Maddie's Western Civ Blog

I just took the religion test. It was actually harder than I thought it was going to be. I did not study very hard last night because I was too tired so I went to bed. I had an off-mod first this morning so I studied when I was there. I wrote out all my notes and studied from the powerpoint. I felt very prepared. During the test, I didn't know some of the questions, but some of the questions were very easy. I think I did pretty well. I really hope I got an A. After the test, we took a short quiz on verses from the Bible and the Qur'an. We had to guess if a certain verse was either from the Bible or from the Qur'an. I thought this was really hard and I barely got any of them right. After class ended, I went to lunch.

Today in class we went over Sam's quizlet to help review for the test on Monday. Sam's quizlet was very helpful. I think I will do pretty well on the religion quiz because it seems easy. Mr. Schick told us all we would have to do would be to match the description to its corresponding religion. I plan to come into class on Monday prepared and ready for the quiz. After we were done the quizlet, Mr. Schick told us stories about how he worked on Home Alone with Macaulay Culkin. I thought it was pretty cool that my history teacher worked on this movie and got a valentine from Macaulay Culkin! Mr. Schick also told us about the time he got hit by a helicopter while he was in a car, while shooting a commercial. I had a lot of fun today in class hearing about Mr. Schick's crazy stories.

I forgot to do a blog yesterday. This is the first one I have ever missed! So now, I am writing this blog and then I am going to have to write another one for tonight's blog. Yesterday, we finished taking notes on the 5 major world religions. We also found out that the test was moved to Monday. We started taking notes on Islam after Christianity . Islam has the second largest number of adherents of all the religions in the world. Muslims believe that Muhammad was their founder. The holy book of Islam is the Qur'an. Next, we talked about Hinduism. Hinduism has about 1.1 billion adherents. Their holy book is the Vedas, which are - eternal truths revealed to ancient sages; composed in verse form (meant to be sung and easily memorized). There is no distinct founder of Hinduism. Then, we talked about Buddhism. There are about 500 million-1.5 billion Buddists in the world. They believe in the Four Noble Truths and The Eightfold Path. Lastly, we discussed Judaism. Their founder is Abr

Today in class we went over the population test. I got a 95 on the test. I only got two questions wrong. These were questions that I struggled with on the test. The first question that I got wrong was about ranking certain countries net migration rates from least to greatest. The second question I got wrong was: If a country's net migration rate is a (blank) number, then more people are leaving the country than entering. I put positive, but the correct answer was negative. I don't really know why I put positive. I guess I didn't read the question correctly. After we reviewed the test, Mr. Schick told us we would be having a test on Friday. The test would be on the five most popular religions in the world: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. At the end of class, we started taking notes on Christianity, but we did not get any further than that.

A couple seconds ago I was taking the population test. I just turned it in and now I am sitting at my desk writing my blog. I think I did pretty well. To be honest, I totally forgot that we had a test today. It was late at night last night and I remembered we had the test while I was trying to go to sleep. I decided that I would wake up really early and study for the test. I set my alarm for 5:15 am. Unfortunately, for some reason, my alarm didn't go off. I woke up at 6:30 and did not study and instead got ready for school. I studied during school in between classes and at lunch. Now, I am at home and I just checked veracross. I got a 95. I am very happy with my score. Although, I feel like if I studied more I could have gotten a 100.

Today's Human Geo class was really fun.  Class went by really fast because we started one hour late today. First, we found out that we have a test on Monday. The test will be on all the terms we have studied and Population Pyramids. We rewatched the population pyramid video in order to refresh our brains on what the test was going to be about. Watching the video a second time really helped because I was able to understand it more. I knew more of the terms and had a better understanding of how population pyramids worked. After that, we watched Jeopardy. That was really fun. We tried answering the questions before the answer was given. I even got one right. After watching Jeopardy in class, I realized that Jeopardy is kind of fun to watch and to try to get the right answer. When you get the answer right, you feel proud of yourself.

