Presentation day 2

Today in Human Geo class we continued presenting our power points on religion. We finished up Grace's power point on Hinduism, and Caroline's group presented their presentation on Judaism. Here are the notes I took on hers.

Judaism

• Abrahamic religion
• Over 14 million followers
• Holy land is in Jerusalem
• Teachers known as Rabbis
• Holy book is the Torah (scroll form)
• Center of worship- temple
• Yahweh- God
• They believe in the 13 principles of faith
• the official language is Hebrew

Jewish version of confirmation:
Bar mitzvah- boys
Bat mitzvah- girls

Presentation Day

Today in Human Geo class, we presented the power point we made in groups of three yesterday. My group had Christianity. Before we started that though, we went over our quiz on cultural geography. On the quiz there were question on language, religion, and organizations like the EU (European union), NATO (north Atlantic treaty organization) and a bunch of others. After that, we started getting into our presentations. Grace's group went first but didn't quite get all the way through. Here are the notes I took on her group's slide show.

HINDUISM

Sacred texts:
Vedas- made up of over 1000 hymns and Hindu rituals
Bhagavad Gita- describes beliefs of afterlife

Their god is broken up into three parts Brahma(creator of cosmos) Vishnu (preserver of the cosmos) and Shiva (destroyer of the cosmos). This makes them Trinitarian.

Hindus believe in karma(every action has an equal reaction)
They believe in an omniscient being called Brahman.
Samsara is the Hindu process of reincarnation
Ahisma is the practice of non-injury to all creatures.
Hindu priests are called gurus.
Hinduism has an estimated 1 billion followers which is 14% of the world's population and the 3rd largest religion in the world.

Christanity):

Today in Human Geo class we split into groups of three and made a power point on a religion we chose from a hat. My group picked Christianity, unfortunately. I think this sucks because it's like beating a dead horse how much we learn about Christianity, but oh well. Here are some notes on what was in our presentation.
 
How Big

• Largest Religion in the world today.
• About 2.6 billion christians of all ages around the world.
• 50.1% of christians in the world are catholics, 36% is protestant, 11% is orthodox, and the remaining 1% are other Christians.
• The number of Christians in America has majorly increased since 1910

 Where Did Christianity Originate?

• Jerusalem was the first center of the church
• Christianity was originally developed in the middle east.

Where is it Centered?

• Christianity is spread out all over our world, mostly in North and South America, almost all of Europe, and mostly Africa.
• These are not all of them, but these are the ones that have large portions of the population.
• It is also spreading rapidly in the east, like South Korea and China.
• China went from having about 5,000 Christians in the 1960’s to 100 million practicing it across the country.

• It is also being taught in South America and Africa.

Leadership

• There are three main branches of Christianity;

Eastern Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, and Protestantism.

• Eastern Orthodox Leaders- Bishops which are organized into groups called synods.
• Catholicism Leaders- The Pope followed by Cardinals, and below them are Bishops and the final branch is Priests.
• Protestantism- Denyes the universal authority of the Pope, and has Pastors  

House of Worship

The Christian’s house of Worship is usually called:

• General Names Orthodox
• Roman Catholic
• Anglican Denominations
• Prominent churches or churches that contain a Bishop’s throne are often called Cathedrals
• Non-conformists use the word Chapel

Holidays

Christmas- Christians celebrate Christmas to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Easter- Christians celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.

 

One lap down, three to go

Today in Human Geo class we had a shadow named Makayla. She was very fashionable and Mr. Schick made her take the stupid quiz. It was a multiple choice, 50 point quiz on the power point on cultural geography we've been taking notes on for the past few days. We also received a 50 point participation grade. They were intended to help raise our grades because today is the end of the first quarter. Before we started, we talked about what kind of questions to expect to see on the quiz. This helped me so much, like, I'm pretty sure I would've failed if we hadn't had that review. Also, Graces' Quizlets always help. Starting next week, we're going to finish taking notes on this unit and then we will have a 100 point unit test on that material like we usually do.

 

Nationalism

To start off Human Geography class today, we watched a short video clip from some TV show from HBO or CBS or something like that. (You should post a link to the video btw, Mr. Schick) In the video, it was like a talk show/Q&A. During this segment they were discussing why they thought America is the best country. One person said because we have freedom. When the main character (I'm assuming) was asked his thoughts on the topic, he attempted to dodge the question by giving a joke. He said "the New York Jets". Though he didn't get off the hook as easily as he had hoped. He kept getting prodded and pushes to give a serious answer, until finally he just exploded and went on a full on rant. He said he didn't think that America was the greatest country and gave multiple statistics to support his case. When the video was over, we had a similar debate in class. We discussed why or why not we thought America was the greatest country and also pondered if America wasn't the greatest country then which one was? I said that I thought Ireland was a great country, though I also don't believe any one country is fully superior than all others. Every country has it's flaws.

