september 30

Today's class focus was on the population pyramid. We watched a powerpoint that gave us all the informatíon ever on the pyramid. We talked about what the population pyramid shows us. Some of these things are: birth rate, death rate, population, etc. One thing it does not show us is life expectancy. Mr. Schick showed us the population pyramid for a bunch of different countries including Japan. Japan's population pyramid is basically a rectangle. There are very few people having kids, so there are very few kids. He showed us the population pyramid for the US. We saw that the year Mr. Schick was born was a big "baby boom" year. He also showed us the pyramid from when we were born, the one right now, and the estimated one for the year of 2050. I thought it was really cool to get to "see into the future".

september 26

Today in class I had a shadow. Her name was Rachel. We disussed the facts we had found on the CIA Factbook website that we thought were interesting. I did the same one Karson did. We talked about how the Pitcairn Islands had no defense, so the UK was responsible for protecting them. Someone else talked about Syria and how soooo many people are leaving the country because of the bombing and Isis. By talking about Syria we found the Lebanon has the most people coming into their country than any other. This is because Lebanon is located right next to Syria. The people leaving Syria have to go somewhere, and Lebanon just so happens to be the closest place to go that is somewhat safe. Someone else talked about Timor-Leste and how over 60% of their entire population does not have clean drinking water. Mr.Schick told us that about 95% of the US has clean water, but there are still some places that do not.

september 25

Today in class we went over our tests again. We did this to help the people who had retreat yesterday correct the ones they got wrong on their own tests. We went a little bit further into discussion about the essay questions today. We talked a lot about Socrates's trial and the crimes he committed today. In that we talked about how much Socrates was into democracy and that is why he choose to stay in Athens and receive his punishment instead of escaping to another city-state to avoid dying a horrible death. We also talked about globalization and how Ryan, John, and Alex are an example of interconnectedness. Mr. Schick told us that one of the teachers here at JC was one of the first people to do foreign exchange. He took students to Russia and brought some back to JC. He also said that this teacher, whose name I can not remember, saw one of the Russian students protesting on top of a tank holding a John Carroll sweatshirt on the news. I and everyone else thought this was VERY  surprising.

september 24

Today in class we got our tests back. I GOT A DING!!! I got a 94% on my test and I am very happy. I like that we read over all the questions on the test, that way we could learn from our mistakes and take notes on our tests to help with our essay questions as well. Our class had the highest average of all the other class averages that Mr. Schick is the teacher in. Our average was a 86.9%. I think that is pretty good average for an entire class considering that not all of the students are going to be straight A students. I really liked how we took an entire class to discuss our tests because it gives us time to have a short Q and A and also allows students to really take in what they have learned. I also like how we went around the room to answer all of the question on the test, this way everyone was able or forced to participate.

september 19

Today in class we talked about measuring population. Here are my notes:

crude birth rate- number of births per 1000 of the population
crude death rate: number of dearhs per 1000 of the population

rate of natural increase

•       prodiced by subtracting the death rate from the nirth rate
•       this gives us the annual natural growth rate- in percentage form- for a country or region

net migration rate: the difference between the numberof persons entering and leaving a country

IMMigration-entering a country

EMMigration-leaving a country

We also explored the CIA factbook. 

Mr. Schick's powerpoint said that in 2013 the US had 3.62 migrants. I found that in 2014 the US had 2.45 migrants. (in net migration rate)

Mr. Schick's powerpoint said that in 2013 Mexico had -3.11 migrants. I found that in 2014 Mexico had -2.99 migrants. (in net migration rate)

What I found interesting on the CIA factbook was that the smallest country in the world according to population is the Pitcairn Islands. The population there is 48 people. The industries there are postage stamps, handicrafts, bee-keeping, and honey. They do not have a military, their defense is the responsibility of the UK. I think we should go on a field trip there.

september 18

Today in class we talked a little about the test and how Mr. Schick would not have them graded until Monday. Rosemary and Megan still needed to take their tests anyway. The rest of the class we started a new chapter and kicked in off by talking about population. We said how right now the Earth has about 7 billion people on it and how the population is going to keep increasing by about 73 million people a year. There were a few points about breaking down that number into per day, per hour, per minute, and per second that aren't really needed in my blog today. We also talked about the places these people are coming from: 90% of population growth takes place in developing countries of Africa, South and East Asia, Latin America. Another topic e hit was life expectancy. Life Expectancy is the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born the same year. We concluded that women tend to have a longer life expectancy than men because men have the more deadly jobs like, coal mining, navy, army, lumber jacking. Yes, there are some woman in these fields, but we can all agree that most of these jobs are done by the men.

test day 1

Today in class we took our first test of the semester. I think I did good. I feel good about most of the problems and I feel that I answered the essay questions really good. The globalization one tripped me up a bit, but other than that I feel overall good about the test. I think the questions were very straight forward and that it was extremely generous of Mr. Schick to let us use our blogs. I think is was basically impossible to fail if you have been putting all your effort into your blog everyday. It would have been easy because all of the answers on the test would be right o your blog. The vocab, short answer, essay, are right there in front of you.