Today 2/24

Today in class we continued talking about egypt. We we watched helped our teacher plan it so that we can talk to a girl who lives in egypt. We then tested out how skype worked so we called her up and she answered. We said high and stuff and we were asked to make questions to ask her for homework.
Here are my questions:
1) What was it like during the protests?
2) How did you feel about the protests?
3) Did your family agree on you participating in the protests?
4) How did you join the protests?
5) What were you following on facebook to join the protests?
6) How do you think your country will be with a new leader?

Egypt Rap

Egypt is a awesome place.
It has a river
Which looks like a shoe lace
Called the Nile
Which was used by many ships
Probably not to race
But to deliver hips
Also known as people


It also has pyramids
That are just all space
There are triangles all over the place
But mainly that are in the desert
But they just do not weather
The pyramids are just like fears
They've been round for thousands of years
When they were made the people were drinking beers

And mummies
That's another subject
The Egyptians they just loved to dissect dead Pharaohs
They'd take their guts out
Than they would wrap them all round
Put in a casket
Than into the ground

The Egyptians also worshiped gods
There was a variety
Many odd
They made statues of them
There was more than ten
They wanted to ascend
Into heaven
When they died they wanted to be with them
They are very unique

Egyptian Pyramids

The Pyramids in Egypt were made to shelter and guard the kings bodies and to keep their treasures safe.
Before Pyramids the Egyptians made tombs out of rocks to bury their kings.
Pyramids are very intricate and some people today cannot figure out how they made the structures.
An estimated 20,000 - 30,000 people built the Pyramids.
The pyramids have different chambers in it.
The Egyptians also made a tomb under the pyramid to fool tomb robbers.
No body knows how the Egyptians were able to build the pyramids.
The Great Pyramid is the biggest and is 146 meters tall.

Today in class on 2/10 we...

Took a test about the movie called Guns, Germs, and Steel. In the test we were asked important questions on the movie and on our notes. We also had to write  an essay too. I wrote my essay about how hunting and gathering went to farming. I compared the two and explained the transition from hunting and gathering to farming. I feel like I got an A on the  test.

Essay A for Western Civilization Test

In ancient civilizations there was few ways to get food. One way was that you hunted for it. Another way was that you gather food from the plants around you. People than realized that you could farm plants. Than after that they realized you could farm animals. Farming was much more productive than hunting and gathering and people realized that.

Once people realized they could farm, life was a lot more productive and less tiring. Before people could farm they had to hunt animals and follow them wherever they went. They would also have to make a temporary shelter so they could move from place to place. All of that moving took a lot of energy out of you and farming doesn't. People first figured out that you could farm plants. They realized that you could take the seeds from the plants, plow the ground, throw the seeds on the plowed ground, then water them and keep repeating that process so you would have an endless supply of food for your people. People also had realized you could then start farming animals too. They realized you could breed them so you could have more meat to feed people. They realized they could use their poop to fertilize their crops. Farming also allowed the people to make a permanent home. Farming also allowed them to produce more of a food surplus, which means that more people can focus on other things other than farming or hunting animals. This meant that people could start inventing things to.

Once people discovered farming, they were able to develop advanced civilizations. People could make homes to live in because of farming and people could also start developing advanced weapons. Farming was much more productive than hunting and gathering too which is another reason why it is better. Once people started farming, they were moving in the next era of the human civilization. An era of developing weapons, advanced technology and architecture, and an era of focusing on developing nations.

Today 2/8 we...

Started a group project. What we did was take notes on Papua New Guinea and how they are trying to catch up with the rest of the world. We also took notes on their economy and the people that lives in it. Some of the notes we took were on their religion and on their languages. Some of the notes I took were on the types of technology they have developed in their country. Some of the technology in they have developed are cell phones. They have even developed their own television net work. And also Mr. Schick was out today.

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea is trying to catch up with the rest of the world. One way they are catching up with the rest of the world is they have developed internet. 125,000 people in the country use it. They also have cell phones. One more way thing they have developed was a TV broadcasting network, which has 2 channels and they have cable and satellite to support it. They have 3 radio networks. They also have some airports. The country has 28 cargo ships.  (CIA Fact book).

