countries!

                Mexico:

       

                            Constitution: Federal republic            

       

                               Leader: Enrique pena nieto

                                 

China:

 Constitution: communist state

Leader: Hu Jintao

India:

Government:  federal republic

Leader: President Pranab Mukherjee

Afghanistan:

 Government: Islamic republic

Leader: Hamid Karzai

Iran:

Government: Theocratic republic

Leader: President Mahmud

Israel:

Government: Parliamentary Democracy

Leader: President Shimon Peres and prime minister binyamin netanyahu

Germany:

Government: Federal republic

Leader: Angela Mercle 

                                             






United Kingdom:

                                             Government: Constitutional Monarchy and commonwealth realm

                                              Leader: Queen Elizabeth II

                                                    

                                          France:

                                        Government: Republic

                                         Leader: President Francois Hollande

                                         

Brazil:

Government: Federal republic

Leader: President Dilma Rousseff

 

Venezuela:

Government: Federal republic

Leader: President Hugo Chavez

Saudi Arabia:

Government: Monarchy

Leader: king and prime minister abdullah bin abdulaziz al saud

a do homework day!

Today in human geography we didn’t have a lot of time to do a lot of work so we just did some other homework in the short time that we had. We pretty much had a free class to get other work done!

review for the test

Today in human geography we discussed making up questions for our test that is this Friday.  We mostly reviewed what we had learned which was the religions and the Vikings, Native Americans, and Columbus. We talked about Siddhartha and how he fasted, Saul and his transformation, different gods and if the religions were monotheistic or polytheistic. Also the Geographical distribution and percentage of these religions throughout the world, for example: a lot of people that live in India practice Hinduism; about 80% of India is made up of this religion, and Christianity can be found in most parts of Europe and around that area. There are also some people who haven’t chosen to practice a religion, about one billion people in the world do not practice any type of religion. We also said that there should be a question on the test concerning Muhammad and where he was born, which was mecca. So today all we pretty much did was review and watch Doori laugh herself to death!

Hinduism and Judaism

In our last class of human geography we covered the last few religions: Hinduism and Judaism. First we talked about Hinduism and how it does not claim any one prophet, it’s a way of life and a way of living. The sacred text is called Vedas and Bhagaud, and sometimes the people of this religion go to services. About 80% of India is made up of Hindus, there are different sects of this religion and there are over 1 billion Hindus in the world. Next we talked about Judaism, this religion is monotheistic. We discussed the story of Abraham and Isaac; the story goes that Abraham was going to sacrifice his own son Isaac in order to prove his faith in God, and he was going through with the plan until God stopped him. God said to Abraham that because of his unfailing faith Abraham would have as many descendants as there are stars. Abraham's descendants are known as the Jews and their holy book is the Talmud and the Torah, also a few other books included in the Old Testament. There are 13.5 million Jews, 42% live in Israel another 42% live in the U.S. and Canada, and the rest are spread out over Europe. The Abraham God is their central figure; the same central figure as the Christians and the Muslims. 

Islam and Buddhism!

Today we talked more about religions. First we talked about Islam and how their central figure is Muhammad (570-632) he was known for supposedly speaking to God. His revelations from God were written in their religion’s holy book which is called the Qur’an. We learned that this religion is monotheistic and that there are about 1.6 – 1.7 Muslims in the world, also most of these Muslims are found in the Middle East like Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Muhammad was born in Mecca and the Muslims think that this is a very holy place, also Medina is another very sacred place where the Muslims are expected to go to before they die. We talked a little about how different the people of this religion dress than us, their women are dressed very modestly and we do not dress so modest, the Muslims were getting angry with us because our culture was starting to slowly weasel its way into theirs. After Muhammad died two groups were formed and they turned against each other, their names were the Shiites and the Sunnis. Then we talked about Buddhism, their central figure is Siddhartha Gautama (   563-483 BC). He was either going to be a king or he was to be a spiritual leader. His father of course wanted him to be a king instead of a spiritual leader so he kept him away from religion, until Siddhartha ran away only to discover that the world was so much different than the life his father gave him, there was suffering and war.  He sought to end all suffering. This religion does not have a holy book, but it does have what they call the 4 noble truths and they are: 1.- everyone experiences suffering, 2. The origin of suffering is the craving for acquisition of identity, 3. Suffering can be ended, and 4. The way to end suffering is the eight fold path. They believe in reincarnation, and if you were a good person on earth you would come back as a higher life form, but if you were a bad person you would come back as a lower life form until you were good and worked your way up to being a higher life form. Buddhism has 376 million followers in the world. 

