Western Civilization

Today we received our tests back. There were many scores above the ninetieth percentile warranting an A. I was one of them with a ninety four percent on the test. Mr. Schick said that the test was too easy if the average was an eighty six percent, and in the future he will be making them harder. This is not good. The class was also advised to keep this test as we would see many of these question on the semester one exam. As we went around the room discussing the answers, Mr. Schick said that the hardest question on the test was the one asking which of the following cities was seventy eight degrees West and zero degrees North/South. I knew there was only one city on the list which was West of the Prime Meridian and it was Quito, Ecuador. After we finished checking the tests, we went back to the Slides and we talked about the push and pull forces/factors of why people leave their countries and enter new ones.

Today we continued with the Slides presentation. We had left off on the slide that talked about the highest and lowest life expectancy in the world and where the United States falls. Branching off of what I had mentioned last post, people in Monaco has the highest life expectancy rate in the world. The women have the highest rate in the world with 93.58. Crude birth rate is the number of births person per one thousand people and the crude death rate is, well, the number of deaths per one thousand people. We went on to discuss why the life expectancy in almost every country in the world, for women, is higher than that for men. We came to the reason that men, for the most part do more dangerous tasks than women do. For example, Mr. Collins mentioned his father's co-worker who works with people who collapse skyscrapers. This is a dangerous job. To be successful, you must put explosives in the correct place inside the building and make it collapse within itself. Mr. Schick recommended ...

For the first lesson into the new chapter Mr. Schick presented to us a Slides presentation. This covered population numbers, rate of change or growth, and other interesting details about the number of people on this planet. There are 7.5 billion people on Earth. The population increases by 73 million  people per year. This is equal to 200 thousand per day, 8,377 per hour, 149 per minute and 2.5 per second. Ninety percent of this population growth takes place in the developing countries of Africa, South and East Asia, and Latin America. The population, approximately, reached one billion people in the year 1804, two billion in 1927, and three billion in 1960. Since then the population has been steadily increasing by around a dozen years per billion. Mr. Schick said that the population has well more than doubled in his lifetime which seems like a lot when you think about it. The final slide we dealt with had numbers on the life expectancy rate of three countries. Monaco has the highes...

Today was test day. After about ten to fifteen minutes into class Mr. Schick gave us the test then silence fell. The next 30 minutes were all very serious minutes in which everybody got down to business. The test was twenty five multiple choice questions with a choice from two prompts for one long answer question. Some questions included "True or false: English is the official language of the United States." and my answer was false because there is no official language. Another question was "Sir Sanford Fleming suggested all but..." and there were five options to choose from. I chose the obvious answer which was b. Daylight Savings Time, because I know that Benjamin Franklin was the one who suggested Daylight Savings Time and it was not put into effect until after WWII. Towards the end of the class, as I was going up to hand in my test, I asked Mr. Schick if there were supposed to be five answers all 'C' in a row. he said he normally doesn't do that, whi...

Today Mr. Schick gave everybody a chance to create a few test questions which Mr. Schick will either approve or disapprove of. A few of mine were the following: Who is the current President of The United States Barack Obama Donald Trump Bill Clinton George W. Bush Name a state that voted Republican in 2004 but Democratic in 2008. Texas Connecticut Nevada Maryland Which state is also, mostly, its own region?-from the map on the blog Texas Massachusetts Maryland Nevada When did the United States gain its independence and from whom? 1776, Great Britain 1777, Great Britain 1776, France 1177, France The one I chose to share was number two but Mr. Schick thought it was too difficult so he instead modified it to "Which state voted Republican in the 2004, 2008, and 2012 election?" with the one answer being Texas. Some important notes for the test are: -There are twenty seven time zones. -Sir Sanford Flemin...

For today's class Mr. Schick went over some test material with us for the upcoming one next week. First he told us that true or false questions do not really teach us anything so Mr. Schick will only have two on there. Some ways the statements may be made false is by saying that something is 'always' or 'never' this. One importune note we took today was "Geographers use maps as their primary tool for not only identifying points on Earth's surface but also as a means to compare phenomena between different places." This is one possible question which could be turned into a true/false. The art and science of making maps mis cartography. A few other important facts for the test are that there are twenty four time zones, every place occupies a unique position on Earth's surface. Two important lines which we talked about today were the Prime Meridian and the International Date Line. The Prime Meridian is zero degrees longitude and the International Date ...

Climate Change IS REAL. There are people who will tell you that is not real. Climate change is scientific fact. There are proven facts that have been tested over the past fifty years which all lead to climate change. Over the past 150 years We the People have been using more oil and gasoline than we should be and it needs to be cut down. Over the past sixty years when we have really advanced our use of oil in cars, which leads to the gases building up in our atmosphere. These gases trap in solar radiation which then in turn leads to the heating of our planet. Climate change was a focal point of today's debate. Mr. Schick also brought up the reason for his absence yesterday which was very disappointing to hear. Mr. Schick's dog passed away and his wife left him in charge to lay him to rest. Mr. Schick's wife referred to him as the 'Angel of Death' which helped lighten the mood. Mr. Schick had to take his dog to the vet and then bury him. This is a part of life which...