Even More Notes on Guns Germs and Steel

In continuing the notes on Guns Germs and Steel, Jerrod Diamond continued talking about domesticating animals. People got the domesticated animals came from Asia and the Middle East. People in New Guinea could not have a surplus. No domesticated animals were native of New Guinea. There is an area in the middle east called the fertile crescent which was used a few thousand years ago to help out early civilizations. People in the fertile crescent was able to build very good homes that you could live in and people even had some primitive air conditioning. Sine the villages started getting bigger people could do more things and do more different jobs and which left people with opportunities to discover new technology. Places like new Guinea have never developed advanced technology. People there were still using stone tools in the 1960's. Because the food surplus was not well people couldn't make steel and people used too much time and money to feed themselves. Yet for all of its advantages the fertile crescent is not good for the modern world. Most of the villages in the fertile crescent the villages were abandoned. The people who lived there used up all the crops the environment had given them. They ran out of water and they were forced to move villages at a time. When them moved they moved to the east and west of the fertile crescent. Crops and animals that thrived around the fertile crescent were able to survive in the same latitudes. Once the animals reached Egypt the population exploded. The same thing happen in the European civilizations. In the 1600 the same crops and animals were taken to the new worlds. There was never wheat or cows in the New Americas before the Europeans brought them over. Diamond said that his years in new Guinea had their own types of smarts and they have learned to live in their environment in order for them to survive. The only types of agriculture that was taken to New Guinea were pigs. The towns in New Guinea are trying to developed with the rest of the world. The answer to the question he was asked was that their people would have developed better if their geography was the same as the Europeans and Asians.

What we did in the class of 2/3

Today in class we continued watching the movie called Guns Germs and Steel. However we didn't get very far today in class because we came in 2 hours late because of ice. What we did watch in the movie though was about people domesticating animals. The people in the middle east first figured out the uses they could have for domesticating animals. He also figured out the animals that have successfully become domesticated. Their are 14.  The types of animals are goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, camels, water buffalo, llamas, reindeer, yaks, myth ans, and tali.

More notes on Guns Germs and Steel

About 9000 years ago there was a remarkable transformation between the interaction between humans and animals. We begin to see animal domestication. Instead of having to go out to hunt they can get meat in their village. They can use their hair and skins to make clothes and can use the animals to make shelter. The animals and the crops made a good combination because the people could use the animal's droppings for fertilizers. They could also keep breeding them so they would have an everlasting supply of meat. Goats and sheep are the first animals that were domesticated. They could also get milk from the goats. Then came pigs and cows. The invention of the plow they could use strong animals to plow the fields and they could use animals to do help do everyday chores for the necessities of humans. A horse or ox could help farmers grow more food and feed more people. People in New Guinea never used plows because they never had the animals that could move plows to help make farms. However they had deer which was used for meet and pigs were flown in which are also used for meat. Almost all of the farm work in New Guinea are done by man. Domesticated animals were some birds and fish but the best to farm are plant eating animals and humans tried to domesticate practically all of them. In south Asia some elephants are used as work animals for example and doesn't make sense to farm an animal that has to wait 15 years before it can start breeding. Domestic animals have to get along with humans to. A zebra could be ideal but because of Africa's predators they run and they have a fighting personality that humans could not tame. Their are 14 animals that can be domesticated are goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, camels, water buffalo, llamas, reindeer, yaks, myth ans, and tali.

Today in class we continued watching GGS

Today in class we continued watching Guns Germs and Steel. On it today Jared Diamond went back into ancient civilizations to answer the question he was asked. He discussed how the New Guineans weren't dumber than everyone else. They were very smart and they don't have a lot of very farm able food to live with and they have to live a very old life style. He also found out that after the first ice age, the middle east was a very habitable place. He also figured out that middle eastern people had first figured out that  they could farm food. One more thing that Diamond found out was that  the countries that found out they could farm on there own were the countries that became great super powers in the modern world and over time.

Continued Notes on Guns Germs and Steel

Continuing guns germs and steel, he realized that the question was a always asked and you could look in history and ask that question yourself. To understand where inequality came from he had to see how people lived before inequality existed 13000 years ago. People back than lived like people every where. One of the few places on earth where it is still possible to see people hunting and gathering is Papua New Guinea. You have to be smart to be an hunter because you have to know how to stalk and where to find the food. Because hunting is so unpredictable traditional societies is done by gathering. Gathering is a more productive way to provide food than hunting. In the middle east there was very different plants to gather barley and wheat. These simple grasses had a large impact. A drought from an ice age lasted for more than a thousand years. This changed the survivability of the middle east. People had to build very different homes to survive. It was a big adjustment to be made. People where able to feed villages with these buildings they made that they could store grain that insects and water couldn't reach. The grains being stored were primarily wheat and barely. People eventually made towns near water supplies and would plant seeds and grow farms. Before this people would follow herds of animals to hunt. Before this, they would also make a temporary structure so they could keep following the animals. The stone age people in the middle east became the first farmers in the world. The way crops are changed by humans is domestication. This is the same process farmers were doing thousands of years ago in the middle east. There are only a few parts in the ancient world where people began farming on their own. Most places where farming emerged meant a great civilization was following it. Archeologists believe that Yalli's people where one of the earliest farmers in the world. New Guinna crops are low in protein and they can't be stored. They are also hard to plant because they have to be planted individually. In order for them to get protein they sometimes need to eat giant spiders. The people that had the better crops became the more advanced civilization.