More textbook notes and slideshow notes

Today class we took more notes in our textbooks from the new section. We then started the slideshow on Egyptians and their lives. Here they are:

• Upper Egypt 500 mile long strip of Fertile land next to the Nile.
• Lower Egypt was a wide land of Nile delta, empties in the Mediterranean Sea. 
• The Nile was a major provider of life for Egyptians. Revered in lore and writing.
• 3100 B.C. two lands were united under single king or Pharoah, (Narmer, Aka Menes)
• Pharoah all-powerful worshipped as a god, intimately connected to other major Egyptian gods/goddesses
• they relied on harmony and balance of the universe ( maat), opposite of goddess Isfet. 
• Pharoahs had multiple wives, all routes tot financial and social success was through the palace.
• Women could have money, land, divorce, very few had real political power. 
• Gods were portrayed with animal heads or bodies. 
• They believed in an afterlife (ka), mummified bodies to preserve them for the post-death journey.
• souls need to justify themselves at point of death to be sent to afterworld paradise or jaws of a monster.

Start of Pyramid on the Nile Notes

Here are a some notes I took today on the new section we are starting called Pyramid on the Nile. The Nile River flows northward across Africa for over 4,100 miles, the longest river in the world. Goes through the present-day Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia. There is fertile land around the river, so settlements were made there. Fertile soil to desert – black land to red land. In July it rains and causes melting snow from mountains in East Africa causing overflow of river. When it recedes in October rich deposits of fertile black mud called silt is left behind. Peasants prepared wheat and barley in fields, during fall and winter they watered their crops from a network of irrigation ditches. Egyptians worshipped the God of the Nile. The Nile was predictable and worked like clockwork unlike the Tigris and Euphrates. Three environmental challenges Egyptians faced with the Nile: floodwaters a few feet lower than normal, fresh silt was greatly reduced. Thousands would starve. More notes tomorrow!

Kinda quiz review

Today in class we watched a video that talks about Mesopotamia. It was song that talks about the history of Mesopotamia and its rivers. It was to the tune of Soldier Boy. It was funny and was kind of helpful. After that we watched the video called Happy by John Carroll. It is what the broadcasting class used to make. Another video that they made was for Mr. Maynard because he got colon cancer. It was a person dressed up in a power rangers costume and he tried to go in to different places and he was kicked out of all the classrooms. Then we watched a video a with a girl Emma who went to John Carroll and she made it through the first round of American Idol. She was eliminated in the second. She still did a good job. Then we checked out Dan's quizlet and rated it. We looked at some other quizlets for this topic to. We didn't do much else

Quiz Review

We have quiz on Wednesday on City States in Mesopotamia, and Pre- History to Civilization. So today we went over some of the quiz questions to prepare for Wednesday. Mr. Schick will fix the quiz a little and then we will go over it again tomorrow. We are going over this twice because our class is much further ahead then the other. We finished our textbook notes, the slideshow, and talk about Hammurabi's Code. We also talked about how some of the laws are very crazy. These are some important words to know for the quiz. Cultural diffusion, fertile crescent, Mesopotamia, polytheism, irrigation, cuneiform, dynasty, ziggurat, Modern countries in fertile crescent: Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria. Neolithic Age ( New Stone Age, Paleolithic Age ( Old Stone Age), city state, epic of Gilgamesh: The great flood, Hammurabi's Code: 282 laws. These laws were engraved on stone plaques- how everyone knew about them. Silt a knew word that means: the name for the soil left behind as water recedes away. A bonus question: Tigris River is the answer it is a military base on this river, something recently happened to it.

More PowerPoint Notes & Hammurabi's Code

Today in class we took notes on one more slide. We talked about Hammurabi's Code and looked up some of the different punishments and rules. We discussed why some of the punishments were very harsh and over the top. One of them was that you would be put to death if you rob someone's house. You will be put to death right in front of where you entered the house. A woman cannot go into a bar, if she does, she will be burned to death. A woman can run a bar but just cannot drink. If a child says his parents are not his parents and he is lying his tongue will be cut off. These are some of the crazy codes of Hammurabi. Some other notes we took today are:

• wandering nomads drove herds of domesticated animals in many areas. Many south of Sumer in Arabia.
• Sumer conquered by Akkadians 2350 B.C. - their gods took place of previous ones, all had to worship them.
• King Hammurabi of Babylon created laws, "Hammurabi's Code".

Day 2 in Western Civ

Today in class we finished up our note and answered this question for homework. Page 34, question 5.

What areas of life did Hammurabi's Code cover?

His code covered 282 laws that affected community, family relations, business, conduct, crime, property issues, laws to protect women and children from unfair treatment. It covered different punishments for rich, poor, women and men. It applied principle of retaliation (eye for an eye). It is collected of existing rules, judgement, and laws.

First Day in the New Semester

Today was the first day in the 2nd semester. This new class is Western Civilization and we just took notes from our textbook. I have two questions I have to answer:


1.) Write a sentence for the following terms.

The fertile crescent is a region in between two rivers where soil is rich, fertile, and good for farmland.

Mesopotamia is the earliest civilization in Asia that was organized into city states.

City states in Mesopotamia acted much like independent countries today.

Once wars became frequent priest were no longer in charge but strong military leaders were, so they started a dynasty when there children became rulers.

An example of cultural diffusion is Egypt developed irrigation systems from Mesopotamian people.

We are not polytheistic people, we only believe in one god not many.

