New Class 10/29/14

Today was the second day I have been in Section 6 and honestly I miss my old class so much. It's so weird switching classes this late in the school year and my old class was the best. Since I transferred to a new class I am obviously in a new group for the project. So today, my new group and I continued to work on our project which is almost done and Luke sat there and talked about his bloody nose the whole time and showed us pictures.

Human Geo Project

Today in class we spent most of our time picking partners for the project Mr. Schick assigned. Chris had to write the groups and country names on the board for the project. We're in groups of 2 and we have to make a Google PowerPoint thing on the country we chose with information on their government and rulers. I am in a group with Sydney and Grace and we will be working on it throughout the week. Mr. Schick is going to put all of the requirements for the project on his blog.

The Class That Brought My Grade Down

Today in class Mr. Schick gave us a pop quiz on all of the leaders of the 12 countries we did research on. Clearly I was not prepared and did awful on the quiz which is unfortunate because it's going to bring my grade down a lot, which isn't good because my grade was great before. Our overall average for the class on this quiz was a 68.7%. Hopefully next time we'll all be ready. We also might be switching seats soon too.

"Interpersonal Relationships in the Classroom"

Today in class I sat on the other side of the room with Sydney and McKenna just because Sydney loves me so much. So basically Mr. Schick kept telling us to stop talking and stuff and Sydney kept pretending she hates me but we all know she doesn't. We looked at my homecoming shoes and took some pictures and talked to Suky and talked about random stuff with McKenna. SYDNEY TALKS TOO MUCH.

Angela Merkel- Chancellor of Germany
- She is a former physicist.
- First female chancellor
- Has a Ph. D in physics and quantum chemistry

Facts About Country Leaders

Enrique Pena Nieto
- He is the 5th member of his extended family to serve as governor of the State of Mexico. His cousin directly preceded him as governor.
- He traveled to Washington, D.C. in 2012 to meet with President Barack Obama.

Xi Jinping
- He is the 2nd national leader who's wife is an entertainer.
- He is the first national leader with a Ph.D

Narendra Modi
- He is a former chief minister of Gujarat.
- He is a self-declared Hindu nationalist.

Vladimir Putin
- He has a black belt in Judo.
- He served in the KBG as an intelligence officer before becoming involved in politics.

Joachim Gauck
- He is the son of a survivor of the Soviet Gulag.
- He has been serving since 2012.

David Cameron
- He is a descendant of King William IV.
- He is the youngest prime minister since 1812.

Francois Hollande
- He is the first socialist president since 1995.
- He was inaugurated to be president in 2012.

Dilma Rousseff
- Prior to running for president she had never run for an elected office.
- She was jailed and allegedly tortured in early 1970s  for joining the resistance movement against the military dictatorship.

Bashar al-Assad
- Once his brother died, he decided to take the position to be their new heir for presidency. 
- He was Colonel of the Syrian Army in 1999.

Stephen Harper
- He showed early interest in politics, when he was in high school.
- He is the first prime minister to come from the newly reconstituted conservative party.

Shinzo Abe
- He was Japan's first prime minister born after WWII.
- His grandfather was Japans prime minister and so was his uncle.

Benjamin Netanyahu
- Spent his teen years in the United States and went to high school in Philadelphia.
- First Israeli prime minister to be born after the state was founded in 1948.

