Victoria's Human Geography Blog

     Today in class we got our quizzes back and we went over the Five Major religion quiz. I did not do as well as I hoped to but my grade did not drastically change. I have noticed that doing the blogs really helps to balance out the test and quizzes grades with the blogs they help to keep you on track and review what we had learned in class. In the second quarter, I really started to stay on top of the blogs because of the fact that they keep your grade up even if you don't get the best grade on the test or quiz. it also helps because you never know if we will be allowed to use our blogs on the quizzes. So I want to be prepared for any time that we will be allowed to use the blogs on the quizzes. If you keep up with the blogs and make sure that they store solid information than you can refer back to the blogs to study and get a good grade on the exams.

     Today in class we had a quiz on the five major world religions. I studied in my off mod and at home last night but I still am not confident that I got over a B on it. The quiz itself was not hard but I just feel like it was a lot of information that was given out all at once in a short amount of time. I feel like if we would have had more time to study for the quiz I would have been able to get a perfect score. I do not feel like I completely failed the quiz I just feel like I could have done a better job studying or just spent more time on it to make sure that the information was one hundred percent locked in. I am hoping that the blogs will help to cover any points that were lost from the quiz just in case and I know that I will get a perfect grade on the blogs for this week because they were all done on time and meet the requirements. So again I am hoping that my grade will not drastically fall from this quiz that I may have not done the best on. 

     Today in class we talked about the last three religions that will be on the quiz tomorrow. They were Hinduism, Buddism, and Judaism. We went over the slides and took notes on the origin, beliefs, and the number of adherents in each religion. It was said in the power points that out of all the religions Judaism had the least amount of people. It was also said that Judaism is the only one out of the three religions that were monotheistic and did not believe in reincarnation.  The other two religions that were in the powerpoint were the only two that did not have a distinct book like Christianity and Judaism they follow more of a list of rules and follow them a bit like Christians follow the Ten commandments. Also, Buddism does not have a supernatural leader like the rest of the religions and the founder was just a normal human that went out into the world and tried to find the meaning of life and happiness. All the other religions had a supernatural background and led back to things

     Today in class we talked about two of the five major religions that we will be seeing throughout the rest of the unit. They were Christianity and Islam. They have many similarities and differences. Some of the similarities include how they are both monotheistic meaning that they both only believe in one god. Another similar aspect of religions is how they both incorporate prayer into their daily routines and lives even though they might pray at different times and in different ways. One of the differences is that Christians do not pray with their heads on the floor. Christians usually just sit with good posture and hold there hands together and sit either in silence or someone guides then in prayer. They also have different kinds of places of worship and different customs that take place during the mass.

     Today is Monday, November 18, 2019, and we had another test in this class. it was on the terms from this unit and the population and settlement powerpoint and video for Ted-ed. I think that the test went very well because I spent the time to go over and study the terms, videos, and powerpoints. I overall remembered all the terms but I didn't feel as confident about putting the countries in order based on the different rates given and matching the correct country to the correct population pyramid. The test was also longer than I thought it would be, but it wasn't a huge deal because I studied all of the correct terms. Also, I wish that there would have been extra credit on the test like there usually is. I think that would have helped cover the part of the test with the matching the countries to the pyramids.

     Today in class we went over the second part of our test review which was population pyramids. We watched the Ted-Ed video again and this was the first time that I fully understood the video and the terms that they referred to in the video. these terms are pre-industrial, industrial, and post-industrial. Pre-industrial means that an economy is based on agriculture and subsistence farming. Meaning that the population relly only grows crops and resources for themselves. Industrial means that they have a stable economy and can provide for themselves and others. In this economy, factories begin to be built and the economy begins to rise. Post-industrial means that they have an extremely high economy and that they have may factories and job opportunities. These things result in the birth and death rate beginning to fall because the woman decides to be more focused on a good job and education than starting a family and having children.

