Cyber Day Assignment

Today was our first cyber snow day and Mr Schick told us to take notes into our blog about the ancient Egyptians. First thing I'm learning about is their geography and their entire lives are centered on the Nile River, which is a huge resource for them. The Nile is used for irrigating, drinking, bathing, and transporting goods. In every July, the Nile floods and in every October the river leaves behind rich soil. The river's delta is a fairly large marsh-like triangular area of fertile silt which is very good for farming. As mentioned before, irrigation was a technological breakthrough for the Egyptians because this helped them manage the Nile river. Then the presentation goes on to talk about the pyramids of Egypt and one of it's most famous, the Great Sphinx of Giza. The work was built in 2555-2532 BC and it is a statue of a lion with a human's head. The Great Sphinx of Giza is the oldest monumental statue in the world. I just watched a video on these statues and pyramids in Egypt and I thought it was really fascinating how advanced the Egyptians were in their building skills. Next the presentation moves on to talk about the daily life in Egypt. They had a system of class rank which had slaves at the lowest and Pharaohs at the highest. Slaves most helped the rich people with household duties and taking care of their children. The farmers tended to the crops raised by the help of the irrigation from the Nile river. Artisans were the people who built statues displaying battles and scenes in the afterlife they believed in. In this time of Egyptian history, they used the bartering system and merchants were the people who organized these trades. Scribes were the ones who kept records of events, told stories, made poetry and were held higher up because of their writing. This writing was called hieroglyphs. Soldiers are the third highest rank for class and they used wooden weapons with bronze tips and some even rode chariots. Next was known as the white kilt class who were the priests, physicians, engineers, and Political leaders. The highest rank was Pharaoh but I am going to leave off there and pick up in class on Thursday. Tomorrow is our Monday schedule so we do not have Mr Schick tomorrow.

Test Hand Backs

On class on Thursday, we went over the two tests we have taken so far in this semester. We didn't really do much with it we just went over the answers aloud and made corrections for any mistakes Mr Schick made while grading. We went over the fact that we had to store these tests somewhere because they will come up on the final in June. Crazy to think that we are already thinking about June with finals! By that time I'll be wishing I was out of there and surprised that I made it through freshmen year. Honestly, I thought my grades were going to sink in high school but I've actually learned to be a much better student so far. My social studies class experience has changed a lot too. For the last two years, I had a horrible social studies teacher so I'm glad I got such an awesome teacher and class this year. It makes me participate more in the topic and learn better. I'm so excited to learn about ancient Egypt because believe it or not I'm a little bit of a Egypt nerd. My best friend and I have always loved learning about the pyramids, pharaohs, gods, and of course the mummies. Our favorite movie to watch together as kids was called The Mummy and we always loved to learn about it in class. I don't really know what fascinates me so much about it but I am always interested to learn more about ancient Egypt. Hopefully we will start the lesson soon because I feel like I'll do really well on this next test.

Guns, Germs, and Steel Test

I just now finished taking the test on the video for Guns, Germs, and Steel. I think this was a pretty fair and easy test I only had trouble with about 3 questions. It was twenty five multiple choice questions so that made it a lot easier for me to do. When I had trouble on a question I would just rule out the illogical answers and narrowed it down. It was all things that had been in the video we watched last week and I'm glad i paid attention to it. It really helped me remember a lot of things that were on the test. I also took really good notes which helped me drill the information into my mind. The test really didn't have anything from the presentations we did in class, which I am very happy about. I think Mr Schick is about to go put the Scantron papers into the grading machine and I'm not too too nervous. I don't think I got a perfect score but I definitely did not fail that test. I'm glad I knew most of it because I had so much homework this week and I barely had time to study for this. I hope I did as well as I think. Wish me luck!

