Sick

I’m sick

test day

Today we had our first Western Civ test. Overall it was easy and I think I did really good on it. The only thing I know I got wrong was the spelling of ziggurat because I spelled it as ziggarat. We also had ten minutes before class to study for the test. After we took the test, we started to take notes on chapter 2. It’s about Egypt and it’s environment. The part I took notes on is about how the Nile was the reason Egypt was able to be civilized in the first place, because it fertilized a small part of the desert land for them to live. It gave the silt to grow crops on and allowed them to irrigate the crops during the fall and winter. The Nile also had some disadvantages like how if it flooded a few inches less then usual, then less crops could grow and thousands of people would starve. If the Nile flooded a few inches more than usual, then it could destroy houses and granaries. It also only provided a thin strip of fertile land and it was surrounded by desert so they could really talk to or communicate with other places.

test tomorrow

Today in class we watched a video on Sumer and Mesopotamia. The class was not very cool about it like Mr. Shick said, but I think we were just processing it. We also watched a few other videos like what the old broadcasting elective used to do, and a John Carroll student on American Idol. I don’t know why they change it to sports broadcasting but if it was normal broadcasting, then I might do it. I know they changed it to sports broadcasting to advertise the school sports but the normal broadcasting elective sounded a lot more fun. The test tomorrow is the 75 point test and I think I will do good on it. I am just skeptical of the fill in the blank questions but I just I’m going to look over the PowerPoint on the blog. I will also try to use Dans quizlet that Mr.Schick approved of.

test in two days

Today I found out that we have a test in two days. Yay. We just did some matching terms and her are the one that he went over:

• Epic of Gilgamesh - worlds first surviving story about creation and great floods
• Cultural Diffusion - process in which a new idea or a product spreads from one culture to another
• Fertile Crescent -regions curved shape & richness of its land
• Mesopotamia - Greek meaning "land between rivers"
• Polytheism - belief in many gods
• Irrigation - he supply of water to land or crops to help growth, typically by means of channels
• Cuneiform - first system of writing known
• Dynasty - series of rulers from a single family
• Zigarrat - Sumerian temple built on a big hill
• Countries in Fertile C - iran,iraq,syria,turkey
• Neolithic Age (New Stone Age) - Marked by advanced tool making and agriculture
• Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age) - Earliest prehistoric age
• City-State - a city & its surrounding lands functioning as an independent political unit
• Hammurabi's code - 282 laws and distributed in stone plaques across the empire
• Silt - soil left behind when flood water receed

hammurabis code

Today in class we took more notes on the PowerPoint, and we are now talking about the different laws in Hammurabi's code. An example of one I found is " Any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser." I think it is interesting how they judge these punishments and how many different crimes they have in it. The notes from yesterday were about how Sumer was one of the first known civilizations and how htye had large populations in their city-states, had a well organized workforce of jobs like priests and kings< made an empire< and had very advanced technologies. Some of the notes are:

A MESS O' MESOPOTAMIA

• Wondering nomads drove herds of domesticated animals in many areas especially Africa
• Sumer was conquered by the Akkadians in 2350 B.C.
• The Akkadians forced the Sumerians to worship their gods
• King Hammurabi of Babylon created "Hammurabi's Code" - laws that included "an eye for an eye" and regulations of marriage, divorce, and punishments for crimes

pg. 34 question 5

      What areas of life did Hammurabi's Code cover?


   5.  Hammurabi's code covers 282 specific laws about things like family relations, business     conduct, and crime.  The laws set different punishments for the rich & poor and men & women, and it protects women and children. The laws tell us about the Mesopotamians beliefs and what they valued. These laws included "an eye for an eye" and regulations of marriage, divorce, and punishments for all sorts of crimes.

We also started to take notes on the PowerPoint:

• 200,000 years ago a human species emerged in equatorial Africa
• 14,000 years ago, a "worldwide" human race existed
• Earliest prehistoric age is the Paleolithic Age (Old stone age)
• Neolithic Age (New Stone Age) was marked by advanced tool making and agriculture
• initially humans were parts of migrating groups
  

first western civ class

Today was my first western civilization class. We had to do pg.34 questions 1 & 3

1.

• Fertile Crescent - Regions curved shape and the richness of its land
• Mesopotamia - Greek meaning “land between rivers” / region between the Tigris and Euphrates 
• City-state - A city and it’s surrounding lands functioning as an independent political unit
•  Dynasty - Series of rulers from a single family
• Cultural Diffusion - Process in which a new idea or a product spreads from one culture or another
• Polytheism - Belief in more than one god

• Empire - An extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority

• Hammurabi - Hammurabi was the sixth king of the First Babylonian dynasty of the Amorite tribe reigning from c. 1792 BC to c. 1750 BC

3.

