2-28-11

  Today in class Mr. Schick have us back our first test on the movie "Guns, Germs, and Steel" and Papua New Guinea. He graded them and put the grades on Powerschool a while ago, but he never physically gave them back to us. We went over them as a class for the whole two mods. He made sure we had all of the correct answers down so that we could use that to study for our finals in June. We will most likely be starting a new lesson on Wednesday, since we don't have class on Tuesdays.

2-25-11

  Today in class we used Skype to talk to a woman named Sarah from Egypt. The night before we had all posted 10 questions for her to us to ask her. For the about the first half of class we decided who would ask her questions and what they would ask her. Then for the rest of class, we talked to her through a video chat. Not everybody talked to Sarah, including me, because it was optional. The people that did choose to talk to her just walked up to the computer at the front of the room and talked to her until she finished answering their question. Of course we talked about the problems in Egypt and what their future holds, but we also learned personal things about her as well. I think that it was really amazing to be able to talk to somebody on the other side of the world using new technology, such as this interactive website known as Skype.

Questions

1. How long were the people of Egypt planning to get rid of Hosni Mubarak?

2. Do you think there would still be a rebellion if Egypt never had access to the internet?

3. Are you the only one in your family that speaks out against Hosni Mubarak?

4. What changes do you hope will be made now that Hosni Mubarak is no longer ruling?

5. Were you ever afraid to be a part of the rebellion?

6.  Did your family try to talk you out of being in the riots?

7. If so, what did they say?

8. Has your relationship with your family changed due to your decision to be a part of the riots?

9. Do you think Egypt will experience this problem again?

10. Where do you see Egypt 5 years from now?

Hosni Mubarak

  He is the president of Egypt that has been voted out of office by the people. He unfairly always won the "elections" that he was elected in. He was been their leader since 1981. He wound up being hated because of pretty much how the elections ran. Nobody could run against the president and the people started to think that their votes didn't even count. In September 2005, there was a multiple candidate election, although Hosni was still controlling all of it. There was no way for anybody to beat him out. Everybody just did what he told them to say; it was wrong to speak against the leader. Technology brought new ideas to the people, as in different opinions of the leader. There were thousands of illegal votes sent in. People had to pay to vote. Due to all of this trouble, the people wanted a new election. Hosni was of course elected because there was no re-election. People could get sent to jail for speaking out against the government without a trial. The police can abuse you with no charge. If you belong to the wrong group you could lose funding or your job. The police are allowed to violate your privacy. He said that he will not run again this year in September 2011, but the people wanted him out immediately. Finally, he resigned, and there were cheers throughout the streets of Cairo.  

2/23/11

  Today our rap/song projects were due. Mostly everybody presented theirs in front of the class. I was one of the ones that did not. Then Mr. Schick started to show us a video for about the last 10/15 minutes of class. The video was about the current riots in Egypt. The main character, a woman named Gigi, was tweeting live from the center of all of the action. Her family doesn't really like this though because they know how dangerous it could be. She is Egyptian, but believes that the ruler should be kicked out before his time is supposed to be up (like the majority of Egypt). However, her aunt believes the opposite and thinks that her niece is not being loyal to her country. We will probably finish the rest of this video tomorrow.

Egypt Rap/Song

I was originally working with a partner for this assignment, but then she decided that we do separate projects. The original concept for this idea started from the song "Pyramid" by Charice and Iyaz. 

