Nora's Western Civ Blog

Today in class we watched Hans Rosling "200 years in 4 minutes." We paused the video many times and discussed the video. The main part of this video is that it is a visual representation of lifespan and income for countries all around the world. It shows us the change in countries economies and health. It starts in 1810 when the life expectancy was below 40 and people were making $400 a year. At the start the Eastern countries were much more advanced, but many Western countries had started to catch up. It shows us the remarkable progress that has occurred over the past 200 years. The man says that this representation shows us that it is clearly possible for all countries to get to the healthy and wealthy side. Tomorrow we are going to have a quiz on this topic and the new things that we learned from the video.

Today in class we learned about population pyramids and what they can show you about a country's population and future. Population trees are divided my gender, men on the left, women on the right. They show age groups in 5-10 year increments with the youngest at the bottom and the oldest at the top. Women are grouped into three sections: pre-reproductive (0-14), reproductive (15-44), and post-reproductive (45-death). Population pyramids are a powerful indicator of future population trends. Population is growing: Population is growing at a slow rate: Population declining: These are three examples of how population pyramids can show you future population trends. Differences in shapes of the population pyramids show us differences in future populations. I am excited to continue to learn about population pyramids and all of our new topics to come.

Today in class we checked our test. I got a 93, which I am so excited about. I am happy that I did as well as I thought I did. I studied quite a bit for it, and I was pretty confident, so I am proud of myself. I did get a few things wrong though, but I can learn and correct them on the next test. I got everything on the first page about the CIA World Factbook right. I messed up one of the matching questions, and two of the application problems wrong, but it's ok. I got all of the push and pull force questions right, and I was correct on one of the bonus questions. Overall, I am very proud of how I did on this test, and I hope that I will continue to learn and do well in your class the rest of this semester.

Today we had a test on population and migration. The first part of the test was going on the CIA World Factbook, and finding information about statistics and answering your questions. I am pretty sure I got all of those questions right, and I was able to finish that part before the time was up. The next part of the test was matching terms and their definitions. I think that I did pretty good on that part, but I may have mixed one of them up. The next part of the test was questions about Net Migration Rate, Rate of Natural Increase, etc. This part was not bad and I think that I most likely got the magority of them right. The last part of the test was about push and pull forces. I honestly thought that I did a good job on this part by giving clear examples, and I hope that you agree. Overall I thought that I did pretty well on this test, and I am pretty confident, so I hope that the grade is better than my last test.

Today in class we reviewed for the test again. We talked about most of the topics that we covered in class and the topics on the power point. Here are some test review topics: there are over 7.6 billion people on the planet right now 90% of the world's population growth happens in developing countries examples of developing countries include Africa, South and East Asia, and Latin America life expectancy: the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year crude birth rate: the number of births per 1000 of the population crude death rate: the number of deaths per 1000 of the population rate of natural increase (RNI): produced by subtracting the death rate from the birth rate, gives us the annual natural growth rate in percentage form for a country or region Net Migration Rate: the difference between the number of persons entering a country (immigration) and the number of person leaving the country (emigration)  Total Fertility Rate (TFR): av

Today in class we reviewed our answers for our homework in preparation for our test on Friday. Our homework from last night was multiple questions about information covered on a website called CIA World Factbook. This website covers many facts about each country in the world. We also talked about the test and the topics that it would cover. Some key terms that will probably be on it are: crude death rate crude birth rate total fertility rate unemployment rate net migration rate population growth rate infant mortality rate maternal mortality rate rate of natural increase life expectancy GDP per capita population pyramid There will also be a section of the quiz where we will be required to go the the CIA World Factbook website and answer questions about facts on there. I plan to study tonight, tomorrow, and Thursday night in preparation for the test and I hope to do well because I did very poorly on my last test.

1. The population of China is 1,384,688,986. The population of India is 1,296,834,042. 2. The total fertility rate for Japan is 1.42 children born per woman. 3.The death rate for El Salvador is 5.8 deaths per 1000 of the population. 4. 23-28% of the French population identify none as their religion. This statistic is not verifiable, because this website did not get this statistic from France's official government sources. 5. 82.7% of the Mexican population identify themselves as Roman Catholic. 6. The GDP per capita for the United States is $59,800. 7. The GDP per capita for Nigeria is $5,900. 8. The GDP per capita for Luxembourg is $105,100. 9. 72.6% of the United States's population are internet users. 10. Russia has 1,218 airports, and the United States has 13,513 airports. 11. 1.201 billion of the world's population has no electricity. 12. The infant mortality rate in Canada is 4.5 per 1000 births, for Cuba it is 4.4 per 1000 births, an

Today in class we continued to look at the power point about population and settlement. Here a few new things we learned: Crude birth rate is the number of births per 1000 of the population. Crude death rate is the number of deaths per 1000 of the population RNI is the rate of natural increase, which is produced by subtracting the death rate from the birth rate. RNI gives us the annual natural birth rate in percentage form for a country or region. Net Migration Rate is the difference between the number of persons entering and leaving a country during the year. Immigration is an excess of persons entering a country, which is written as a positive number. Emigration is an excess of persons leaving a country, which is written as a negative number. Push forces for migration include civil war, environmental degradation, unemployment or underemployment, and religious or ethnic persecution. Pull forces for migration include better economic opportunity, better health services, relig

Today in class we talked more about population and settlement. The new topic that we covered today was life expectancy. We learned about places that have a higher life expectancy and reasons why that would be the case. We talked about reasons why life expectancy has gone up and down throughout the centuries. For example, smoking would be a reason that the life expectancy has gone up, but vapes are a reason that the life expectancy has gone down. We learned that the life expectancy for women is higher than the life expectancy for men. I also thought that it was a good discussion, because I was able to chime in a few times and add some ideas that I had, which I always like to do. I found our discussions today to be very interesting and I enjoyed learning about this new topic.