Religion Rant

Today in Human Geo class we Mr. Schick started his religion rant. Here are my notes:

Religion:

• It can be a unifying and dividing force
• There are five major religions in the world

1. Hindu
2. Buddhism
3. Judaism
4. Christianity
5. Islam

• Judaism, Islamic, and Christianity are Abrahamic religions.
• There are two major branches of Islamic: Shiites and Sunnis. They fight over what Muhammad taught when he was alive.
• Jews, Christians, and Muslims all claim Jerusalem as their holy site. The are constantly fighting over this land
• Spatial divisions are how we divide the livable space found on earth by establishing social, economical, and political control.
• You can be a member of more than one spatial group
• Spatial divisions can also cause conflicts or cooperation

Example of spatial division- countries
Example of economic alliances- European Union, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
Example of political alliance- North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Reasons for spatial division conflicts: Cultural differences (religion, language)
Nationalism- the belief tat your nation is superior to all others.

Fox Truck

To open our Human Geo class today, Mr. Schick told us a story about his weekend when he went to visit his daughter at collage.
Him and his wife stayed in an apartment and they could hear the Red Sox game from there. e told us of the adventure he had when he came across the Fox truck and took a peek inside.
After that, we continued taking notes on our new unit on Cultural Geography. Here are the notes I took:
Cultural characteristics- ethnic heritage, language, and religion
 
Language:

• Arabic unites the Arab world
• Spanish unites the Hispanic world
• Brazil is the only South American nation which does not speak Spanish. They speak Portuguese.
• Canada is bilingual. French and English are its official languages.
• Switzerland has multiple languages but very little conflict between the groups.
• English is now considered the world language and is used for most business transactions around the world. (Lingua Franca)

Ethnic Heritage:

• In Yugoslavia, many ethnic groups were made into one country
• When strong leadership died out, the different groups fought a very bloody civil war,and now they all have separate countries.
• In Rwanda and Burundi in Africa, two ethnic groups are dominate the Tutsis and the Hutus
• The Hutus are dominate and they persecute the Tutsis and vice versa.
• This has led to constant war between the groups
• The U.S and Switzerland have peacefully merged multiple ethnic groups in their countries
• Korea and Japan have mostly one ethnic group

We just barely started religion but didn't have much time left in class and Mr. Schick decided to hold off on his rant for tomorrow.

Cultural Characteristics

            Today in Human Geo class we went over the right answers for the quiz we took on population.  On the quiz there were matching problems with terms and their definition. We also had to right out the acronyms TFR and RNI. We had to List push and pull forces and identify three population pyramids. There were 25 questions. Once we finished that, we started a new unit on culture. Here are some of my notes:

 

Cultural Characteristics

·         Parts of a group in everyday life

·         The ideas and themes the groups will teach to all members

·         These characteristics can also link or divide a region

 

QUIZZZ

Today in Human Geo class we had two shadows and they were both from St. Paul's. One's name was Chris and the other had a cool last name. We also took a quiz on population and migration. The questions asked what population pyramids were, what TFR and RNI was. There were no short response questions (thank God), they were mainly matching and one word answers. On the back of the last page we had to answer questions about three different population pyramids ((questions like which pyramid (a, b, or c) had the highest TFR)). Over-all, the quiz wasn't terribly difficult but I was super tired so the quiz made me sad.):

Here are some notes I took to prepare me for the quiz:

·        Life expectancy- the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year.

·        Total fertility rate- Average number of children born per woman.

·        For a population to remain the same the TFR must be 2.1

 

Population Pyramid

            Today in Human Geo class we went over the answers to the test we took on the documentary we watched called “God Grew Tired of Us”. When we finished going over the right answers, we continued our new unit on population pyramids that we started yesterday. Some notes I took on this subject is that on the graph, the women are always on the right and the men on the left. I also wrote that more people live in cities for the first time in history. We also discussed why some population pyramids look unusual. Like, some graphs had an unusual amount of people around the age of 20. This indicates that where they are probably has a really good collage that a lot of kids want to go to. This also means that there won’t be a lot of very young children because the age group that usually is having children is focusing more on their education.

