review of Guns, Germs, and steel

today i came in late because i didn't feel good, but i came in just in time for western civ. in class we went over the answers for the Gums, Germs, & Steel test from along time ago. we went over the answers and marked the correct ones so that we can study off of it for the finals. also Mr. Schick told the class that we will have a test on Egypt some time this week.

questions to ask....

1. What was your family's view on Mr. Murabek?
2. Were you a part of the protest?
3. Do you think that the protest was at the right time, or could it of waited or was it too late?
4. How many people are in your family?
5.  Did you like Mr. Murabek?
6. How old are you and what do you do for a living?
7. What part of Egypt are you from?
8.Do you think some people actualy did like Mr. Murabek but chose to go with the rest of Egypt? 
9. Do you like how Egypt is as of right now?
10.Did you help with the protest? 

sharing our raps

today in class we showed our raps to the rest of our class. it was really funny trying to watch people rap especially Kevin Davies. my rap was defiantly the best i got an A and didn't even have to say anything. i cant wait until Vinny raps thats going to be good. Kevin forgot his guitar.

Egypt Rap

A few thousand years ago in the land of sand,
came a smooth ruler Tut with a master plan.
Gonna build some tombs and monuments like none before,
gonna use lots of workers,
thirty thousand or more.

When the Nile was flooded,
they shipped the stone.
And every time they moved them,
there were broken bones.
Some workers might have been women but we're not for sure,
Some worked just for the pharaoh,
they went to local villages for more.

chorus: 2x

Polish stones broken bones
built the pyramids for the Pharaohs bones.

Architects and Priests
did some work too,
they laid it all out
for the others to do.

They squared up the temples
on just the right site,
to line up with sacred constellations
that they could see at night.

chorus: 2x

Polish stones and broken bones 

built the pyramids for the Pharaohs bones.

Imagine 4,000 pound stones of limestone grand, 

polished just right and moved through the sand.

Pushed up ramps and laid just right

fitting just perfect ,no machines, just might.

Gonna build them tall and straight 

not to the left of right,

using ropes to align the summit

keeping the peak in sight.

Can't believe they did it with no technology,

I once saw a show that said aliens could have helped, you see?

chorus: 2x

Polish stones and broken bones 

built the pyramids for the Pharaohs bones.

In the land of Giza, 

in old Egypt.

Lays a sick rock carving,

that's nobody's crypt.

Carved from the Giza plateau in the forth dynasty,

It's one of Khafre's things lining up with his pyramid you can still see.

It has the body of a lion,

and the head of a king,

there no longer is a nose on this giant thing.

It was once a giant monument of stone, not sticks.

If you ask me how old, i say four-six-three-six.

chorus: 2x 

Polish stones and broken bones 

built the pyramids for the Pharaohs bones.

Now we're back to Tut, he was called the boy king.

He was Pharaoh for just nine years,

and then there was his killing.

In the 18th dynasty is when he ruled.

He might of been just a kid, but don't be fooled.

He had big ideas and lots of land, 

and we still study his work in the land of sand.

His full name was Tutankhamun discovered by Carter and Herbert,

they shortened it to Tut just like Herb for Herbert.

chorus 2x

polish stones and broken bones 

built the pyramids for the Pharaohs bones

starting egypt projects

today Mr. Schick was not here because his daughter is sick. we broke up into groups and began to reasearch and create a power point on acient egypt. my group is doing it about the pyramids. i hope Mr. Schick's daughter gets better.

pyramid facts

An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 workers built the Pyramids at Giza over 80 years. Much of the work probably happened while the River Nile was flooded.Huge limestone blocks could be floated from quarries right to the base of the Pyramids. The stones would likely then be polished by hand and pushed up ramps to their intended positions.It took more than manual labor, though. Architects achieved an accurate pyramid shape by running ropes from the outer corners up to the planned summit, to make sure the stones were positioned correctly. And priests-astronomers helped choose the pyramids' sites and orientations, so that they would be on the appropriate axis in relation to sacred constellations.Some of the builders were permanent employees of the pharaoh. Others were conscripted for a limited time from local villages. Some may have been women: Although no depictions of women builders have been found, some female skeletons show wear that suggests they labored with heavy stone for long periods of time.

essay question B.

      It is important to have a surplus of food in a civilization because it frees up other people so that they can focus on improving other things. Because some civilizations had a food surplus they were available to make a great breakthrough, they discovered that they can heat up plaster with fire and use it to insulate their homes.