The were four empires during the time of Mesopotamia.

Hammurabi was the sixth king of the First Babylonian dynasty in Mesopotamia.


3.) What were the three environmental challenges to Sumerians?

1. Unpredictable flooding with no rain, it was like a desert sometimes.

2. No natural barriers for protection to the city states.

3. Limited natural resources to help their community grow.

Post Test Day

Today in class Mr. Schick was late. The bell rang and he was just walking down the hallway. We decided we didn't want our tests back because we knew our grades from veracross already. There is no point in going over the stuff we got wrong on the test because we already had our midterm. So the things that were on this test won't be on the final because this is semester one still. After that there were two or three makeup tests for yesterday. If you failed your demographic transition quiz you could retake it and if you got a grade above failing you would get 75% percent put in for your score so you won't fail the test. Then he played a game for teachers on veracross. You have pictures of students and you can guess there name to help you learn them. I had never seen it before, it was very interesting. Now I am writing my blog. I did well on the test I got a 92% , so my grade went down a percentage but I still have an A and that's all I needed. After I turn this in I will have all my blogs and then I will be done for the semester in this class. So bye everyone thanks for listening.

Test Day

Today in class we took a quiz on the video Jared Diamonds: Gun, Germs, and Steel part one. It is about Jared Diamond finding the answer to Yali's question. His question is, Why you white men have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little. His answer is geographic luck. Your village can grow based on where it is. The better the climate, area, and farmland the more your village will grow. That is why New Guineans are still living like they are in the Stone Age, they did not have good farm land or animals to help them grow. This test was only 26 questions, the most I think I got wrong is two. Hopefully I didn't get more than that wrong because my grade is a 91, and I don't want it to go down. With the semester ending Friday I want to end with all A's. So I'm really hopefully I did good. After the test we looked at the comments for the calming music we listened to during the test. Some people had some weird comments, a lot of depressing ones, and a lot of people cried during it. It was funny.

Absent

I was not at school today.

Finishing the video guns, germs, and steel

Today in class we finished the video Guns, Germs, and Steel part 1. We finished notes and discussed more about the video. Here are the last of my notes. 

•  14 domesticated animals that are helpful to people when surviving. These animals are also bred by people. Goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, Bactrian camels, Arabian camels, water buffalo, llamas, reindeer, yaks, Mithans, Bali camel.
• None of these animals are from New Guinea
• The 13 animals were from Asia, some of Europe, and North Africa.
• 1 animal the llama was from South America. 
• The fertile crescent is in the Middle East, it had the best farm animals and land in the world.

Jared Diamond theory is that New Guinea is not as developed because they did not the right animals and food. With the right animals they could have had easier access to nutritious food, clothing, and animal labor. If they had animals they could have used to them for plows which would allow less people to farm. Those people could then make clothes from wool, build more houses, and do other important things to help their community grow, and not have to always worry about getting food. If they had crops like wheat or corn they would have lots of it at once and would be sustained for longer. They would have to spend days preparing it like sago and then have to eat it at once, without it giving them much nutrition. If they had access to this stuff they could have focused on growing their community and not just one surviving and hunting for food. 

Guns, Germs, and Steel Notes

Today we watched more of our video about guns, germs, and steel. I took more notes and here they are.

• Middle Eastern people became the first famers in the world. The technical term is plant domestication = farmer.
• Where and What different parts of the world grew. Middle East - wheat and barely. China - rice. North and South America - corn, squash, beans. Africa - sorghum, millet, yams.
• People in Papua New Guinea have been farming for over 2 thousand years.
• Geographical  Luck
• Animal Domestication in the Middle East
• They used goats for milk, hair for clothes, eat them, help with plant domestication, fertilizer, eat bad parts of the plant.
• Goats and sheep were the first domesticated animals.
• There are 14 domesticated animals that are helpful and are breed. They are goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, Bactrian camels, Arabian camels, water buffalo, llamas, reindeer, yaks, mithans, balli camel.

More Guns, Germs, and Steel

We watched more of Guns, Germs, and Steel in class and took more notes. Here are some of them.

• all great civilizations have these 3 things in common: technology, large populations, well organized work force
• Pre-history (13,000 years ago-hunters/gatherers)
• the only place left on the world where people are hunter/gatherers. Papua New Guinea
• sago vs. wheat and barely, sago tree has pulp in the center and can be made into dough, 70lbs from tree but takes days to deal with it. It will go bad in a few days.
• barely and wheat was grown in the Middle East and was plentiful.
• Draa - earliest permanent settlements ever
• had the worlds first granary ( able to store food in any weather condition.)

Jared Diamond is still trying to figure out why some countries or areas of people prospered before others. 

First Day Back

Today was the first day back after a long two weeks. I did not want to come back but here I am anyway. We got to see our exam grades, he called us up and told them to us individually. I got a 90%, I thought I did good enough and I am happy with my grade. During that we had to look up what guns, germs, and steel was. It is a book and its about how the advantage of one society over another is not based on race or intelligence as some historians have claimed but instead on geography. It was published in March 1971. Jared Diamond wrote the book. It is about what jump started the growth of some areas as oppose to others. Its sub title is The Fate of Human Societies. An example is when the Europeans had guns and they fought the Native Americans. It shows how much the Europeans grew compared to the Native Americans. The germs is about the disease that killed small, poor countries and how it didn't affect the people that gave it to them because they had more medical care. After we discussed it for a little bit we started the video.