Thursday September 26, 2012

Today, we got our tests back from the other day. Before he started to pass them out, he said that if we heard a bell sound ( him pressing one of those bellhop bells), it means we got an A on our test. If we didn't hear the bell, it means that you either got a B, C, D, or F. When my turn came around, I was glad that I heard the bell. I thought that I would have done worse because of this one set of questions I was unsure about, but whatever. We spent much of the class period reviewing the answers to the questions on the test. I didn't have many wrong answers, so it was a bit boring for me. During the entire class, people were talking while Mr. Schick was, and he had to keep reminding us to stop talking. After the 5th or 6th time, when the class kept talking, Mr. Schick actually left the room. It took a bit for the entire class to realize that the teacher left. Everyone eventually got it, and we stayed silent until Mr. Schick came back in. We now know that it is rude to talk over the teacher. After that whole thing was settled, we watched a bit more of "God Grew Tired of Us"

"God Grew Tired of Us"

Today was our first test in Mr. Schick's class. I made sure to study my blogs and review my notes so I would be well prepared for today. I thought the test was very easy, and I was very glad I studied. After everyone was finished, Mr. Schick told us about a video he wanted to show us. The title was called "God Grew Tired of Us" It is a true story about 3 boys who lived in Sudan during the late 1980s. There was a civil war in Sudan, and the 3 boys along with many others try to make their way out of Sudan to avoid religious persecution. We watched the first 20 minutes of it, and I was horrified at what I saw. Some people looked like skeletons with skin on them. Others were so skinny that they couldn't even walk! When I see these people it makes me realize that I take many things for granted. I am very interested about what will be in the rest of the video tomorrow. I also hope that I get a good grade on the test I took today.

Friday, September 21

Today's class period was a lot like Thursdays period. We still had a few groups who haven't presented their presentations to the class. We watched their presentations and they were very interesting. That part took up most of the period. When everyone finally finished presenting, Mr. Schick told us how to study for the Test he was assigning Monday. He said that it would be on everything that we have discussed since the first day of school. He told us that one of the main reasons for writing these blogs is to help us study for tests he will assign us. These blogs will tell us about what we did everyday in class. He said we need to review Socrates and A Message to Garcia, and the Did You Know video. His test will also cover some of the population terms we were talking about recently. I hope I copied down enough information about what we did in class.

Sharing our Google Documents

Today, we presented to the class all of our Google documents. My groups document was about Nigeria. Others included Indonesia and India.Our group was the second or third group to present. Each of the members of my group shared what they wrote in the document. When I was presenting my portion of the document, I found that I made a typo when writing it. I pointed it out and told people to ignore it. I get nervous when I am speaking in front of a lot of people, and my face started to get red. Mr. Schick asked if I was alright, and I said yes. He then asked me if I was going to cry (as a joke), and I responded by saying no in a high voice. My voice cracked, and everyone laughed including me. I thought that we did pretty good presenting. I was also interested by the other presentations people gave. I am also glad that Mr. Schick postponed the test he was going to give Friday, to Monday. That will give me extra time to study about what we learned.

Nothing Important

Today in class, we had an assignment we were supposed to do. We were supposed to make a powerpoint about Nigeria. That's all.
:D

Population

Today in class, we dealt with the topic of population. We took notes on the different populations of various countries, and learned about life expectancy, Net Migration Rate, Total Fertility Rate, push and pull factors, and so much more. I was surprised to learn that it took more than 10,000 years for the total human population to exceed 1 billion. Now, it only takes about a decade for the total human population to increase by 1 billion! I also found out that most of the increasing population is coming from developing countries: like countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Whats also interesting, is that for the population to remain at a constant rate, the Rate of Natural Increase (RNI) must stay at 2.1. You would think it would be 2.0 because their would be a direct replacement from the parents, but the reason it is 2.1 is because some of the people wont make it to the age where they can have kids. Plus, you add the factors of war, starvation, and crimes to all of that. We also learned about what pushes a person into a country, or out of one. Currently, there are about 7 billion people on this planet, and it is likely to grow to 8 in the next 9 or 10 years. I hope we will be prepared.

What is a "Record Player"?

We came into class today ready to share what we thought was the most interesting facts in the video we were assigned to watch. I mentioned some of the interesting facts in my previous blog. We had a very interesting discussion about what was in the video we saw. Mr. Schick told us that half the stuff that was in the video didn't exist when he was a kid. He said that there were no such things as i pods and cell phones when he was young. Back then, you had these big music discs that you put on a big record player. You also had a home phone that was attached to a cord, plus it was fairly large. If you were to go back in time about 25 years, they would think you were crazy when you told them that you will be able to take pictures, or surf the internet on your phone. They would also think you were crazy when you said that computers would be in every home in America 25 years from now. If this much can be accomplished in 25 years (music discs to i pods), think of how much will be accomplished in another 25 years. We talked about what we thought would be in the near future. One person suggested that there would be microchips installed into peoples brains, and you could play music by just thinking about it. The next generation of kids will think it is crazy that we had i pods everywhere, when you can just listen to it in your head instead.