Research on Governments 2 (Rulers)

Mexico President- Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa 
current: Enrique Pena Nieto 

China President- Hu Jintao

India President-Pranab Kumar Mukherjee

Afghanistan President- Hamid Karzai 

Iran President- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Israel President- Shimon Peres
Benjamin Netanyahu: Prime Minister  

Germany President- Joachim Gauck
Angela Merkel: Chancellor 

United Kingdom Prime Minister- David Cameron
Queen Elizabeth: Queen

France President- François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande 

Brazil President-Dilma Vana Rousseff

 Venezuela President- Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías

Venezuela President-  Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

Research on Governments 1

Over the weekend, Mr. Schick sent us an assignment, saying that we had to research some of the major countries governments. I will post the pictures of the countries rulers on a separate blog from this one, due to some issues with posting the blog. Here are a few examples of some countries governments.

Mexico- Federal Republic

China- Communist State

India- Federal Republic

Afghanistan- Islamic Republic

Iran- Theocratic Republic

Israel- Parliamentary Democracy

Germany- Federal Republic

United Kingdom- Constitutional Monarchy and Commonwealth Realm

France- Republic

Brazil- Federal Republic

Venezuela- Federal Republic

Saudi Arabia- Monarchy

Religion Questions

Next Wednesday is our test on the major religions of the world. Mr. Schick wants us to write 5 questions about the religions in our blog. He will borrow some of the questions from our blogs so he can come up with questions on the test. Here are my 5 questions.

1) Christianity is considered a monotheistic religion, but the Christian God is  split into 3 persons. What are the names of the 3 persons?    A: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

2) Who is the main prophet of the Islam faith?    A: Muhammad.

3) What does the term "nirvana" mean?      A: happiness; content; at perfect ease.

4) What 2 religions originated from Judaism.     A: Christianity, and Islam.

5) In Buddhism the ________ Path helps Buddhists to receive nirvana.    A: Eightfold

Reviewing Religions

Today was spent recapping on the major religions of the world. When class started, Mr. Schick found a spider behind his chair. He squished it with his shoe, which led to a conversation about how stink bugs are such a nuisance to all of us. Mr. Schick said that he found about 50 of them behind this one picture hanging on his wall. After we talked about that, we started with Islam. I found that the Islamic faith is very interesting, and the way that their culture does things is very different from the way Christians do. I found out that Islamic people (Muslims), must know the direction of the holy city of Mecca, in relation to wherever they are. I also learned that that they must pray 5 times a day, facing the location of Mecca. I think that's really cool.
Next, we reviewed Buddhism. I found out that Buddhism doesn't have a god or holy book. It's more of a practice, or a way of living your life if anything. Hinduism is very much the same concept. Both are ways of life, rather than believing in a god or worshiping a higher power.I heard that following some of the practices or methods of living your life can help you reach Nirvana, or in other words, content or happiness. Both religions are very old, with Buddhism dating back to 500 B.C.E and Hinduism dating back to over 3000 years ago! After we discussed those religions, we went over Judaism a little bit before class ended. Judaism was actually the original religion for what is now Christianity and Islam. This means that both of those religions originated from Judaism. There have been records hat trace back to Judaism 3000 years ago. That's 1000 years before Jesus Christ was even born!

Cultural Characteristics

In today's class, we reviewed cultural characteristics that can combine or separate different ethnic groups. Some examples include: language, ethnic heritage, and religion. During the 'language' part of the lesson, we talked about a few examples in which language either joined or separated 2 groups of people. One example of how it joined people, is when Canada became a bilingual nation. Currently, its 2 official languages are English and French. One reason on how language can separate people, is how Brazil is the only South American nation which does not have Spanish as a dominant language. Its main language is actually Portuguese. This pattern continued until we got to the 'religion' segment of the lesson. During that time, we reviewed the major religions of the world, and reviewed our answers to the research about the religions in our previous blog. Again, the 5 major religions of the world are: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.  

P.S.  Feel free to feed my fish   :D

Information About Major Religions

In today's blog, I will be giving research on the major religions on the world: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism. 