religion and Paul

In today’s human geo class we talked about more ethnic heritage. We talked about how in the countries of Rwanda and Burundi in Africa, and how there are two dominant ethnic groups; the Tutsis and the Hutus. The Hutus were always more dominant over the Tutsis and persecuted them, but in some areas that is different and the Tutsis are dominant and they are the ones who persecute the Hutus.  Next we talked about how the U.S. had merged multiple ethnic groups in their countries with no problem. Korea and Japan mostly just go by one ethnic group because they want to retain their ethnicity. After that we started talking about religion and how there are five major religions in the world today and they are: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. We went over our homework that discussed these five religions, but then we got to talking about how Christianity got started. Christianity used to be a criminal offence and people were persecuted for it. There was a man named Saul and he loved persecuting the Christians because he was very good at it, but one day while on his way to Damascus there was a beam of light that blinded him and he heard God’s voice telling him not to persecute the Christians anymore. After his encounter with God, Saul changed his ways; he was from then on known as Paul and he went out to all these different places and preached to all these people. If people wrote him letters, he would write back to them, those places built churches and from then on they fully understood God. When Jesus was alive he was not as widely famous as people thought, Jesus mainly preached in his own homeland and didn’t get to travel a lot. Towards the end of class we talked about Jesus knowing that he was starting a religion or if it was unintended. A few of us thought that it was unintentional and that Jesus was just trying to set us on the right path.

Religions!

                                                                          Religion

There are many religions around the world, and we were given five different religions to look up information about- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. First Christianity, this religion was founded at about 30 AD in Palestine.  This religion is under the category monotheistic because Christians only believe in one god, and the Christians have a holy book called the Bible. About one third of the earth’s population consists of this religion and they all worship one central figure; which is God, and because there are a pretty high amount of Christians there isn't really one place where there is a huge collection of them, but there is a fair amount of them in the north. Next is Judaism, this was founded at around 1812 BC in the Middle East. Judaism is monotheistic because like Christianity they believe in one god. This religion has a holy book called the Torah, their central figure is God and also this religion has about 14 to 15 million followers.  Many of these followers are located in the United States and Israel. After that there comes Islam, which was founded at around 570 AD in Saudi Arabia, and this religion is monotheistic.  Islam has a holy book called the Qur’an and their central figure is Allah, which means God in Arabic. There are maybe 1.5 million people in the world that practice this religion, and many of its followers are found in Algeria. Then there is Buddhism, this religion was founded at about 580 BC in southern Nepal, and is polytheistic because they believe in many different gods. Their holy book is called the Tipitaka and the central figure in this religion is Shakyamuni Buddha. There are around 2 million followers to this religion and most of them are found in Tibet. The last religion we researched was Hinduism, this was founded in 3,500 BC in India and this religion like some of the others we looked at is polytheistic. There are a few holy books that accompany this religion, they are called Vendas and Upanishads, and there isn't really a central figure because there are just so many different figures in this religion. There are around 1.5 million followers and many of them can be found in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. I liked doing this assignment because I learned a lot of new things about other religions that I hadn't known about before.

Notes about languages

Today in human Geo we talked about how some countries are affected by what language they speak. We started taking notes on how Arabian countries speak mostly Arabic and how this is important; they can benefit from this because they need to be able to speak with most of the people in their country and know what is going on, and also in order for them to learn certain things this is helpful. Mr. Schick talked about when he went on a trip to France he wanted everyone to think that he was French and that he tried so hard to speak perfectly to others and one time he did exactly that. Eryn told us that she will be attending the school trip to France and Spain, and she will be staying in a hotel and touring around France. Doori also told us a story of when she and her mother were talking to a French man but it was kind of hard to understand him. We didn't finish the note taking, but what we mostly learned to day was about how people spoke in different countries and also we learned the term- Lingua Franca which means that the language is pretty known and spoken.

Our presentations

Today in human Geo we presented our projects to the class. We learned that the Native Americans lived in America about 12,000- 17,000 years ago, and that when we conquered America, we pushed them out of their own home and they eventually ended up on separate reservations, which is the only land that they can truly call theirs now. My group did our presentation on the Vikings. We talked about how they arrived in America at around 1,000 AD and the very first Viking to arrive was Leif Eriksson. The Vikings came to America on big long ships, but they were not the first, the Native Americans were there before them, also we talked about what they built their homes with like turf and wood. The Vikings also farmed wheat, barley and rye, but they left after a while because of conflicts. The last group did their presentation as Christopher Columbus, and he did not intend on finding America, he was just trying to find a shorter route to India when he stumbled upon this big piece of land. As everyone knows, Columbus and his men did conquer America.

Columbus Day

Today in human Geo we went over the test we took on “God Grew Tired of Us.” After we had gone over all the questions we talked about how today was Columbus Day and we didn't have off like we used to. So we got into talking about how Christopher Columbus wasn't the first PERSON to find America, because when they got here there were already Native Americans and also there were Vikings for a while but they left because of the conflict of the natives. We split up into like three groups of six or seven and each group had to choose what they wanted to be (Vikings, Native Americans, or Columbus) our group got to be the Vikings. After we assigned our groups Mr. Schick told us that we were to create a power point on our topic using the questions that he had given us to answer about the group we got. We will present our information to the class tomorrow.

the test on the movie!