The Egyptians built the pyramids

            To stand tall through every single thing

          There will never be any more for sure

The stones were pretty heavy

As hard as the ground

             But they were needed to stack strong

      They  built it from the bottom up

           Even through desert storms

                 They were out there holding their own

             Nothing froze the work load

    They knew what they had to do

                       The weather couldn't shake them

              Disease couldn't break them

     Nothing was put above

                             The pyramids were built with solid rock

                              Touched by thousands of hands

                             Aiming to reach the top

                             Even though the sun was burnin

                             They never fell and just kept goin

                                  So now forever will be the pyramids

                                        The pyramids, the pyramids hey

                                         The pyramids, the pyramids hey

                                         The pyramids, the pyramids hey

                                      They worked close side by side

                                       They made sure it wouldn't fall

                                        Its story had no end

                                         Kind of like a mystery

                                      Every step was long

                                            And the time never flew

                                            The upcoming  was unknown

                                                 But then the pyramids went down in history

                                                   The weather couldn't shake them

                                                 Disease couldn't break them

                                            Nothing was put above

                             The pyramids were built with solid rock

                              Touched by thousands of hands

                                Aiming to reach the top

                                        Even though the sun was burnin

                                          They never fell and just  kept goin

                                        So now forever will be the pyramids  

2-18-11

  On Friday we played a online educational "game" during class. It was not fun, it was more frustrating than anything. My partner and I finally finished building our pyramids with 5 minutes left in the class. Mr. Schick had told everybody that the first two groups to finish would get an A, everybody else who finished would get a B, and the people that didn't finish would fail. So, everybody in our class finished, and we got a B. Our homework is to create a song about Ancient Egypt that is due after our 3-day weekend on Tuesday, February 22, 2011.

2-17-11

  Today in class we presented our Powerpoint presentations since Mr. Schick was back. He began by telling all of us the reason why he's been absent; a sad story about his daughter Martha. She's doing better now but their whole family has really gone through so much for the past 2 weeks. So anyway, we used the first half of class to finish our projects and then the groups started to present. My group will probably go tomorrow.

  About 4 to 6 thousand years ago all the people of ancient Egypt realized what people could do specialized work in. They had no power tools so they had to do all the work by hand. Pyramids were referred to as the "house of eternity". King Tut was buried inside the pyramids; he was a young ruler who reigned for nine years. 

  Hieroglyphics was the formal writing system by ancient Egypt. It pretty much very the first writing system. They used animals, objects, and people instead of actual letters. The people who wrote them were called scribes, and they were viewed high in society. Before they were used to writing on pyramids, they used them for recording something like a census. Hieroglyphics were mostly written on papyrus paper and there was over 2,000 different symbols. 

  The Nile longest river in the world, and the main river of Egypt. It was mainly used for drinking water and to produce extremely fertile soil. It also contributed to spring floods and provided irrigation, even in ancient times.  

The Egyptian people were smart enough to know how this river behaved with all the floods and such to become successful. 

2/16/11

  Mr. Schick was not here in class today. So the substitute told us to split into different  groups then the ones we had for our last project. My new group members are Katelyn, Tasha, and Megan. We were to create either a Prezi or PowerPoint presentation based on the information we have collected on ancient Egypt.

  My partners and I decided to do a PowerPoint presentation. Katelyn and I contributed notes about the pyramids, and Tasha and Megan included information about hieroglyphics. As of right now, we have about 4-5 slides for our project (including the title page), but this number could be changed. We were not told when this project is due, but it seems like we will have it finished by the time class ends today.

2-15-11

Today is a Tuesday, so no class.

February 14, 2011

  Today in class Mr. Schick allowed us to add information on our blog posts from Friday. He individually checked our blogs and then told each of us if we needed to add more information or not. He told me that mine was really good so I didn't need to add anything else. So, everybody got back into their groups to work on those for the entire two mods of class. One of the groups didn't have anybody do a post, but fortunately we were all finished. My partners and I just compared the information that we collected.  He told us that he didn't grade the rest of our tests yet and that we will probably have them back to us on Thursday.

Friday, February 11th, 2011

  Today in class we began researching Egypt. We split into groups of 3 or 4 people to do this. Mr. Schick said that he only graded the scantron portions of our tests so he gave us our grades for that part. We also created gadgets on our blogs to help us get to the websites we often use more easily.