CHRISTIANITY

Christianity was founded in the mid first century in the Middle East. It began as a part of the Jewish faith, but eventually became its own religion over time. The Christian faith is a monotheistic religion, meaning that they believe in only one god, or deity. Christianity has a holy book called the Bible, and contains important scriptures and teachings about the Christian faith. Christianity focuses on the profit Jesus, who they believe is God in human form. Currently, Christianity is the most popular religion in the world, with about 2.2 billion members. Christianity  is the predominant religion on Europe, North and South America, and Africa. Christianity can be found on almost every continent.

ISLAM

Islam is a monotheistic religion founded in sub-Saharan West Africa just after 1000 A.D. There holy book is called the Qu'ran. It is believed to have been revealed to the profit Muhammad, through the angel Jibril during his lifetime. Currently, the religion has about 1.6 billion followers. There are very high numbers of people in the Middle East who are Islamic, and Islam can also be found in various parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe.

BUDDHISM

Buddhism started in Lumbini, Nepal around 600 B.C.E. This makes it one of the oldest religions still practiced in the 21st century. Buddhism is actually neither polytheistic or monotheistic. Buddhism does not have a holy book, but rather separate sayings of Buddhist teachings called sutras. Currently, Buddhism has around 350-500 million followers, and a vast majority can be found in China and countries bordering it.

HINDUISM

Hinduism was founded around 1500 B.C.E or earlier in India. Hinduism has traces of polytheism, but can be classified as pantheistic (concerning God). Hinduism contains many texts, including: Vedas, Upanishads, Sutras, and Bhagavad Gita. Hinduism is not centered on one person, but rather a multitude of profits. About 1 billion Hindus live in the world today, making Hinduism the 3rd largest religion today. Hinduism can be found in various parts of Asia, especially India. 

JUDAISM 

Judaism is a monotheistic religion which was founded in the middle east. The central figures of the religion are Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, however Abraham was the one to found the religion. Judaism has a holy book called the Torah, written in the form of a scroll. There are about 13-14 million Jewish people in the world today, and they can be found in a variety of countries around the world.

Learning About Polls

     Today in class, my group for the Google presentation about Christopher Columbus finished presenting. Yesterday, all of the different groups presented their projects about vikings, and Native Americans. After we took notes on all of the presentations, Mr. Schick moved on to a new topic. He taught us about polls and how they can work sometimes. He first showed us a map of the United States, including the state boundaries and the individual counties located inside the states. The map showed the locations in the United States in which the majority of the population for that area calls soft drinks a particular name, like: pop, coke, soda, and other. On the map, the various counties had many different results, so the map was a big vibrant of colors, indicating what the population calls the soft drinks. However, at the bottom of the map, it stated that this is a result of 120,000 submissions. Mr. Schick pointed out that this map is not completely correct. Out of the 312 million people that live in the United States, only 120,000 participated in the survey. Mr. Schick explained that not everyone is asked to contribute to the poll. Although polls give a good insight to what is or may happen, not all polls are 100% correct.

     Another interesting statistic is HOW people get the results. As an example, I will use a presidential election. Lets say that the people conducting the survey call someone, but they are secretly for President A. They call to ask who they want to vote for. If they say President B, then they will say a statement that will go against President B. If that changes their mind on who they want to vote for, then they check them off as wanting to vote for President A. That's one method in which people conducting surveys get people to vote for a particular thing. So you can also know that polls can be fixed to be in favor for a particular person.

Our Second Project

Today in class, we got our "God Grew Tired of Us" tests back. I was surprised that no one got below a 70% on the test. However, there were no 100%'s either. All of us got in between those numbers on the test. I got an 85%, which isn't bad. After he finished passing out the tests, Mr. Schick introduced a new student in our class from Nigeria. We are all excited to have him with us in Human Geography. Today in the United States, we celebrate Columbus Day. Christopher Columbus discovered America while trying to make his way to India for trading purposes Mr. Schick said that when he was a kid, he had school off on Columbus Day, while nowadays it is not celebrated as much and we have school today. We had to do a project on Google documents today about a topic that he gave us. My group coincidentally was assigned to research Christopher Columbus. During class, we worked on the presentation so we could have it completed to share in class today. Besides that, not much else happened.