Today we finished up the presentations. The last group did Italy and Tanzania. After their presentation, Mr. Schick told us that we were going to grade ourselves and our group. I did not like doing this. It was stressful and not fun. I feel like I did a lot of work on the project and was very prepared. The night before the project, I stayed up later than usual and made sure my slide didn't have too much information on my slide and put what I wanted to stay on some note cards. However, when I went up with my group to present, I did not do as well as I thought I was going to. I got up there, and for some reason, I got really nervous. I completely forgot to look at my note cards and just started saying things off the top of my head. And then, I just start laughing. Why did I do that?

Today in class we presented our project. We were the second group to go. I was not as scared as I was presenting my debate argument, but I was still a little nervous.  Because we could not find any problems for Canada, we decided to use a problem that they have already solved. We talked about the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) as our problem. Basically, how it works is that the government takes a certain amount of money out of your paycheck every year. The government then gives this money back to you when you retire. The presentation was going smoothly until I started laughing for no reason while I was presenting. I have no idea why I started laughing. This is something I need to work on. We also had a little bit of trouble with the last slide and coming up with solutions for Yemen. I am nervous to see what our grade our group got for the assignment.

Today in class we worked on our solution project the whole time. We decided that we would each do one slide. Reagan and Alex were going to do the problem and solution for Yemen, while Charlotte and I did the problem and solution for Canada. It was easy to find problems/solutions for Yemen. However, Canada was not. Charlotte and I did a lot of research to find at least ONE problem for Canada. The problem was that we could not find a problem for Canada! We were planning on doing Welfare and Pension problems in Canada, (like the Old Age Security Pension) but Charlotte did some more research on that topic and found that Canada was already working on fixing that problem. Now, we truly have no idea what problem/solution we are going to use for Canada. Hopefully we find something fast and have it ready by tomorrow.

Today we started a new project. The project is called The Solution Project. The goal is to pick one post-industrialized country and one developing country and try to figure out a solution for each country's problem.  Mr. Schick picked four people (Sam, Izzy, Reagan, and Gabby) to come up to the front of the room and pick who they wanted in their group. (This took up most of the time in class.) I am in Reagan's group along with Alex and Charlotte. I really like my group and I am excited to work with them. For our two countries, we picked Yemen and Canada. Yemen is our developing country and Canada is our post-industrialized country. After we picked our countries we all sat together in a group and discussed our ideas and researched information about our countries. We created a google slide and plan to use it to present our project.

In class today Mr. Shick thought that it would be a good idea to give us a pop quiz on what we have been learning recently.  However, he decided that he wasn't going to give us the pop quiz for a grade and instead let us review the pop quiz. I am very glad that we didn't take the pop quiz. I knew some of the answers while we were reviewing in class, but some I forgot and could not remember. We talked about how cia.gov was a very reliable source for any future papers that we write. We also talked about how, when Mr. Shick was our age, he had to go to a library, check out books, take longhand notes, and then use a typewriter to type his papers for school. In 2019, it is so much easier than what he had to do. But now, since we talked about typewriters in class, I really want to use one.

1. Unemployment rate of Burkina Faso: 77% (2004) -Burkina Faso has the highest umemployment rate out of all of the countries. This could be a push force for people living in the country because they may not be able to find a job, and need one.  2. GDP per capita of Central African Republic: $700 (2017) -On average, a person living in the Central African Republic usually makes around $700 every year. From this fact, I can guess that this country is a developing country. If you think about it, $700 is not even enought money to buy a full refrigerator. 3. What percent of the population of the Pitcairn Islands are internet users?: 100% of the population -The population of the Pitcairn Islands is 54. This country has the lowest population in the world. This means that all 54 people in the Pitcairn Islands are internet users. 4. What percent of children are under the age of 5 and underweight in Yemen?: 39.90% -39.90% of children who are under the age of 5 in Yemen are underweight.

Today we took a pop quiz. I got an 8/10. We watched the video before we took the test, and that helped me a little bit. However, I still made a stupid mistake on #2. The question asked, "What was measured on the horizontal axis in the video?" For this question, I put developed and developing nations. I honestly have no idea why I put that. I think my brain was not working correctly. The correct answer was income or GDP per capita. The second question I got wrong was #6. The question asked, "What were two causes that caused the world's population to go down in the early 1900's?" I knew one of the answers was the Spanish Flu. I thought the second answer was World War I but I wasn't sure so I just put "war." Unfortunately, the answer was actually World War I so I got it wrong. :(