     Today in class we were told that we have a test on Monday and we started to take a few minutes to review and talk about the terms that will potentially be on the test. One of the main things that I need to remember is that there are about 7.6 billion people in the world. The other terms that I felt like I didn't have locked in on the last test were the Rate of Natural Increase and the Net Migration Rate. The Rate of Natural increase is produced by subtracting the birth rate from the death rate. It also gives you the annual Natural growth rate - in percentage form - for a country or region. The net migration rate is shown bt the difference between the number of people that are leaving or entering a country during a year. Some other basic things that I feel like I need to remember that if the total fertility rate is higher than 2.1 the population rises and if it below 2.1 than the population is falling.

     Today in class we talked about how the presentation went and how we all did together. I overall think that my group did really well. Even though we had a few mistakes with the slides and Jay's slide being deleted for some reason but he replaced it with somehow coming up with an introduction to Germany without a slide. We had a few studders but overall everything was clear and we were not reading directly off the slides. I also feel like we did good with presenting to the audience and making eye contact and being comfortable in front of the class. Even though we had some difficulties with the chair in the middle of the presentation but its ok because he was good at changing the slides. I also think that we did well on timing and did not talk too fast or to slow. I think that we all deserve at least an A because I think that we did all the requirements that we were supposed to do but we studdered a bit and needed to work a few things out but we did overall very good.

    Today my classmates and I presented a group presentation and they all went very well. My group was the only group that did not really have a developing country to do for our powerpoint it wasn't as easy for us to find for our country as it was for the other groups to find a problem. Some of the main problems that occurred across the board were that all of the countries had a large amount of debt to pay back and they were not anywhere close to being able to pay back the amount that they had in debt. One of the issues that the japan group said were that the taxes that japan is bringing in is going straight to the elderly portion of the population and it causes them to be unable to save tax money to positively benefit the grows of the country instead of the population aging out or dying off. Overall I think my group did very well and were able to give a clear presentation of what we learned about Germany.

     Today in class we went over some of the terms and questions that will be on a potential pop quiz and on the exams that we have before Christmas. I felt like I knew most of the terms and facts about the countries so if we have a pop quiz on what we went over in class today I think I would do very well on it. I just need to make sure that the information that we learn sticks with me until we have to take the exam in December. It's nice to have the blogs to be able to study before exam week and be able to keep all the tests and quizzes from the first and second quarters. I have a folder at home with all the tests from this class and all of my notes are organized in a notebook. This will help me to make the Quizlets and notecards before the exam.

     Today in class we watched a video on the populations of the world that are either more wealthy or less wealthy based on their healthcare and resources. It was clearly shown throughout the video that the countries that we're failing to provide healthcare and solid living conditions.

     Yesterday and today in class we were given the assignment to work on when Mr. Schick was out yesterday. It was a five-paragraph blog post with descriptions of whether or not the population would rise or fall. I took me about the entire class to finish it but I did not have to do it at home and I didn't have an off mod to do it in. I think I used the time that we were given wisely and got the assignment done without having to worry about doing it at home. This helped me to better manage my time at home because I had homework in about every class last night. It helps that I can do the blog in class right now because I have two practices tonight and I want to make sure that I am getting the most work done that I can so I don't forget about anything. 

     There are many countries that have very drastic net migration rates that we looked at in class but I want to focus on the net migration rate of some of the countries that we haven't looked at. Starting with Aruba. The net migration rate in Aruba is about 8.6 migrants per 1,000 people. I think that it is lower because it is an island and there aren't as many people that come in and live there. It is a very popular place to vacation so many people enjoy staying for a short period of time.      The next country that I want to look at is Barbados. It is another island in Central America and it has a net migration rate of about -0.3 per 1,000 people. This net migration rate is extremely low and it shows that people do not want to move there. It is also a country affected by the Zica virus so many people try to stay away from serious sickness like that.      The next country that I want to focus on is Cyprus. Cyprus's net migration rate is about 8.3 migrants per 1,000 pe