Today in human geography we had a test on the movie that we just recently finished. The movie “God Grew Tired of Us” was probably one of my favorite movies, because we really got to see what went on in other countries besides our own. The story was very touching and made our class really inspired to stand up and make a change and do something for this country. The next class we have we will probably talk about how we are going to go about raising awareness and what charities we want to do. A few of the people in our class including myself really want to go to different schools and have them watch this movie so that they understand why we were so inspired by this story and hopefully they will feel the same way. If that idea works than maybe after we talk to some other schools they would get inspired by us and they could go and talk to other schools, so this could possibly be like some sort of a chain reaction that Sudan could really benefit from if we all choose some charities that give to Sudan. We have the power and the ambition to do this, so hopefully our contributions will help out.

Charities!

 Today in human geography we began class with our prayer and then we got started talking about how there a lot more people were posting things on our open source page on Mr. Schick’s blog. So Mr. Schick asked us if we had any favorites of all the charities trying to help Sudan. The first person to talk about their favorite charity was Doori, her charity was outreach Africa. Doori explained to us that this charity provides the children of Sudan a really good education and we all talked about how it was good because if you give the children a chance to learn we can help them help themselves. Next I talked about the charity that I found which was called the water project. This charity provides wells for Sudan because most of the people in Sudan do not have clean drinking water, they drink out of streams and they drink very unclean water. I really like this charity because it would allow our class to have a fund raiser and then give the money to this charity, it is $5,000 per well. We also talked about maybe instead of having John Bul Dou coming and talking to us we could have Panther come and talk to us because It might be cheaper.

research on the lost boy foundations!

Today in human geography we started class off by telling Mr. Schick what charities we tried to find last night in order to find out a way that we, as a class could help out Sudan. We split up into groups to search for different sites that could possibly help us figure out how we should go about helping this place. Mr. Schick put an open source on his blog so that we could see some of the websites that he and some other teachers found, but since it is an open source we could find different websites to put on that page. Our class kind of goofed off with the page for a little while but then we got a second chance and we were set strait. After we did all of our research Mr. Schick told us that he had emailed John Bul Dou and told him that our class wanted him to come to our school and speak about what is going on in Sudan and what he is trying to tell people. John responded with an email telling Mr. Schick that there was a day that he would come but there would be a fee and he wrote in the email what he would go over during the course of his speech. Of course we are very excited! I feel that our class really got into the story of the lost boys and we truly want to do something in order to help them and Sudan out.

The end of the movie!

Today in human geography we finished up the movie. Before the movie ended a lot of things happened to the boys. Daniel talks about his friend that had a breakdown; he says that he does not blame his friend for doing this because there are so many images of the war in Sudan in their minds and it would cause anyone to go a little crazy. It is the fourth of July, but even thought this is a happy time for us; watching fireworks, and listening to them, it makes the lost boys scared and somewhat sad because the loud noises makes them remember the bombings and the shootings that went on. After this John talks about how he knows that God created him for a reason, he did not live through burying all his friends for nothing. John was right because he is making a big difference in helping Sudan; he organized a march to raise awareness about all the bad things happening to his homeland. The lost boys have a reunion in Michigan. While at the reunion John comes upon the conclusion that he thinks the younger boys will forsake their culture because America has changed them greatly in the way they dress, talk, and act. After the reunion the boys go back to their houses; Panther talks about how he wants to go to Pitt. University to get his bachelor’s degree. He also talks about how different things have become for them like how at first 200$ was so much money to them but now that they have bills to pay and need to buy everything required to live their standard of a lot of  money has changed. Panther wants to go back to his country to marry his girlfriend and to educate his country with all the things he has learned. John calls his mother and is going to meet her; meanwhile he becomes the secretary for the lost boys unity in phoenix and wants to raise money for the lost boys and girls in order for them to go to school. We find out that Daniel gets another job at the supermarket and talks about while he was working he saw a woman crying and he comforted her because no one would, he says that she felt a sense of home while he was with her. John finally after 17 years of separation from his mother, gets to see  her again and he also gets to see his sister. When John enters the airport he talks to some people interviewing him and says although he is happy, he is sad for the other lost boys who have yet to be reunited with their families. When John sees his mother he runs to her and he hugs his sister and then he hugs his mother; his mother was so overwhelmed with emotions that she collapses into his arms and cries and so does he. Anonde is his mother’s name; she was so excited to see her son that she danced and sung all the way out of the airport. Panther also receives a big moment; he gets to go back to Africa and he gets married to his girlfriend and he hopes to bring her back with him, he says he is going to put a school in his village because he got his degree in economics. Panther was also one of the lucky few to see his family again. We find out that John founded a non-profit organization to help out Sudan and he also makes it known that he wants to build a medical center in Dinka. Unfortunately Daniel has still not been reunited with his family. I thought that this was probably the most amazing stories that I have ever heard. I can say that I enjoyed the movie at parts, but it was also probably the saddest story I have ever heard. I am really glad that we got to watch this movie in class because it really opened up my eyes to what really goes on in the world, we live in a place where we take things for granted like showers and money and even food, but some people are not as lucky as us and they don’t have the nice things that we do. Seeing this movie makes me want to do something and help out countries like Sudan. I found this website and maybe if we all donated we could get some water wells for Sudan and get them fresh water-http://thewaterproject.org/wells_for_sudan.asp?gclid=CLaL1bDo4LICFVSd4Aodd30APw