      Papua New Guineans on the other hand just focus on hunting and gathering because they never have enough food. It is constant hunting and farming for them because geographically were they are located there is not the right type of plants and animal to help them so they do everything by hand. They only have one domesticated animal, pigs, brought from Asia and all they really do is provide meat. That is why Papua New Guineans are still living in the Stone Age.

      On the other hand people that live in the Fertile Crescent have wheat, rice, and barley. These crops are easy to plant and harvest, they contain a high amount of protein, and they can be stored for a long time. They have many of the domesticated animals located there as well. They have horses and because of them people were able to invent a plow that the horses pull to till the ground. They have sheep and goats for their milk and there wool. They domesticated plants and made permanent shelters to live in. the civilizations on or near the Fertile Crescent always had enough food and time to invent and advance in technology. 

review day for the test

today in class we reviewed for the test. Mr Schick told us that there will be multiple choice some short answer questions like fill in the blank. also there will be one essay question. i am not looking forward to this. the quiz will be about what we have covered such as the guns, germs, and steel video, papua new guinie and how their major cities are starting to get into the 21 century. also it talks about why the rural areas are still living in the old times because they dont have the right plants and animals to advance.

great class

today in class Mr. Schick let us do homework and just chill.  We did  this because we are so far ahead of all the other classes. I played tetris the whole time and was very bored because i didnt have any homework to do.  He also told us that we have a test Thursday on the video Guns, Germs, and Steel, on modern Papua New Guinea, and on what we looked up on CIA Factbook.  We do not have class tomorrow but on Wednesday we will review on everything we learned so far.

notes on new guinea

today we gathered facts about new guinea on the cia factbook. New Guinea currently has a population of 6,064,515. They have picked up about 20% of their population in nine years.  They have almost nine-hundred languages.  They have about 12 religions.  Most of their religions are Christians.  Their most practiced religion is Roman Catholic.  They currently have 541 airports with unpaved roads and 21 airports with paved roads.  This means that they have a grand total of 562 airports.  They have 2 heliports.  They currently have 9,349 km of roadways.  In the way of natural resources they have a lot of precious stones and oil.  Their capital city has a population of 300,000.  Only about 18% of their population lives in urban areas.  The rest of the population lives in the mountains with their native tribes.  Their industrial growth rate is 10%.  The unemployment rate is only 1.8%.  Their literacy rate is about 57%.  Their New Guinea army is 2100 strong.

finished the movie

at the begginign of class today we talked about what we have learned so far then we continued to watch the movie.    About 1000 years after the villages the villages became abandoned.  These villages became abandoned because the people were not aware of hurting the environment they over-farmed it.  Because they are on a piece of land that is very wide east to west, they were able to spread east and west.  They spread east and west because the climate and environment is pretty much the same.  This means they can grow the same animals and food as they were earlier.  New Guinea's problem is that they are isolated and on an island so they don't have anywhere to go.  The people spread to East Asia, Europe, and Africa.  These people carried their methods and resources to these parts of the world which caused huge sparks of civilization.  These people than brought the stuff to everywhere else in the world like the Americas.

2/3/11 continued to watch video

in the beggining of class we reviewed what we have watched so far in the Guns, Germs and steel video. Scientists begin to see a transformation between the animals and humans. Besides meat, animals can be used for wool hides and milk.  Raising the goats gives the people a lot of. Now people are banding together and not separately hunting and gathering for their survival. Goats and sheep were the first animals to be domesticated. A horse or an ox could allow farmers to grow more food because they are domesticated animals. The Papua new Guineans however do not use plows for farming because they don’t have the right animals with enough strength to pull the plows that is why they do all of the work. Animal domestication is whether or not a human can control and tame a certain animal. There are only 14 species that are domesticated for farming; pigs, goats, sheep, horses, camels, water buffalo, donkeys, other camels, llama’s, reindeer, yaks, cows and  mithans.

back to school again!

Today we were back in school. I didn't want to wake up but i had to anyway. Today in Mr. Schick’s class we continued to watch the movie guns, germs, and steel by Jared diamond. Were we got to today the movie told us that the Middle Eastern countries had the best plants to grow and survive and most of the animals that can be domesticated. In Papua New Guinea though there are no such plants that provide as much nutrition as wheat or barley. The only animals that they can domesticate are pigs and they were brought over from Asia. They have no animals that can pull plows or use them for milk, they only have human power. That’s why Jared diamond says that the Middle East has the best chance to thrive in the early time and they did while the new Guineans were stuck back and did not advance