Political Geography Assignment #1

Mexico

Federal republic

President Enrique Pena Nieto

China

Communist State

President Xi Jinping

India

Federal Republic

Narendra Modi

Russia

Federation

Vladimir Putin

Germany

Federal Republic

Joachim Gauck

United Kingdom

Constitutional monarchy and Commonwealth realm

Prime Minister David Cameron

France

Republic

President Francois Hollande

Brazil

Federal Republic

Dilma Rousseff

Syria

Republic under an authoritarian regime

President Bashar al-Assad

Canada

A parliamentary democracy, a federation, and a constitutional monarchy

Prime Minister Stephen Harper 

Japan

A parliamentary government with a constitutional monarchy 

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe 

Israel

Parliamentary democracy 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 

10/16/14

Today was the first time we've had class for a week so we actually had some stuff to go over including our tests. I took the test Friday after school since I was on retreat and I felt pretty well prepared and the grade I got definitely showed that. I was really happy with how I did on the test and maybe next test I will do even better. In class Mr. Schick handed out all of our tests and we went over every single answer on the test, especially the answers for the push and pull forces because some people had some interesting answers. Mr. Schick also demonstrated how to quickly use the CIA website to get answers fast. Today our class was a little too talkative but overall it was a good class.

10/9/14

Today we once again went over everything that will be on the test. We talked a lot about population pyramids again because Mr. Schick told us they would be a big part of the test. We should be able to name the country's pyramid by looking at the population pyramid diagrams on the test. He told us to also re-watch the videos on his blog especially the population pyramid video. We also took guesses on how we would do on the test and who would get over 100% In class Mr. Schick gave us time to write our blogs which was nice and I listened to some Spotify while I wrote mine. We also watched a video about tiny hamsters eating tiny burritos.

Review for test

Today in class we reviewed what is going to be on Friday's test. Everything listed below is all of the things we should know. 

• life expectancy
• crude birth rate 
• crude death rate 
• developing nations
• developed nations
• rate of natural increase (RNI)
• net migration rate 
• immigration
• emigration
• push forces
• pull forces
• total fertility rate (TFR)

We should also be able to list 3 pull forces and 3 push forces. 

During the test there will be a specific time where we need to use our laptops to go on the CIA website and find answers to some of the questions but it is not open note/blog.

I re took notes on everything we should know which I think is a good study technique. I also high lighted all of my previous notes to study from as well. I have confidence that I will do well on the test especially since I think we are going to do more review tomorrow.

10/6/14

CIA FACTS

• We're first in airports, Brazil is second. 
• We're second in electricity consumption. 

• Largest producer of oil- Saudi Arabia...United States is the second largest producer of oil. 

• Largest consumer of oil- United States

• Largest oil exporter- Saudi Arabia 
• Largest oil importer- United States

• We're the largest cocaine consumers
• We're number one in railways and roadways
• We're third in area

Class 10/3/14

I would personally say today was the best class we have ever had for so many reasons. I think Mr. Schick was pleasantly surprised by us actually participating in the group discussion that early in the morning. We started off by watching a video about America and peoples different views on whether it's the greatest country in the world or not. It was honestly one of the most powerful videos I have ever watched. For some reason it really spoke to me. That video then led us into a very well participated group discussion on our views on the topic which then led into other topics. Somehow we started talking about alcohol, drug use, and marijuana. We talked about what should/should not be legal, freedom, how America has the most people in prisons, whether America is the best country in the world or not, the news, government, what stuff we do/don't believe, marijuana, alcohol, and even more. Each of us shared our different opinions and added a lot of good points to the discussion. It was so fun because I enjoyed listening to other people's views on things and I liked being able to share my opinion with everyone else and trying to prove points. Finally, there is actually a class that we can go to and just speak our mind on truly important things going on in the world.  I learned so much just from that discussion and the video and I just really enjoyed it. I really hope we have more classes like the class we had today.

Class 10/2

Today in Human Geo Mr. Schick managed to get all of us 3 months free of Spotify premium which was amazing because I use Spotify all the time. Spotify is trying something new to see if students are able to learn better with music instead of just studying. Such as music that reminds you of a certain topic your learning. As we do this stuff with Spotify, Mr. Schick is going to give us assignments such as creating playlists and stuff like that. I'm actually really excited about this because I already know how to use Spotify and I use it basically everyday. Many people in our class didn't have a Spotify so they had to make an account and I taught a few people how to set theirs up and redeem their 3 months of free Spotify. But a few people already an account so we listened to some music and just hung out.