october 29

Today we continued to work on our in class assignment. Rosemary was not there today do to cross country I think. It was okay because I got done like one and a half slides. I din't get too much done because I was trying to prove something that I found on the internet as a way to overthrow the government. It took me a while, but I think I finally got a website that will help me prove my point, that some drug cartels could overthrow Mexico' government and President, Enrique Pena Nieto. i hope it will help me and it will give me a point that no one else's country PowerPoint will have. I did a slide on Nieto's background and found out some important information, for example, he fathered 2 children with 2 women while he was married to his first wife. Wow!!!

october 28

Today in class we started to work on an in class assignment. We were paired up with someone else in the class. Mr. Schick paired us up. I got Rosemary. Then, we picked a number from the magic hat. Who ever got number 1 got to pick which country they wanted to do for their project. Rosemary and I got number 8, the second to last pick. We ended up picking Mexico. Russia would have been my first choice, but the number 1 group picked that one up first. We started up by making a Google slides document and shared it with Mr. Schick. we got 5 slides started and there are more to come. We started with giving some information about Mexico's government. The next slide gives background on Enrique Pena Nieto. The next talks about his reign as president. And the next is about the people that elected him; how many votes he got. I think it is going to be a good project and I feel that Rosemary and I will get a good grade on it.

october 24

Today in class, we were surprised by a pop quiz. A Scranton that had 15 questions on the countries and leaders we had been talking about. It was worth 30 points. We again had the best class average. I got an 80% but the highest was, of coarse, a 100. If you used pen you automatically got a 0. Nobody used pen so that was good. Mr.Schick got Zach and Cody really good by ripping up one of the tests the shadows took and made them think it was one of their's. It was really funny. I learned some things from the test too. I learned that Francois Hollande is atheist, but used to be Christian. We did the dings again, sadly the bell didn't ring for me, but we did have a good number of them. There were the A's and the one 100%.

october 21 interesting facts

Mexico
Enrique Pena Nieto

• He Father 2 children out of wedlock with 2 different women, while married to his first wife.
• http://www.cnn.com/

China

XI Jinping

• He worked as an agricultural laborer  at the age of 16 to 22 when he was forced to leave the city
• www.cnn.com

India
Pranab Mukherjee

• He was famous for smoking his trademark DunHill pipe. He gave up smoking many years ago
• http://www.indiatimes.com/

Russia 

Vladimir Putin

• Grew up in a communal apartment shared by three families
• www.cnn.com

Germany

Joachim Gauck 

• He ran for president in 2010 and failed. He lost to Wulff.
• http://www.ibtimes.com/iik

Angela Merkel 

• Has a doctorate in Quantum Chemistry 
• Mr. Schick

United Kingdom

Queen Elizabeth II

• Speaks Fluent French. Does not need an interpreter and uses the language often when speaking to audiences.
• http://content.time.com/

David Cameron

• He is the youngest prime minister since 1812
• cnn.com

France

Fancios Hollande 

• Taught economics an an elite school in Paris
• http://www.cnn.com/

Brazil

Dilma Rousseff

• Is diagnosed with stage 1 lymphoma and begins treatment . By September, she is cancer free.
• http://www.cnn.com/

Syria 

bashar al-ASAD

• His brother was the true heir, but died in a car crash and the place was handed off to him.
• www.cnn.com

Canada

Queen Elizabeth II

• She collected clothing coupons for her wedding dress.
• http://content.time.com/

Japan 

Emperor Akihito

• He is a direct decent of Japan's first emperor Jimmu.
•  http://www.cnn.com/

Isreal 

Shimon Peres 

• He won the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1994
• http://www.cnn.com/

october 21

today in class we talked about our 60 point project that we did. Mr. Schick showed the people who did it wrong or didn't do it how to do it right. After we got everything cleared up about that, he told us of our new project on interesting facts. We are to find an interesting fact about each one of the people that we put into our previous blog. We started to find our facts, but sadly we did have a shortened class today. I found several facts on CNN.com. it is a reliable source with many interesting points and had a time line of many of the people that I found on their website. We also talked about how to fix our blogs if we had trouble with the words not being in the right spots after we put in our pictures. Captions are a good idea next time.

october 17 notes

Political Geography

Nation

• a group of people with a shared identity
• nations are culturally homogeneous groups of people, larger than a single tribe or community, which share a common language, institutions, religion, and historical experiences

A independent state

• has space or territory which has internationally recognized boundaries
• has people who live there on an ongoing basis
• has economic activity and an organized economy. A country regulates foreign and domestic trade and issues money 
• has the power of social engineering, such as education
• has a transportation system for moving goods and people
• has a government which provides public services and public power
• had sovereignty. No other state should have power over the county's territory
• has external recognition. A country has been "voted into the club" by other countries 

october 17

Mexico

Federal Republic
Enrique Pena Nieto


China
Communist State
President XI Jinping


India
Federal Republic
President Pranab Mukherjee


Russia
Federation
President Vladimir Putin


Germany
Federal Republic
President Joachim Gauck
Merkel

United Kingdom
Constitutional Monarchy and Commonwealth Realm
Queen Elizabeth II
prime minister david cameron