  My partners and I researched the Egyptians pyramids. Ancient Egyptians believed that when the pharaoh died, he became Osiris, king of the dead. Some part of a dead pharaoh's spirit, called his ka, was believed to remain with his body. And they thought that if the corpse did not have proper care, the pharaoh would not be able to carry out his new duties as king of the dead. If this happened, the cycle would be broken and it would bring disaster to Egypt. 


  To prevent this from happening, each dead pharaoh was mummified, which preserved his body. Everything the king would need in his afterlife was provided in his grave-such as vessels made of clay, stone, and gold, furniture, and food. His body would continue to receive food offerings long after his death. To shelter the part of a pharaoh's soul that remained with his corpse, Egyptians built massive tombs. Before the pyramids, tombs were carved into rocks and topped by flat-roofed structures called mastabas.

  There are 138 pyramids, and obviously built by the Egyptian people. It's estimated that 20,000 to 30,000 people worked on the pyramids at Giza over a span of 80 years, and that much of the work probably happened while the River Nile was flooded. The Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still in existence. 

Test Essay

  1,300 years ago the only jobs people had were being hunters and gatherers. All they worried about was were their next meal would come from, and how they would get it. Every day was focused on getting food. The people of Papua New Guinea lived like this for a very long time.

  Once a country was more civilized, (Papua New Guinea and Australia did not experience this) they developed a surplus; more than they needed on a daily basis. Having a surplus meant that people could do other things with their lives than only concentrating on food every second of every day. They had enough food through their domestic-able crops and animals that they could be comfortable. They used their animals for meat, milk, and to fertilize the fields. They used their crops such as wheat and barley for nutrition, and to feed the animals. The surplus also provided the people with the ability to start doing specialized work.

  These specialized jobs included plaster-makers (who made plaster from limestone), weavers (who made clothes from the animal's skins), and blacksmiths (who invented steel from the creation of fire). The population then went up during this time because people had more free time and they were able to interact with other people more. This specialized work led to the invention of new technologies, which was a big step in it's civilization. Since the people did have more free time, they were able to use their brains, think of new ideas, and put them into action. This way of thinking eventually led the United States and many other places in world to be where they are today.




 

2/9/11

  Today we review material that will be on our test tomorrow, Thursday 10, 2011. Mr. Schick told us that the test would be composed of multiple choice, short answers, and one essay. The essay only will be done our computers, the rest on a scantron sheet. It will be about 20/25 questions long. We also went over notes that are important for us to study tonight.

  Sago doesn't last very long, doesn't have a lot of more protein, and has no flavor. Sago trees have 70 pounds of sago in them and it grows in a swamp in Papua New Guinea. A domestic-able animal must be able to nicely interact with people, aware of it's surroundings, have available for their meat and milk, and it has to reproduce often. Animals such as horses and llamas are a part of social hierarchy which means they follow what the others members of their pack is doing. A plant good for civilization has to be nutritious, easy to prepare, and it has to be stored for awhile. When a civilization has a surplus, not everybody has to be worried about getting food, so they can do specialized work (plaster makers who made plaster, weavers who made clothes). Then the population can go up because people are now together more and they have more free time.


  People didn't say in the fertile crescent because it became very arid and dry, so they moved east and west following the lines of latitude. They over-farmed it and tapped out the soil. They still had the same animals, seasons, and time of day where they moved. Draa' is the name of the very first community-oldest actual place on earth where people built homes. Gerard Diamond was a bird watcher, a cultural anthropologist, best selling author of the book Guns, Germs, and Steel. The definition of cargo is the things a person owns. 1300 years ago, most people were hunting and gathering. Modern day Papua New Guinea is now a well civilized country because they have improved their transportation and trade. They are selling wood and palm oil, gold, silver, and fish. 

2/8/11

No class on Tuesdays! Tomorrow we will probably be reviewing for Thursday's test for most of the class.