Our Second Test

Today in class, we took our test on the documentary "God Grew Tired of Us". The test consisted of 20 questions, each worth 5 points, to make a total of 100 points. All of the questions were "fill-in-the-blank", which meant that you had to fill a word in the blank to make the sentence true. If you got the answer wrong, you got 0 points. If you got the answer right, you got 5 points, but if you spelled it incorrectly, you lost a point. I was a bit unprepared because I was not expecting the test to be in this format. Luckily,  Mr. Schick gave us 15 minutes before the test to review our notes so we could do well. I feel pretty confident about how I did. I though that after I reviewed my notes, the test wasn't so bad after all. One of my classmates had the town name in which one of the lost boys lived in, on her sweatshirt. Plus, that question was on the test. It was funny when many classmates spelled the town name wrong, when they could have just looked at the students shirt to get the answer. I am excited to start our next unit so we can learn about more fascinating things.

Sharing Our Information

Today in class, we shared the information we got from the charities websites yesterday. Anyone who thought that they had a good charity they would like to present, was allowed to do so. During the class, we talked about the different charities and looked at their websites. Some of the charities we looked at seemed very organized, and have donated large amounts of money in the past. We were also discussing on how we could raise money  to give to the charities that would help people in Sudan, like the John Dau Foundation. We actually e-mailed John Bul yesterday to see if he could come to our school to talk to us. However, we found out that in order for him to come to John Carroll, it would have to cost between 6,000 and 10,000 dollars plus Johns airfare to get here. The 10,000 dollar part does not go in John's pocket though. It is used to go to his charity to help the people in Sudan with diseases and those who need proper healthcare. We will need to have a BIG fundraiser if we ever think of receiving that much money. Tomorrow is my test on "God Grew Tired of Us", so I need to review my notes if I am to get a good grade on it.

Working with Charities

Today in class, Mr. Schick posted an edible document that the whole class had to partake in. The purpose was to find information on charitable organizations so we could get a better understanding of the charity we want to contribute to. We paired up in groups and started to find good charity websites so we could write about them. I was working with one of my classmates Alex. We were looking on the John Dau Foundation website and adding information about the foundation on the document. As we were adding, we saw that there were more people on the document then there were people in our class. Plus, some anonymous users on the document kept deleting peoples work as they were typing it up. Mr. Schick then disabled editing on the document so no one would keep deleting other peoples work. He told us to copy what we have typed, and to continue working on a word document. He would then allow 5 minutes at the end of class, to copy their work from the word document onto the document that everyone was working on. That is exactly what we did before the bell rang. It was a very productive day, and Mr. Schick told us that there will be a test on the movie "God Grew Tired of Us" on Friday. I hope that I do well on it.

"God Grew Tired of Us" 3

Today we finished the documentary "God Grew Tired of Us". During the last 30 or so minutes, the lost boys have been in America for about 3 years. The boys are now fully accustomed to American life, and know how to function in society. They find themselves remembering many traumatic events during their childhood, as a result of PTSD ( or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). During Independence Day in the United States, the fireworks and the loud noises reminded them of the war in Sudan. A little later, the UN is able to locate Panthers mother in one of their refugee camps. Panther sends his mother money so she can take a flight to America to see her son. It was very emotional to see Panther and his mother reunite after being apart for 17 years. Also, the lost boys come together at a family reunion so they can talk about issues with Sudan and what they can do to help. At the end of the video, it talks about what the boys are doing from this day forward. Panther wants to open a school in his village. He also marries a woman in his village and reunites with his brother. John is the founder of the John Dau Foundation, and he plans to build medical clinics in South Sudan. Daniel is beginning to go to collage, but has yet to meet or hear from any of his family members. After the movie, Mr. Schick wanted us to come up with a few ideas in which we could help the people suffering in Sudan. One of the ways we cold help is we could donate to the John Dau Foundation. The link is provided here  http://johndaufoundation.org/

Another way we could help is to make a fundraiser to raise awareness about the war in Sudan. We could also send care packages to Sudan to give the homeless and the hungry some food and other materials. There are infinite ways in which we could help these people, and I hope that this madness in Sudan comes to an end in the nearby future.