Victoria's Human Geography Blog

     Today in class we took the Guns, Germs, and Steel and I think that I did good on it and I am hoping that it will not bring my grade down. I figured out a way to take the test without getting nervous about the scantron and I think that it positively affected me. Today in class we also talked on one with Mr. Schick about our exam grades and that helped me a lot for knowing how I got the grade that I got on the exam. This also helped put my final semester grade into perspective and gave me a lot of confidence in going into the last test of the semester. I feel like with the studying of notes that I did last night and the rewriting the notes to be more organized helped me in the long run. I did not feel like I forgot anything or had trouble with any of the questions.

     Today in class we finished the video Guns, Germs, and Steel. We have our test on the notes and video tomorrow and we went over them to make sure that we know what we need to know for the test. I need to do well on this test because if I don't my overall semester grade will be lower than I would like it to be. I went over the notes last night and feel confident in them but the main things that I will need to remember are how civilizations will not grow and advance without a growing population, a well-organized workforce, and advanced technology. Another thing that I need to make sure I remember is the fourteen animals that were used for the advancement of agriculture these animals are goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, Bactrian camels, Arabian camels, water buffalo, llamas, reindeer, yaks, mithans, and Bali cattle. We also need to remember that there are one hundred million cows just in the United States and twenty million tons of wheat per year put out by the United St

     Today in class we watched even more on the video on Guns, Germs, and Steel. The main points that were shown in the video today were the main points and ideas around geographic luck and how it affects agriculture and the growth of an area. For example one of the main parts that we talked about today in the video was the fourteen animals that were used for agriculture and the advancement of agriculture. In the video, we also went back over the three things that affected the growth and development of civilizations. Farming was also part of a huge part of the economic advancement and the growth of civilizations. For example, goats, cows, and horses made a huge impact on the mass production of grains and other crops. These also grew the population and helped push out disease and bacterias.

    Today in glass we watched more of the video Guns, Germs, and Steel. We began by reviewing what we had watched the day before and made sure that we had all the notes that we needed down before starting to watch the next part of the videos. The video began on when they were talking about how they had gotten food from the sago trees and turned it into a form of a dough that they can use to make a substantial amount of food. In the video, it also said that one sago tree was enough to produce seventy pounds of food. There are many positives to the amount of food that comes from the sago tree but some examples of negatives are that it does not last for a long time after you make it and has a lot of empty calories. Meaning it does not have many proteins or other nutritious components.

     Today in class we watched more of the National geographic Version of Guns, germs, and steel. Which was originally a novel by Jared Diamond who was a professor at UCLA. The parts of the video that we watched in class today centered on the main question of whether or not white people are considered more genetically superior to the rainforest natives that live in Papua New Guinea. I do not agree with the idea of whites being more generally superior over the natives and neither does Jared Diamond. He does a good job of showing how the native people's lives are very simple but they use the resources around them to build shelters and sustain a stable life. The video also shows the jobs that the men and women take part in. For example, the men in the video were usually the ones that we hunting and building shelters and the women were cutting down trees and using them to produce large amounts of food. 

     Today in class Mr. Schick began introducing us to what we will be learning about for the rest of the semester which is Guns, Germs, and Steel. Guna, Germs, and Steel was originally a book that was written by Jared Diamond, who was a professor at UCLA and studied biology and human psychology. The book was originally published in March of 1997. It won two major awards which were the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction , and the  Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. National Geographic decided that they were going to make a movie that helped better show the points that Diamond was trying to make in his book. In class, we will be focusing more on the movie instead of the original book over the course of this week. Today in class we also talked one on one with Mr. Schick about our exam grades and that helped me a lot for knowing how I got the grade that I got on the exam. This also helped put my final semester grade into perspective and gave me a lot of confidence in going into the last