2/7/11 's Class

Today in class Mr. Schick gave us an off day. We were able to work on extra homework for any class since we were way ahead of all of the other freshman classes. Mr. Schick told us that we will have a test on Thursday, February 12. We would have had the test on Wednesday, but Mr. Schick doesn't have all of his classes then, so that's why the test was pushed to Thursday. Our test is going to be on the video Guns, Germs, and Steel that we watched in class, and some of the notes we took for out mini-presentation from CIA World Factbook on modern day Papua New Guinea.

Papua New Guinea

  In today's class, February 4, 2011, we talked about Papua New Guinea facts. Everybody broke up into groups of 2 to 3 people and then we visited CIA World Factbook. We collected important facts about the country on that website and then presented them to the class.

  The population of Papua New Guinea is 6,064,515 and is growing at a rate of 2%. 37% of this population is below the poverty line and 1.8% are unemployed. The people here have a life expectancy of about 65 years. 53% of the country is literate. 27% of the people are Roman Catholic, but Lutheran is a close second with 19%. The Total Fertility Rate of Papua New Guinea is an average of about 3 children per woman.

  The capital of Papua New Guinea is Port Moresby. Their GDP Per Capita is $2,500. 54,000 people living here suffer from HIV/AIDS. 18% of the people live in urban areas. Their natural resources include gold, copper, silver, natural gas, timber, oil, and fisheries. Finally, the Industrial Growth Rate of Papua New Guinea is 10% making it rate 16th in the world in how fast their economy is growing.  
 





 

Guns, Germs, and Steel Part 3

  As villages grew bigger, there were more people to  produce crops and invent new things. Of course, this was only in the developing civilizations, unlike Australia and Papua New Guinea. Those place have barely changed for centuries. Surplus-to make more than one needs. The invention of fire was the first step to steel.  Making plaster from limestone was a amazing invention. 

  The Fertile Crescent is not the powerhouse of the world. After 1,000 years most of the villages were abandoned. The climate was too dry and not good for intense farming. Communities were forced to move on from were they lived due to their failure to farm. Domesticated animals were able to flourish in areas east and west of the Middle East. Papua New Guinea was located on an island so there was no way for this to ever happen. 

  Once the crops and animals reached Egypt, they caused an explosion of civilization. The same is true for European civilization. In the 16th century the crops and animals were taken to the new world. Farming in America wouldn't have been possible if not for the fertile crescent.  New Guineanians required pigs from the Europeans, but they had nothing else. There are now civilized towns in Papua New Guinea as an attempt to catch up with the rest of the world, but there is still a huge gap between the two. 

Germs, Guns, and Steel Part 3

   The start of humans and  animals interacting began about 9,000 years ago. The animals were useful for food (their meat) , clothing (made out of their skin), and milk. Their waste could also be used as a fertilizer for crops.  Its also easier than hunting because they now had these animals to depend on and start a civilization with. Everybody in the community then bonded together to get the most out the animals.

   Goats and sheep were the first animals to be domesticated. The people of Papua New Guinea never had horses or plows for their crop fields. Instead they hoed their crops-they were geographically unfortunate. To this day, the people of Papua New Guinea grow their crops by hand. 

  Despite efforts, the elephant has never been domesticated. They eat too much food in order to be useful for farming and breeding. Instead, each elephant is brought out of the wild, tamed, and trained.  In order to be a domestic animal, it has to work well with humans.  The Zebra would seem like an ideal domestication animal, but it has a wild streak that humans have not be able to understand and tame. 

  Domestic animals over 100 pounds (14 different species of animals): cows, pigs, donkeys, goats, sheep, 2 kinds of camels, water buffalo, llamas, reindeer, yaks, mithans, horses, and Bali cattle. None of these animals were native to Australia or Papua New Guinea. Countries that were homes to the best crops were also homes of the best domestic animals as well.  It gave them a huge head start on civilization. The reason why the countries in the Fertile Cresent were able to really advance was because they had great crops and domestic animals. This is the main reason why Papua New Guinea hasn’t changed.