Exam Review

Today in Human Geography we looked on Mr. Schick's blog for the exam review.

Our Social Studies (or Human Geo) exam is tomorrow o.o
There will be one hundred and thirty questions and we will have to do two essay questions.

Some of the material on the exam will be:

Here is what will be covered on the semester exam.

• The Concept of Excellence / Our Twenty-First Century World
• A Message to Garcia
• Greek concepts: arete, polis, agora, Socrates
• CIA World Factbook
• Did You Know 3.0

• Population and Settlement
• population terms: life expectancy, CBR, CDR, developing/developed nations, RNI, net migration rate, immigration/emigration, push/pull forces, TFR
• population pyramids

• Political Geography
• world leaders and important facts about the following key countries: Germany, Mexico, China, Brazil, India, Canada, Japan, Russia, Israel, the United Kingdom, Syria, France, and the United States

• Cultural Geography
• Slumdog Millionaire
• key world religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism

Here is the breakdown.

• Questions 1 - 21: Excellence and Our Twenty-First Century World
• Questions 22 - 57: Population and Settlement
• Questions 58 - 82: Political Geography
• Questions 83 - 130: Cultural Geography

You will write TWO essays on this test.  There are three topics to choose from.

• Essay Option #1:  Socrates famously stated, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Describe the importance of this philosophy.  Discuss things you learned this semester that illustrate Socrates' words.
• Essay Option #2: Religion, language, and ethnicity are important aspects of cultural geography.  As a student in a predominantly Christian, English-speaking school, what did you observe about people with other cultural characteristics?  Describe the differences you observed, as well as ways in which we are all similar. 
• Essay Option #3:  The world is filled with problems and difficulties.  Discuss some of the things you learned in Human Geography this semester, and how they could help our country deal with specific domestic and international challenges.

(copied from Mr. Schick's blog)

The exam is 16 pages!

Next we talked about how the exams work. Tomorrow we have a religion test from 8-9:30 am, and then this class at 10-11:30 and then we go home to study for the rest of our exams.

I reeeeeeaaaaaaaally hope I get a good grade on this classes exam!

Friday Blog

Even though it probably does not count... on Friday we reviewed for exams. We also went over the tests that we took that would be on the exam on Tuesday.

Test

Today in Human Geo, we took our Cultural Geography test. It was on the movie that we watched called "Slumdog Millionaire". On the rest, a lot of it was about the religions, Christianity, Muslim, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jews.

The test was easier then I expected, but I didn't expect it to be too hard, because their was anything really hard we had to study. I think I'll get a good grade, I got tripped up by some of the religions. Especially the Buddist and Hindus because they are simple in country terms but I think I did fairly well.

Today's Class

Today in Human Geo, it was Mr. Schick's birthday!
SO..... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. SCHICK, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
(and of course I have to add them >>>>)

Okay, he we didn't really have a "normal class" today, (not that we ever do) but he had to go to his academic meeting so we were left to study or complete homework for any class.

We have a test tomorrow on Cultural Geography.
And that is about it, soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo goodbyeee.

Cultural Geography

Notes continued from Friday:
-more on Buddhism:
Four Noble Truths    
-There is suffering
-Attachment to desire is the origin of suffering
-There is a cessation of suffering
-The Eightfold Path will lead to the cessation of suffering

Eightfold Path:
-Right view
-Right intention
-Right speech
-Right action
-Right livelihood
-Right effort
-Right mindfulness
-Right dedication

Judaism:
-number of adherents: 14-18 million (ninth)
-call them: Jews
-geographic location: Israel
-founder: Abraham (?)

more on Judaism:
-holy book: Talmud
Torah (the first five books of Old Testament:
  -Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

-beliefs: ethical monotheism - God is one, and concerned with the actions of humankind
Ten Commandments
13 Principles of Faith


The rest of the class we literally talked about nothing and their was ranting lol

Millionaire

Okay so first today was a weird day.. there was some rapping and singing and such to Slumdog Millionaire. Buy Mr. Schick's verison of Billionaire by Bruno Mars on iTunes!

NOTES...

Spatial divisions:
Examples of Spatial Divisions
-Political alliances
  -North Atlantic Treaty
  -Organization (NATO)

-Commonwealth of Nations
-Organization of American States (OAS) 

End of Cultural Geography Slideshow

Major Religions:

Christianity:
- number of adherents: around 2.2 billion largest in the world
-call them: Christians
-geographic location: Europe, the Americas, southern Africa

-Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Protestants (Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians etc.)

more on Christianity:
-founder: Jesus Christ (it's Abrahamic in origin)
-holy book: The Bible, especially the New Testament
-beliefs: Jesus is both hum and divine - the Son of God; he led a virtuous life; he was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected; he ascended into heaven where he reigns with God the Father.  