Today in class we reviewed on test on longitude/latitude, site, situation, and time zones. The test went pretty bad for me and I am very disappointed in how i preformed on it. So, today in class we reviewed the whole test and went over every answer. I'd say that for me this was a very beneficial thing. I learned exactly what I got wrong and not only did you tell us the answers, but you also went into more detail about questions that could be confusing. This really cleared up some of my confusion about certain topics that we covered that I just did not fully understand. Also it was nice to write down all the answers so I can use this test to study for exams. Also you gave everyone some points back on the questions everyone got wrong so that helped my grade some. Today was a good class, and I am happy that we went over the test together.

Today we started class by working on other homework, because someone in our class still had to take the test. I am really upset about my test grade, because I got a 63 when I thought I was going to get a B or an A, so that was pretty upsetting. But anyways, I finished all my math homework in class so I was very relieved to have that done. After the kid finished his test we started talking about population and settlement. We learned that the population is actually growing very quickly, faster than I would have thought. There are 7.6 billion people on the Earth right now, and that to me is mind blowing. We also learned that 90% of this population growth takes place in the developing countries of Africa, South and East Asia and Latin America. Lastly we talked about how long it would take for the rapid population growth to affect the US and we discussed ideas about that. Today's class was fun and I am excited to learn more about this topic.

Today in class we took a test on latitude/longitude, site/situation, and time zones. I thought that I did ok. I am very mad at myself because I messes up meridians and parallels again! I studied them for so long because I always mess them up, and I still got them confused, so that is really annoying. I also am not sure about the question about what our UTC time is, I did not understand that one. If I had to take a guess at what my grade is going to be I would say that it is going to be between a 80-90, but I am not totally sure, I studied quite a bit, but I think that I could have reviewed the longitude/latitude, and parallels/meridians again. The test was a fair test in my opinion, and I thought that you did a good job making it. I enjoy this class most of the time, and I am interested to see what we are going to learn next.

Today in class we reviewed again for our test. The test is tomorrow and I am very nervous because I think it is going to be kind of hard. I know most of the material, I am just afraid that I will forgot. I always confuse longitude and latitude/meridians and parallels. There are no essay questions on the test and I am very excited. My grade in the class is really good right now even though I failed the pop quiz. Tonight I am going to review the power point that is on your blog and look at my notes a few times. I mainly need to study site and situation and longitude and latitude and review all of the topics we covered and I should be good.

Today in class we reviewed for our test that is on Monday. We looked at peoples test questions from their blogs and then took a pop quiz. We reviewed what parallels and meridians are. We also looked at the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn again. I do not think that I did very well on the pop quiz, but at least now I know that I need to study. I keep getting confused on the questions about longitude and latitude. I get them mixed up a lot. I also think I was overthinking the time and would stress myself out. Over the weekend I am going to look at the power point that we took notes on in class and also all of my notes. I also need to review site and situation before the test. Most importantly I am going to make sure I look at the maps as well so that I can actually see the lines on the map and hopefully it will help me remember. I am a little nervous considering how I did on the pop quiz but I think that studying a little every day until Monday will make me feel more prepared.

1. How is absolute location expressed? a. degrees b. minutes c. seconds d. all of the above 2. Latitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the _________ position of a point on the Earth's surface. A. north-south 3. Lines of latitude are also called _______. A. parallels 4. Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the ________ position of a point on the Earth's surface. A. east-west 5. Lines of longitude are also called _______. A.  meridians 6. The Prime Meridian crosses through which city? A. Greenwich, England 7. How many time zones are there in the world? a. 60 b. 24 c. 12 d. 100 8. A time zone is a region of the globe that observes a uniform standard time, what is one of the reasons for this? a. fun b. legal c. spiritual/cultural purposes 9. UTC stands for _________. A. Coordinated Universal Time 10. GMT, which means ____________, is often used as a synonym for UTC. A. Greenwich Mean Time 11.  What does the line that

Today in class we took a quiz. I think I did ok, but definitely got a few things wrong. After the quiz we continued talking about maps. We learned about the lines of longitude. Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. Longitude is measured by imaginary lines circling the Earth and running through the poles. Longitude lines are farthest apart at the Equator and meet at the poles. We also learned that the Prime meridian passes through Greenwich, England, and is given 0 degrees longitude. Lastly we learned that a time zone is a region of the globe that observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. There are 24 time zones, one for each hour of the day. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries of countries but in the case of the U.S. they follow boundaries of states. Overall today's lesson was very interesting and I learned a lot of new information.