our home-baked goods at one of our Varsity Football games and send the money attached to letters to the John Dau Foundation. It is the littlest we could do for him and I would be honored to have him come here and talk to us or maybe even Skype!