Nora's Western Civ Blog

Today in class we found out what we got on our quiz. Unfortunately I did not do very well. I got a 34/50, which is equivalent to a 68%. I knew that I had messed some things up right after I turned the quiz in but I did not think that it was going to be that bad. Thankfully I still have a B in the class even though that grade brought me down quite a bit. On to a better topic, today is also the last day of school before Thanksgiving break, which is pretty exciting. My family does not travel very far only from Fallston to Bel Air, but I still am very happy that I get to spend time with my grandparents and aunts and uncles, and all my cousins. It is always a fun time. I hope that you have a great Thanksgiving as well and I will see you next week!

Today in class we took a quiz on the 5 main religions of the world. I do not really know how it went. I know that I got some of the questions right but I got confused while I was taking the quiz and ended up changing some of my answers which may have been not a very good decision. I did study quite a bit last night and reviewed this morning and I feel that I have been doing a pretty good job of paying attention in class, even though I get very distracted, so I would be pretty mad if I got a bad grade because it is not like I didn't try. So, hopefully I didn't actually get as many wrong as I thought I did. I guess all I can do is hope for the best and see how it turns out.

Today in class we started a new lesson on the five main religions in the world. They are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Christianity is the largest religion in the world with around 2.2 billion adherents, Islam is the second largest with about 1.5 billion adherents, Hinduism is the third largest with about 1.1 billion adherents, Buddhism is next with about 500 million to 1.5 billion adherents, and lastly Judaism has about 14 to 18 million adherents. The people that follow these religions are called Christians (Christianity), Muslims (Islam), Hindus (Hinduism), Buddhists (Buddhism), and Jews (Judaism). These are just two main facts about the followers of each religion. You told us we would continue this lesson Friday and have a test Monday.

Today in class you gave us our tests back. I got an 85 on it, which I am pretty happy about but I could have done better. The questions that I got wrong were simple mistakes that I could easily work on before we have to take exams. After you gave us our tests back we reviewed it. We went over every question and read out loud the answers. This for me is very beneficial because I feel like when I hear the information I retain it better. I feel like keeping and reviewing these tests will help me in the long run when I take the final, which is not very far from now. Overall I did ok on my test, but I think that I could have studied a little more and gotten a better grade, but I can use what I have learned to help me on my exam.

Today in class we took another test on population and settlement. I studied some, but I definitely could have prepared more. I am not sure how I did on the test, I thought I was doing great on some parts, but other parts of it I was guessing. I tend to get nervous taking tests and then mess things up or when I goo back over my test I will stress out and change answers even if they were correct. I have been paying attention in class and most of the material I was familiar with I think I just got confused on some parts of the test. Hopefully, my grade turns out to be ok and I don't completely fail the test, because that would make me pretty upset.

Today in class the last group presented their projects. This one was on Somalia and Japan. The group went extremely in depth on the issues of Somalia and then went on to explain the possible solutions. The main problem for Somalia was piracy and the solution was to get rid of the bad people and get the good people in. After that they talked about the issues of Japan. The main issue for Japan is that their population is decreasing and the solution is to try and get people to have kids. Overall the presentation was very lengthy and went very in depth on the many issues and possible solutions to the issues. Todays class was pretty good and I am interested to learn about our next topic.

Today in class we started presenting our projects. My team went first and I thought that we did a pretty good job. We also went off into a little bit of a discussion about our topic which I enjoyed. You made us think about how we could further solve the issue of mental health in tie to drugs. This was a good point because even though we said that we would provide more counselors we did not show how that would work for people that did not have the resources to get a counselor. This, I thought added onto our presentation and made it even better, because it made my group think. Then another group presented their project on Puerto Rico and Italy and I thought that they did a great job as well. We also had a little bit of discussion about theirs so that was nice. Overall in my opinion presentations went pretty well today and I am excited to hear the last one tomorrow.

Today I was prepared to present my project, but there were some people that were not here and some groups were not totally prepared, so we are presenting tomorrow. So, instead we just got back into our groups and discussed. My group was already prepared because we had finished on Friday. But, we went over our presentation again and showed Bridget what she needed to review to present, because she missed school on Friday. Now, our group knows what each of us are presenting and hopefully they review their parts individually so they can be prepared to get up and speak about it. I made a notecard for my information and will review it tonight so I am ready to present tomorrow.

Today in class we continued to work on our project. I asked a few questions and you gave me and my group some really good feedback. We did not have one of our group members in class yesterday, so that made it a little more difficult to plan our presentation, but we managed. My group added some more information to our power point to make it a little more interesting, and then put all of the information into bullet points so that it would be easier to read while we are presenting. Then, after we finished all the work on the power point my team discussed how we were planning to present. I fell pretty confident in our presentation and I think that my team did a great job working together on this project.

Today in class you gave us an assignment. First, we had team captains that drafted groups. I was put into a group with George, Bridget, and Austin. Then as a group we had to pick to countries, a developing country, and an industrialized country. My group chose Afghanistan and the United States. Our assignment is to find the issues with the country and then explain how those issues could be solved. We started by adding some statistics in from the CIA World Factbook to show the differences numerically between the two countries. Afghanistan and the United States are very different. Then I started researching the issues with Afghanistan and found out how much of a mess they really are. We now are going to start to try and explain how those many issues can be fixed. I am interested to see how the rest of this project goes.

Today in class you asked us over 30 questions from the final exam, and everyone raised their hands to answer and discuss. I felt pretty confident about most of the questions and even answered a few, so I think that that is good. You told us after you asked them that they were questions off the final exam from last year. I think that it kind of boosted my confidence about the exam, because the questions to me weren't that hard. You also told us that we would have an essay portion of the exam. You said that you will probably give us the essay topics beforehand so that we can research our question. Overall today really helped me have a better idea about the exam. I am also interested about what else we will learn in quarter two, and I hope that it will be as interesting as what we learned in quarter one was.

Facts about Population and Migration: Syria has the highest migration rate in the whole world. I think that this is an important fact because that shows that Syria is having trouble and needs help from other countries. A fact like this is worth mentioning also because the problems within Syria could have affects on surrounding countries. Another interesting fact is that Monaco has the lowest birth rate. I find this interesting because not only does Monaco have the lowest birth rate it also has the lowest death rate. This is an interesting fact because it means that the population of Monaco must remain pretty stable. The population of China has more than 8,000,000 more people than India. I am not even surprised that China is the highest, but I am surprised that India is the next. I never knew that they were that close is in population. Another interesting fact is that a country can have a negative migration rate. This would mean that that country has more people leaving than enter

Today in class we rewatched the video from yesterday. We stoped it multiple times to go over things that we had talked about in preparation to take a quiz. After we watched the video and discussed, you gave us a quiz. I thought that the quiz was pretty easy, because it was all questions about things that we had just gone over. The first two questions were about the graph in the video. Then you asked questions about what affected health and wealth for countries. Lastly you asked where countries were on the chart in a certain year. I got a 10/10 so I was very happy about that. We also got observed by Mr. Hollin today, which was cool. Now, the first quarter is over so we only have one more quarter of this class, so I hope continue to learn interesting things similar to what we did this quarter.