God Grew Tired of Us Assessment 10/8/13

Today in Human Geo class, we took a test on the documentary we spent the last few days in class watching called "God Grew Tired of Us". During the test we were allowed to use our blogs as our only resource. We were expected to transfer our notes into our blog before, and if we did so, this was a sort of reward. Before we took our test though, we all ate cupcakes in honor of Erica's birthday. :)

Once everyone finished the test, we started to take notes on a new unit on population pyramids. Population pyramids are what we use to analyze the growth or decline of fertility, mortality, and migration in cities. The three basic shapes are;

1.      The Christmas tree-

·         Developing nations

·         Growth rates are slow

·         High birth rate

·         Short life expectancy

                                    Examples; Namibia, Bangladesh

2.      The box-

·         Developed nation

·         Slow growth

·         Low infant mortality

·         Slow population growth

·         Long life expectancy

Examples; Sweden, USA

3.      The cup-

·         Developed nation

·         Negative growth

·         Low birth rate

·         Shrinking population

·         Long life expectancy

Examples; Italy, Japan

 

           

           

 

God Grew Tired of Us Part IV

            Today in class we finally finished watching the documentary “God Grew Tired of Us”. Through Red Cross and other foundations John tries to find his family. After a few years in America he finally hears back from his mother. In a letter, his mom tells him of what has happened to his family in Uganda since he ran away. His home was destroyed, and his uncle and his uncle’s children were all killed. Also, many of his family members were sick. Because of this news, John decides not to go to school yet, so he can send his working money to his family back home. Eventually, John gets reunited with his mom and his sister.

             The boys who live in Syracuse New York organized a walk in honor of Sudan’s troubles. Through this walk they tried to inform Americans of the war happening in Sudan, and encourage the official separation of the country.

            Panther goes back to Africa to marry his girlfriend. They then returned back to America where Panther gets his Bachelor’s degree. He plans to open a school back in Africa.

            Daniel continues to live in Pittsburg and takes classes at a community collage. He hasn’t found and family members yet.

            John got his Bachelor’s Degree. He now funds a non-profit organization and  built a medical clinic in his hometown.

           

Test Answers & God Gave up on Us part III

            Today in class, our previously completed tests were returned to us so we could see our grades and go over the correct answers. Once we finished reviewing the test, we used the remaining time in class to continue watching the documentary “God Grew Tired of Us”. Before we could start the movie, we discussed previous events in it, so people who were absent or new, could get caught up. In the video, we left off where Daniel, Panther, and John moved to America were trying to adapt to the new culture. The U.S gave them three months to get used to the new country before they had to get a job and start paying their own way. They were also told that they would have to pay the airlines back for the air-fare.

            The three guys (especially John) wanted to adapt to the American culture, but they also didn’t want to fully let go of their past. John says he still wants to do things “the Dinka way”.

            All three guys managed to get a job by the deadline. We left off at 53 minutes.

God Grew Tired of Us Part II

Today in Human Geo class, we continued viewing the documentary "God Grew Tired of Us". Today in the documentary, we followed Panther Brior, John Bul Dau, and Daniel Abul Pach to America. Daniel and Panther go to Pittsburg PA and John went to Syracuse NY. These three men were so far out of their culture. They didn't know things that we consider common knowledge. For example, when they were on the plane they ate the butter and jam by themselves because they didn't know any better.  They also didn't know what potato chips are or how to turn the lights on and off.

The three guys were given about three months to adjust to their new life in America. Once that time was up, they were expected to get a job and start paying their own way. They are also supposed to start paying the U.N back for their flight.

 

 

 

God Grew Tired of Us

Today in Human Geo class we started watching a documentary called, “God Grew Tired of Us”. It starts out in 1983 when Sudan had a civil war splitting the country in half. The war was fought over religious differences and territory. Over the course of the war, about two million people died. During wartime, men were usually targeted. As a result of this many men (as well as young boys) tried to flee. About 27000 boys (soon to be known as the lost boys) walked hundreds of miles with no food or water, to safety in Ethiopia. The boys stayed there for about three years, until Ethiopia began having government struggles of their own. As a result, the boys had to flee once again, this time going to a United Nations refugee camp in Kakuma, Kenya. Once they finally arrived, their numbers had reduced dramatically. There were only about 12000 boys alive.

The last scene we saw before the end of class, we saw that the boys were given the opportunity to go to the U.S. Panther, John, and Daniel took them up on the offer. The only problem was, they had no ida what to expect because our culture is so much different from theirs. These boy had never showered, or even used electricity before.

We will pick up where we left off in class tomorrow.