                   The three things the Sumerians suffered with were:

1. Unpredictable flooding  combined with periods of little to no rain
2. Natural resources of Sumer were limited, and building materials and other items were scarce 
3. No natural barrier for protection

          

last class

Today is the last human geo class we have. I am not really upset or anything though because I have Mr.Shick for Western Civilization. I am in class 201 and i only know that Laura is in my class. People are just re-taking tests so I am bored and have nothing to do. I have no idea what to write about. I think Western Civ. will be so much fun because in 7th grade I loved learning about the different empires and their cultures. I love that kind of history, so I think I will have a lot fun in that class. I will probably have more fun in that class then i did in this one, but it also depends on the people who are in my class. I am not with the people i am with in this class, so I hope it is still fun. We will have about twenty three people and i am "Ok" witht he people in my class. I will miss some of the people in this class with me but I also think I will have fun wiht my new class. I feel like it will be like the first day of school again next Tuesday because I will have to get used to a whole new class of people and I will have some new teachers too. I am looking forward to my new class and what we will learn. I also hope we watch more jeopardy.

test day for guns, germs, and steel

Today we took the Guns, Germs, and Steel test and it was really easy. It was a 26 multiple question test on the scantron. Mr. Shick made the test on a yellow paper that Claire did not like, and played some weird relaxing music. Now we are reading the comments and it is funny. I have no idea what else to write because that is all we have done. These comments are super interesting and "enlightening" but not really. I just watched a Jesus lizard run in slow motion. Why are the comments like this. People are posting lots of personal information like being on the front lines of war listening to this. I still do not know what to type but I am trying to hit 150 words. When we take notes it is a lot easier to do blogs than when we do nothing the whole class.

Teen Jeopardy

Today in class we reviewed for our test tomorrow. Most of us knew the stuff from the video, so I think we all will do really good. In class we watched teen Jeopardy and it was really interesting. It was surprising how we knew a lot of the answers that some of the contestants didn’t even know. There was one question about Minecraft that most of us knew, and we were all cheering for Porter to make a comeback but he didn’t. For some reason he guess the Hope Diamond instead of the Statue of Liberty. Our whole geography class got it right, but he could’ve had stage fright or something. I also didn’t know Jeopardy was even on Netflix but it might be something cool to watch. It’s funny how Porter got every single daily double and got all of them wrong because if he got them right he would’ve won. We also debated on the pronunciation of caramel because Giada pronounces it as “car-a-Mel”. Hers is obviously wrong because it is pronounced “care-a-mel”. I don’t think there is a wrong pronunciation of a word though because it’s mostly based on preference. Salmon is another word that is weird like that. I hope I do really good on the test because it will be the last test grade in human geo.

Pow Wow!!!!!!!

geographic luck

Today in class we watched more of the video. Before that though we took a survey on Mr.Shick's teaching and learned about the upcoming Pow Wow event. The Pow Wow goes from 10am to 7pm and consists of different vendors and Native American traditions. In the video today we learned that farming developed in the Middle East first with wheat and barley, then China with rice, the Americas with corn,squash,and beans, and Africa with millet, sorghum, and yams. New Guineans have also been farming for over 10,000 years but they can only grow crops that are not nutritious and low on protein, which gives the people protein deficiency and it also takes a long time and lots of work to plant these crops. Every great civilization has started by growing their farming industry, but then why is New Guinea the same? Diamond thinks it's because of Geographical luck which means some people got great crops and animals to domesticate, while other countries did not. 9,000 years ago the Middle East and other countries started to use animal domestication to get a permanent supply of meat, but they discovered you can also get things like milk, fur, skins, work power, and more. Plan ts and animals also work together because the plants give animals food, and the animals fertilize the soil. Goats and sheep were the first animals domesticated. New Guinea also lost the Geographic Lottery by not having any animals like this that can be domesticated. 14 animals have been domesticated by humans so far: Goats, Sheep, Pigs, Cows, Horses, Donkeys, Bactrian camels, Arabian camels, Water buffalo, Llamas, reindeer, Yaks, Mithams, and Bali cattle. TBC

dogs, cats, and steel

Today in class we had a few little surprises. The first surprise was when Mr.Shick brought a dog into class for a few minutes and we got to pet him. The dog also caught the tennis ball we threw so he was pretty chill. We also got to see how Mr.Shick’s vacation was and we found out that his daughter is getting married!!!!! This is a really important moment for Mr.Shick and it means a lot to my class that he showed us the pictures. We also watched more of Guns, Germs, and Steel where we figured out that the three main characteristics that great civilizations have in common are Large Populations, Organized Work force, and I forgot the other one. We also learned that there was a small village called Draa or Daar that is the oldest found village ever. It had what archeologists think was a granary where the people probably had a steady food source. Guns, Germs, and Steel pt.1 will continue tomorrow.

guns, germs, and steel

Today in class we start to research the 1997 non-fiction book called “Guns Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond. Jared Diamond is a teacher at UCLA who is also a biologist and physiologist. He loves bird watching and loved to travel to New Guinea to see them because New Guinea is a basically untouched country. One time in his travels, a guy named Yali asked him “Why do you white men have so much cargo, but we New Guineans have so little?” This sounded like an easy question to answer but he couldn’t come up with one. Cargo to New Guineans are the material goods that Europeans brought to their country. Western colonials believed power was better mined by race and the Britain’s thought they were genetically superior to the New Guineans and smarter than them. Jared Diamond disproved this by seeing all the complex shelters and ways of living the New Guineans have created, but if they are just as smart (or even smarter than the Britain’s) then why don’t they have what Britain has? This is a question Jared Diamond did not know the answer too and is also how far we got into the National Geographic video we were watching. This will be continued next blog (Wednesday).