Class Discussion on Tuesday

Today in human geography class we talked and discussed our CIA facts from the night before. The class went by quickly and we talked a lot and got lost in the website. We were all so interested in the site. Kate started talking about how she thought the Pitcairn Islands were really interesting and she shared all her facts about it. Then we started talking about net neutrality rate, fertility rate, birth rate, death rate, etc. Mr. Schick gave us a little review on everything he lectured on Monday and told us we have a test coming up and that it was on. Mr. Schick told us more stories from his past. We talked about how Africa has the most sexually transmitted diseases. Because their water has AIDS in it and they don't have the liberty of being able to go out and buy birth control or even condoms. We continued to talk about random facts from the website. Lastly, to end our class, we all stood for the National Anthem and sang along while Mr. Schick told us, yet another story, about something that happened in his past.

CIA Government, World Fact book

Today in human geography class we explored www.cia.gov world fact book. I have used this website before and did a project with it when I was in 7th grade. I had to do a country project on Bolivia in Europe. I found it really interesting that the country, The Pitcairn Islands, only has a population of 54 people. It's located in Oceania and off of Australia. It also has no military and is protected by the UK. I would've thought they'd be protected by Australia but I learned that they were the first Pacific Island to become a part of the British colony. Their official language is English. That's something that I'm surprised about. I thought they would actually have their own language or maybe speak something different that I've never heard of just because they are the smallest country in the world. It describes that only 15 people of the 54 (as of 2004) work and have a job. Since they don't even get payed in that country I guess that makes sense.

Measuring Population

Today in human geography we learned how to measure population. The crude birth rate is the number of births per 1000 of the population. As for the crude death rate, it's the same thing, the number of deaths per 1000 of the population. Rate of natural increase is produced by subtracting the death rate from the birth rate. That then gives us the natural growth rate, in percent form, for a country or region. But you can't forget about migration while measuring the population. Net Migration Rate is the number of persons leaving and entering the country at a time. That is written as a positive number. The excess of people leaving a country is emigration and that is written as a negative number. The reasons that people will leave a country is called push force. Some examples of push force are Civil War, environmental degradation, unemployment or underemployment, religious or ethnic persecution. When people are entering a country it has a pull force. Some examples of a pull force could be better economic opportunities, better health services, freedom of religion, and political freedom.

Life Expectancy

Today in human geo class we learned about life expectancy. Life expectancy is the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year. I learned that no matter what country you live in, most likely the women are going to live longer then the men. The highest life expectancy rate is in Monaco. The average man lives up to 86 years old and the average woman lives up to 94 years old. United States is placed in the middle/ towards the top at #42. The average man lives up to 77. The average woman lives us to 82. Lastly the lowest life expectancy rate on earth is Chad. Their average man lives up to 49. Their average woman lives up to 51. Chad has the lowest rate because their country is dirty and they don't have clean or healthy living conditions. The don't get enough water to drink or food to eat. Their water is contaminated with many diseases as well. Monaco is placed at the very top because they are a very rich country. They have doctors that are very focused on health and being the perfect country. Everyone in that country lives a very healthy lifestyle.

More People Than Ever?

-7.5 billion ppl on earth
-increasing 73 million per year
-by approx. 200,000 per day
-8377 per hour
-149 per minute
-2.5 per second
-90 percent of the population growth is in developing countries like Asia and Africa

We then watched the world population clock

China has the most people living in their country. They used to kill baby girls and you were only aloud to have 1 baby per family. If you lived out of the city you could have 2 babies.

USA is number is number 3 in the population chart. Baby boom in the USA after World War 2 everyone had babies.

We learned their were many new inventions when Mr. Schick was a kid. Like washing machines, microwaves, tv, computers, etc. When Mr. Schick was a kid his mom didn't work and neither did a lot of kids' moms his age didn't work either. Our generation basically all of our moms worked.

Test Day

Today in class we took a test.

More Review and Game

Today Demetri came back to be our teacher for the day. In class we played a review game. At first Demetri didn't know what he was doing because he was absent the day before, but soon after he got the hang of it. The class split up into two sides and we elected team captains. I was in the middle so I was really confused on what side I was on. Soon after I chose the right side and I was told to go up to the board and right down the answer to the question. The two teams would race to write down the correct answer. I got mine right. That's all we did in class and I think Mr. Schick was getting upset because we were being too loud. Sorry Mr. Schick. :(

Review for Test

Today in class we reviewed for our test on Friday. I learned how to find out different time zones. We are aloud to use our time zone map for the quiz. The map is really useful because it shows the entire world and the longitude and latitude lines for the different time zones. There are 24 different time zones. It starts out at 7am and I marked the different cities in each country that we'll have on the quiz. The map makes it easy to figure out the time zones and I don't think I'd be able to figure out the different time zones without it.

Mr. Monoghan's Human Geo Class

Eratosthenes is known for the map and 3 other things are:
1. Astronomer
2. Geographer
3. Mathematician

If it's 10:00 a.m. in Bel Air, Maryland what are the time zones in:
1. Portland, Oregon- 7:00 a.m.
2. Greenwhich, England- 3:00 p.m.
3. Toronto, Canada- 10:00 a.m.
4. The South Pole- 3:00 a.m.

