West Civ

Today we continued to watch the video Guns, Steel, and Germs. It amazes me that out of 148 animals, only 14, goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, bactrian camels, Arabian camels, water buffalo, llamas, reindeer, yaks, mithans, and bali cattle are good for farming. I have not personally even heard of half of them. I was mostly amazed to find out that none of those animals are from New Guinea. No wonder there civilization is so far behind. They don't have good crops or good animals. But then at the same time, Sub Sahara Africa, North America, and Australia did not have any of those animals, however they did have fantastic, useful, productive crops. New Guinea has neither. However, llamas were founded in south America while the rest were in Asia, North Africa, and Europe. The middle east in Europe had many of those animals, crops and two rivers surrounding the area. we named this region the fertile crescent.

In the middle east, civilization started to store there own food, domesticate plants and soon domesticate animals as well. Along with Diamond's key ideas of every successful civilization must have of advanced weapons, work force, and large populations, the ability to be able to grow your own nutritious food sufficiently and able to domesticate animals to use as meat, sometimes milk, and muscle was a big one. Unlike China which had rice, the Americas had squash, corn and beans, and Africa had millet, yams and sorghum. All of these crops could be domesticated in a timely, sufficient way. Also these country's had animals like goats, cows, llamas, yacks, sheep, and other farming animals. New Guinea only had bananas and sago. these crops are low in nutrients and cant be stored for a long period of time. Plus they take a long time to harvest. Also there only animal is pigs. Pigs can only be used for their meat but don't provide milk, muscle or fur/wool for clothing or materials. ...

We started class with the prayer as normal. We had a shadow visit today who likes theater and she seems pretty cool. Her name is Ryan and I hope she choses John Carrol. After we reviewed the video from last class called Guns, Germs, and Steel. I thought the video was cool and had some good points. Mr. Schick seemed happy when telling us we had a pop quiz. As we were all freaking out he showed us a video of a balloon popping in slow mow....twice. I thought i was going to fail it but it wasn't bad. I got a 100% so thats a good way to start the quarter. Kayla failed though, which really sucks. she should get a re-due. lastly, Mr. Schick is grading our quizzes outside of the room. As Mr. Schick came back to the room, he told us about the bell. When giving back quizzes, if you get above an A he rings the bell twice, if its below an A there no bell and you walk up to see what you earned.

I am happy to be in Mr. Schick's Class. Although I will mis Mr. Fendrick, I am happy to have a new class. I was getting tired of the same thing and needed change. I learned important rules like no video games allowed while during class or at the beginning before class starts, and no note taking on your lap tops-only on a notebook/composition book. Those are simple easy rules that should be easy to follow. I have not always loved history but i am excited to learn more about it over the second semester. I learn best by oral presentations or resources like videos instead of filling out a worksheet from a text book. If i can see it i'm better able to understand. Also when I take notes, it helps me stay more on focus and understand the concept better. Another  way I learn is making projects like power points or posters with a group. this way I am gathering information about a topic and if I have any questions I have partners to help me out.  We did a lot of power points in Mr. Fend...

Main idea: Why have some cultures advanced and some have not? Main Characters:     Jared Diamond - Author, Professor at UCLA, biologist, human specialist, loves watching/ learning about birds     Yali- lives in Papua New Guinea, asked Diamond, "Why you white men have so much Cargo and we New Guineans don't". Got Dimond to start wondering why some cultures advanced faster then others.     Kite- Co Director of the dig in Draa and works with a group of archeologists Locations:     Papua New Guinea - where Diamond is researching     Middle East - around 13000 years ago, first civilization and advanced technology started     Draa- First known advanced civilization in the Middle East, held 40-50 people, oval huts, created worlds first granary, first known record of people growing their own food. What was Jared Diamond set out to find? Diamond believed that if he could understand why some cultures have advanced and other...