France
Republic
President Francois Hollande


Brazil
Federal Republic
President Dilma Rousseff


Syria
Republic under an Authoritarian regime
President Bashar al-ASAD


Canada
A Parliamentary Democracy, a Federation, and a Constitutional Monarchy
Queen Elizabeth II


Japan
A Parliamentary Government with a Constitutional Monarchy
Emperor Akihito

Israel
Parliamentary Democracy
president Shimon Peres

october 17

Today in class we got our tests back. I got a 90% and a ding. we reviewed over them and I got one of the bonus questions right. I thought that the test was petty good. Again, our class had the best overall average out of all of his classes. Mr. Schick did half of the class review and Steven did the rest of the test. He was in charge of the class for maybe a half an hour while Mr. Schick worked on some stuff and over saw what Steven was doing. He called on us to say the answer to the question that was on the test and if we had any real questions we asked Mr. Schick. For example, on the question about the push and pull forces, we asked him about some things we were unsure about.

october 14

Today in class I made up my test instead of doing it after school. While I and many other students made up the test the rest of the class had some free time to do homework or study or whatever. I feel that I did pretty well on the test, some of the population pyramid questions threw me off but other than that I feel good. The bonus questions were impossible but I guessed on the first one and put some question marks for the second one. I finished the timed part using the CIA Factbook early, so I got a head start on the rest of the test. I think that the test was fair, and I think it was a good amount of questions. I also think that the first 12 questions were a good idea, even though they made the test 10x more stressful.

october 10

I had freshman retreat today, so I was not in class for the test. I will take it on the 14th after school.

october 8

Today in class, I was only there for about 25 minutes, but while I was there we talked about life expectancy, crude birth rate CBR, crude death rate CDR, and rate of natural increase RNI. I wish I could have stayed fro the rest of the review, but sadly I had to leave for a soccer game. Hopefully I didn't miss much and we will continue reviewing tomorrow. I will look at Mr. Schick's blog.

october 7

Today in class, we went exploring through the CIA Factbook again to get more familiar with it because we will have to use it on our tests on Friday. While we were exploring, we were supposed to try and find some evidence to support why America is or isn't the best country in the world. There was one main point someone found that was so important that we had to write it down. This fact was about oil. The Factbook said that we were the 2nd country ranked who "makes" or drills the most oil, but we are also ranked 1st in the most oil imports. This is because the US uses SOOOOOO much oil. We fuel everything today and everything is made from oil. It seemed crazy at first, but the more we I thought about it, the more realistic it became. I think I am really getting to know this website and I am able to maneuver within it and find what I need.

october 4

Today's class was very "intense". We watched a video in which there were 3 people who were answering questions for college students. One question that was asked was, "why do you think that the United States is the best country in the world." Two people said freedom and the the other man didn't answer at first. he eventually told us that he thought the US is not the greatest country and he wasn't afraid to speak up about it. I for one, think that America is a great country. I don't think it is the best, but I don't think there is a BEST country. Obviously, some countries are more advanced than others and are all around "better", but i do believe that the US does have its fair share of problems. We have problems right within our country and government and we also have problems in other countries and continents that we have to deal with. In the video, there was a women holding a sign that said, "It's not, but it can be." this was her answer to the question that i stated earlier and I agree completely with that.

october 2

Today, we told the people who weren't in school yesterday about the music in education project with Spotify. Mr. Schick told the people that are in charge of this Spotify project to tell them that my code would not work. For the rest of class, we got back on track and talked more about population pyramids and we were given class time to look at the CIA Factbook. On this we were allowed to look at any country, mostly focusing on the big countries or African countries, and their population pyramid. It was interesting to see a country's pyramid and how it was shaped. For example, Qatar's pyramid was very strange. First, it has a lot more males than females. This is because they have a lot of oil there and it is a man's job to mine for oil. Second, they are not having a lot of babies there. Third, it looks like their life expectancy doesn't seem too high in Qatar. This was pretty cool to see because in comparison with, say, Afghanistan, their's is VERY different.

first day of October

Today in class we talked about a "special assignment" that Mr.Schick has given our class and our class only. We trying to find songs and music to go along with things that are happening in the world. He is part of a program that is trying to bring music in the educational world. We are using Spotify to find our music and Mr. Schick was given codes for free 1 year memberships to Spotify Premium. My code didn't work, so I am going to have to see Mr.Schick about that. Hopefully I will get a working code so I can get my free membership. I think this assignment is going to be really fun, especially when we get to share our playlists and music. This assignment is going to be fun and educational because we will be doing some current events. I am really looking forward to this project.