Locations and Place Names:
5 Places named after famous toponyms- 
1. Little Rock, Alabama
2. Grand Canyon
3. Great Lakes
4. Great Plains
5. Long Beach, California

5 Places named after Native American toponyms:
1. Philadelphia
2. Santa Fe, New Mexico
3. Chicago
4. Providence, Rhode Island
5. Malibu, California

5 toponyms named after a person of prominence:
1. Columbia
2. Baltimore
3. Maryland
4. Georgetown
5. John Carroll School

5 toponyms with religious affiliation:
1. Willard Clement Family Center
2. Westin St. Francis
3. Calvin College
4. Martin Luther King Building
5. Thomas Aquinas College

Latitude and Longitude:
1. Baltimore, Maryland- 39.2904 degrees N, 76.6122 degrees W
2. Quito, Ecuador- 0.1807 degrees S, 78.4678 degrees W
3. Taveuni, Fiji- 16.8414 degrees S, 179.9813 degrees W
4. Christchurch, New Zealand- 43.5321 degrees S, 172.6362 degrees E
5. Juneau, Alaska- 58.3019 degrees N, 134.4197 degrees W

Geographic Antitode- two points on Earth that are opposite of each other.
 18. Beijing, China- Departamento, Consea, RN, Argentina
 19. Bermuda- The Ocean near Perth, Australia
 20. My house (Baltimore, Maryland)- Augusta, Western Australia, Australia

Human Geo Notes on Friday

Why is Each Point on Earth Unique?

-Regions of cultures
>> Culture is the body of customary beliefs material traits, and social forms that together institute the distinct tradition of a group of people.

>> Origin of the word culture is Latin "cultus" which means to care for
                                  Two meanings...
1. To care about
2. To care for

-Geographers study both definitions of culture
-culture: what people care about

>> Geographers study why the customary beliefs, ideas, and values of a person produce a distinctive culture in a particular place.

>> Especially important cultural values derive from a group's language, religion, and ethnicity.

-culture: what people take care of

>> The second element of culture of interest is production of material wealth such as, clothing, food, and shelter that humans need to survive and thrive

Why are Different Places Similar?

>> Scale, space, and connections help geographers explain why similarities among places and regions do not result in a coincidence

>> Scale is the relationship between the portion of the Earth being studied and Earth as a whole

>> Globalization is a force or process that involves the entire world and results in making something worldwide in scope

Human Geo Review

In human geography class today we just reviewed all of our notes for a big test coming up. We looked over all the notes and answered questions about them. I didn't take any new notes so I can't really put any new notes onto this blog. I'm not sure if the test is open note or not but he might've mentioned it in class. If he did, I'm sorry I don't remember.

3 Types of Regions

There are 3 types of regions, formal, functional, and vernacular.

Formal Region- area in which everyone shares in common or more distinctive characteristics.
Ex: common language, economic activity, or climate.
         Characteristics may be more predominant rather than universal.

Functional Region- area organized around node or focal point.
>> Characteristics chosen to define a functional region dominates at a central focus or node and diminishes in importance outward.
Ex: Circulation of a newspaper such as The New York Times.

Vernacular Region- area that people believe exists as a part of their cultural identity.
>> Ex: The American South is a region individuals recognize as having environmental, cultural, on economic preferences.
>> Ex: Iraq or Iran- Women have no rights and it's all about their religion in those countries.

Where Things Are??

Today in Human Geography class we took notes and learned about location.
 Location can be identified in 3 ways;
1. Place names
-A toponym is the name is the name given to a place on Earth
     -names derived from people of prominence, religious, affiliation, physical features, origin of it's settlers.
2. Site
-physical character of the place

3. Situation
-Location of a place relative to other places

-Region; A Unique Area
-Area on Earth defined by one or more distinctive characteristics is a region

-Most often applied at 2 states
1. Spanning political states
2. constrained within one political
-A region derives it's unified character through the cultural- combination of cultural, religious, and physical features.

Culture Agent natural- area- medium landscape- result -Carl O' Sauer

Geographers Identity 3 Types of Region
1. Formal Region
      -area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics
Ex. common language, economic activity or climate
       Characteristic may be predominate rather than universal.

Went Over Test on Socrates

Today in class we went over our test on Socrates. The essay about Socrates led us into a class discussion about Colin Kaepernick and kneeling during the national anthem. Discussion got heated and some of the class mates got upset with each other and Mr. Schick. Not a good way to start my morning...

Pinpointing Locations (GPS)

In class today we learned about GPS and how the government literally knows everything. I already knew that the government keeps tabs on everyone and is probably listening to everything I say and do so it doesn't really phase me. We talked about how Amazon Alexa can hear everything you say even when you don't say her signal word that she responds to. Back to GPS and pinpointing locations;

-GPS stand fro global positioning system
-It precisely positions your location on Earth
-GPS in the United States includes 3 elements;
 1. satellites placed in predetermined orbits
 2. tracking stations to monitor and control satellites
 3. receiver that can locate at least 4 satellites, figure it's distance from each, and use the information, to calculate it's precise location

GPS helps people learn directions on everywhere they need to get, they help navigate pilots and ship captains, provides locations on social media applications on a smartphone


Why is Each Point on Earth Unique?

-place: Specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular characteristic
-describing features of a place is essential building block for geographers to explain similarities, differences, and changes across the Earth
-Geographers describe a feature's place on Earth by identifying it's location, the position that something occupies on Earth's surface.