Islam:
-number of adherents: 1.5 billion (second largest)
-call them: Muslims
-geographic location: Indonesia, Middle East, North Africa
- Dominations: Sunnis (75-90%) Shiites (10-20%)

more on Islam:
-founder: Muhammad (570-632)
-holy book: Qur'an
-beliefs: monotheistic, Abrahamic
  -Five Pillars (testimony, prayer, alms-giving, fasting, pilgrimage)
-Muslims see their purpose in life as serving and submitting to Allah (God), and observing Islamic law

Hinduism:
-number of adherents: 1.1 billion (third largest)
-call them: Hindus
-geographic location India, Nepal
-holy book: the Vedas - eternal truths revealed to ancient sages; composed in verse form (meant to be sung and easily memorized)

more on Hinduism
-founder: no distinct founder - it is a series of intellectual or philosophical points of view, rather than a rigid, strict set of beliefs - probably the oldest religion, although Hinduism is less a religion than a way of life, or a faith

Examples: "As a person puts on new clothes and discards old and torn clothes, similarly an embodied soul enters new material bodies, leaving the old bodies."

In other words.....reincarnation

Buddhism:
-number of adherents: 500 million to 1.5 billion (estimates vary quite a bit)
-call them: Buddhists
-geographic location: southeast Asia, China, Nepal, Japan (there are 1.2 million Buddhists in the United States.

Slide Showwwwwww

Examples of cultural characteristics
-Religion can be both a unifying force.
-There are five major religions in the world today -- Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

They have millions of followers all believing the same thing.

Examples of cultural characteristics
-Religion can also be a dividing force around the world.
-Hindus and Muslims fight in India (Hindu) and Pakistan (Muslim).

There are conflicts between Catholics and Protestants (Two forms of Christianity) in Northern Ireland.

Jews, Christians and Muslims all claim Jerusalem as their religions holy site. They are constantly fighting over the land.

Spatial divisions:
-Spatial divisions are how we divide the livable space found on the earth by establishing social, economic, and political control.

-You can be a member of more than one spatial group.
-Spatial divisions can also cause conflicts or cooperation
Examples of Spatial
-Divisions:
-Countries
-Economic alliances
 -European Union (EU)
 -Organization of Petroleum
   -Exporting Countries (OPEC)

Cultural Geography

Back to the old slide shows:

Cultural Characteristics:
are parts of a group's everyday life. They are the ideas and themes which the group will teach to all members. These same characteristics can also link or divide a region.

Examples: of cultural characteristics would be language, religion, and ethnic heritage. 
Examples of cultural characteristics

-Language
 Ex(s):  -Arabic unites the Arab world
             -Spanish united the Hispanic world

Brazil (!!!!!!!!!!) is the only South American nation which does not speak Spanish. It speaks Portuguese.

Canada is a bilingual nation. French and English are their official languages.

Examples of cultural characteristics:
-Switzerland has multiple languages but very little conflict between the groups.
-English is now considered the world language and is used for most business transactions around the world.

Examples of cultural characteristics:
-Ethnic Heritage
 -In Yugoslavia, any ethnic groups were made into one country (Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians).

When strong leadership died out, the different groups fought a very bloody civil war and now they all have separate countries.

Examples of cultural characteristics:
-In the countries of Rwanda and Burundi in Africa, Two ethnic groups are dominant, the Tutsis and the Hutus

-The Hutus are dominant in one and they persecute the Tutsis, and the Tutsis are dominant in the other and they persecute the Hutus. It has led to almost constant war between the groups

Examples of cultural characteristics:
-The US and Switzerland have peacefully merged multiple ethnic groups in their countries
-Korea, China and Japan have primarily one ethnic group

Slum Dog Millionaire

Today in Human Geography we were going to go back to the power point we were doing before the movie but some people (including me) did not get to see the rest of the movie Slum Dog Millionaire.
Let me just say that that movie is my one of my new favorite movies now. It ties in so much about what we are suppose to be learning with cultural geography.

I love the way the movie ended too, Jamal finally found Latika only to have her taken away by his own brother! He was under the influence of this gangster he was working for. But Jamal's brother finally realized that what he was doing was wrong to his brother and he basically died giving Jamal is wishes. PLUS Jamal is a billionaire now!

Even the whole Indian dance was great! I've seen some Bollywood movies that always have those dances at the end of their movies. It was really cool also to hear how their music is reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally different from ours. I actually really liked the music, the dancing.... well lets just say I'm not going to go out in the middle of the hallway and do it, but it was pretty cool too.

Can't wait for the next movie!