2/3/11

In class first today Mr. Schick gave us cookies.  Jordan then kept asking for a drink and was denied.  We then watched the rest of the movie.

     About 1000 years after the villages the villages became abandoned.  These villages became abandoned because the people were not aware of hurting the environment they over-farmed it.  Because they are on a piece of land that is very wide east to west, they were able to spread east and west.  They spread east and west because the climate and environment is pretty much the same.  This means they can grow the same animals and food as they were earlier.  New Guinea's problem is that they are isolated and on an island so they don't have anywhere to go.  The people spread to East Asia, Europe, and Africa.  These people carried their methods and resources to these parts of the world which caused huge sparks of civilization.  These people than brought the stuff to everywhere else in the world like the Americas.

     We then did a little research on New Guinea.  Jordan walked out of the room anyway and almost got his first detention, on student appreciation day. 

      

    

2/2/11

     Today in class Mr. Schick reminded us about our blogs.  We then watched the movie and talked about it.
    
     Today in the movie we started at the part about the domestication of animals.  There were many benefits to animal domestication combined with farming.  If these things are done well together, they lead to a good, functioning, and healthy civilization.  The domestacatable animals over 100 lbs are (the spelling is pretty bad): goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, 2 different types of camels, water buffulo, donkey, llamas, reigndeer, yaks, mythons, bali cattle.  The animals gave people milk, clothing, meat, and other necessities.  New Guinea's problem is that they only have one domestacatable animal, the pig.  This animal doesn't pull plows or do work though, and it only got there a couple thousand years ago.  If you have animals helping you you can have people do things other than farming.  This is where technological breakthroughs came from.   

1/31/11

     Today in class we did a couple things.  First Mr. Schick verified people turning in their homework by doing our first blog(s) and e-mailing him the link to our blog.  We then recapped on the little bit of Guns, Germs, and Steele that we watched.
     Then we watched more of Guns, Germs, and Steele.  The movie showed and talked a lot about the evolution of hunters and gatherers to being farmers and living in established settlements.  The nomadic life of everyone hunting and gathering wasn't reliable enough.  Because of this they gave everyone jobs, planted good food that lasted for a long time, and assigned certain people hunt.  People were assigned jobs this was the first form of organized civilization.  The organized civilization first happened in the middle east during a drought.  Most of the world followed.  People like the people in Papua New Guinea are living like years ago because they have food that is hard to harvest, is not very nutritious, and that has short shelf life.  They also don't have many resources, possibly they are not very globalized. 


 

Snow Days

The past week we have had a lot of snow.  I did not post a picture because all I have done is shovel until last night when I went sledding at Loch Raven High.

No School

It snowed and I made money shoveling.

Guns, Germs, and Steele Movie

Guns, Germs, and Steele is a movie based on a book written by a UCLA professor.  This professor's name is Jared Diamond.  He is a man that goes to the country very often to watch birds and is an expert on the birds on the island.  He was once asked why the white people have more than the natives by a native.  This lead him to research the topic and then he wrote his book.  The movie was then made.  The movie is about him trying to find out why the technology is where we are, but on the island.  The movie shows the story of him making the discoveries and solving the puzzle.