Presentation Day

In class on Friday, I'm pretty sure my groups presentation started off the class quite well. We had to cover as I said in my last blog the subjects of animals from the video we've been watching. We had some good information in our power point and only had a few mistakes such as spelling. Over all I think the class really like our presentation because not only did it inform our class about the animals but it kept their attention with the funny pictures and videos. Then it went onto other people's projects and they talked about the other 4 subjects the website covered such as diseases and cuneiform. Mr Schick stopped the presenters a couple of times to let us know what and what not will be on the test Tuesday. I will not be in class on Tuesday because I have another very important appointment for my back to get other doctor's opinion on my condition. Hopefully that goes as well as my last appointment did because I definitely do not want surgery. I was told by Mr Schick to let him know when I wanted to take the test because I will be gone. I will most likely come on Wednesday to take it because I have lacrosse impact testing after school on Monday. I will try to study some tomorrow Monday and Tuesday so I can do really well on this video test. I think I'll do pretty well on this because I took at least 4 pages of notes and paid really close attention to the video. I also wrote some really good blogs on the video and listened to the presentations on Friday. Until then, enjoy my groups' favorite part of our presentation.

Video Presentation

Today we got into groups of 5 to make projects about subjects in the movie we watched the past few days. Mr Schick told us to make any kind of presentation so my group decided to do a power point. We got to pick first so we got the subject of animals which seemed to be the most interesting one out of all the other options. Everyone decided that I would be the one to present the power point to the class so wish me luck. We researched about all the domesticated animals used at the time of first civilization. I did the cattle slide and looked up most of the pictures for the power point slides. Everyone else in the group did amazing researching their slides I have to give it to them. Our presentation looks great and we took almost the whole class to finish it. We have a vast amount of information on the animals of the time but put it nicely into neat bullets that are easy for people to read. The information is straight forward and does not drag on like most presentation do. I feel like the class will enjoy my groups project cause we had a REALLY fun time making the slides. We added a lot of great surprises and Mr Schick even pitched into it. I cannot wait to present it tomorrow and hopefully everyone else will laugh as hard as my group did today. Be prepared!

Final Conclusion

Next the video advanced onto Jordyn where they found group of houses with major technology advances in it. They had discovered how to master fire and make plaster out of limestone which was huge because this would lead into using fire to make steel. This plaster was used as a way of old time air conditioning when it was spreading across the walls. But most of these villages built in Jordyn and most of the Fertile Crescent were abandoned because the land was too dry from people farming too much. They advanced onto the east and west lands next to the Fertile crescent which also gave them geographic luck. This means that they advanced onto the same latitude lines which meant that the animals could be raised in the same climate and farm in the same amount of day time. They thrived in these new lands because their domesticated animals adapted well tot he new environments and the new land was great for farming. Egypt exploded with civilization when the Fertile Crescent people got to the land because they created a surplus amount of food for everyone there. This eventually advanced onto spreading into Europe who then expanded to the Americas. Wheat wasn't even a local plant in America before the Fertile Crescent people brought it there and now 20 million tons of wheat is consumed by Americans a year. Diamond then concluded that wherever you go the people are fundamentally similar. He said civilization had to deal with the hand people were dealt with the land and more. New Guinea got the short hand while other countries thrived. Diamond answered the man's question from long ago with that the people of New Guinea weren't not hugely developed because they weren't smart, it was because of the GEOGRAPHY.

Animals and Grains

Today we watched more of the video we watched last week about the scientist in New Guinea. One reason New Guinea did not advance like other countries because they did not have the food resources to plant like other countries. One plant that developed farming in other countries was wheat and barley. This showed through digging through an old village which was probably the first permanent civilization discovered called Draa. People started to settle down and tried to survive through another somewhat Ice Age when they started farming wheat and barley. They even made the first granary which was where they kept the crops away from moisture and insects. Most villages were found close to water with fields full of wheat next to them. The people farming this wheat didn't realize it at the time but they were the start of plant domestication. After the Middle East, China started developing rice and the Americas started to farm corn, squash, and beans and finally Africa with plants called sorghum, millet, and yams. This doesn't mean New Guinea wasn't farming, it just means they weren't farming good grains that were storable. The whole thing came down to ultimately geographic luck as Jerod Diamond described it. Inequalities in the world could have been caused because we developed much faster than other countries by food. The humans started the evolution of animal domestication because animals provided meat, gave milk, helped plow, and gave fur for clothes. The ideal animals to domesticate were over 100 pounds and reproduced in 1-2 years. Most were social animals so if you control the alpha you can control the whole herd. 14 species over 100 pounds have been fully domesticated by humans. We will probably finish the video tomorrow.