My Grade

For class participation I would give myself a 95.  I am trying to get involved in the conversation as often as I can.  If I don't understand something we are talking about I am not afraid to raise my hand and ask a question. I had a lot of fun and enjoyed this Human Geography class with Mr. Schick.  I wish I had him for next semester, but I have Mr. Powell.

Papua New Guinea

Today in class we did research on the country of Papua New Guinea.  After about a half an hour we all shared some of our facts.  Their unemployment rate is 1.9%.  It is the 12th fastest growing economy in the world.  The country is the most undiscovered country in the world.  It has so many undiscovered exotic species of plants and animals.  The GDP for the real growth rate is 8.9%.  People are starting to cut down rain forests in New Guinea.  People make more money cutting down and selling mahogany wood more than plywood.  The net migration rate is zero.  The number one religion is Roman Catholic.  There is 542 unpaved airports and 20 paved airports.  Papua New Guinea has a military and an air force.  They have a potential of about three million soldiers in New Guinea if they were to go to war.  The legal age to be drafted into the war is sixteen.  Thirty-seven percent of the population is below the poverty line.  There are only six universities in the country of Papua New Guinea.  Most of the people that are literate are women.  There are 2.4 million cell phones being used in Papua New Guinea.  Thirteen percent of the population of Papua New Guinea are urban.  There are 3,105 people in Papua New Guinea are in the military.  The Internet hosts is 5,006 and the Internet users are 125,000.  57.3% of the people are literate and 42.7% are illiterate.  There are over 800 hundred languages spoken in Papua New Guinea.

Today's Class

Today in class we continued watching the movie Guns, Germs, and Steel.  Today the video was talking about food supply and how the people of New Guinea get their food.  They get food from animals and other plants in their country.  The most common food supply is the sago tree.  The women strip the sago tree bare and find shavings in the middle.  They then mix the shavings with water and form a small supply of some food that looks like oatmeal.  The people of New Guinea also use a lot of wheat.  Wheat is in almost every food item.  It is hard to find something that does not have a form of wheat cooked inside of it.  In America there is wheat mixed into any kind of food you can imagine.  There are 20,000,000 tons of wheat in America.  With 20,000,000 tons of wheat and 300,000,000 people in America, there is 133 pounds of wheat per person per year.  All of this wheat means that people in America have a surplus of wheat.  Also, the New Guineans asked why we have more cargo than them.  We have more cargo than them because we have the technology and knowledge to keep inventing new machines and things.

Movie Continued

Today in class we continued watching the movie Guns, Germs, and Steel based on the award-winning book Jared Diamond wrote.  Today it talked about work and how different civilizations got their work done.  Diamond showed how the people in New Guinea still use tools made out of stone.  Even when the Europeans went to New Guinea the people were using stone tools.  When the Europeans visited, they brought some modern day tools and how to advance in their working technology.  New Guineans also discovered that work would be so much easier if they had thousand-pound animals pulling machines then having to do it by hand.  Although, many animals are very hard to domesticate and train to do work.  The video showed people trying to domesticate elephants, but they were unsuccessful.  In the world there are only fourteen domesticated animals that can do work.  They are goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, backtrian camels, arrabbean camels, water buffalo, llamas, reindeer, yaks, mithans, and bali cattle.  All these animals were not always found where they were used.  The animals were found in Africa, Asia, New Guinea, North America, South America, Australia, Europe, and some others.  The people developed using animals to help move big machinery.

Missed Class

Today I missed class because I left school early for a doctor's appointment.

Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond is an American scientist, author, and professor at UCLA.  He examined anthropology and ornithology.  Diamond researched human and animal evolution.  He examined human evolution and its relevance to the modern world.  Diamond explains the political and economic dominance of Eurasian societies.  Using evidence from archaeological and historical case studies and evidence from genetics and linguistics, he explained that gaps in technology are not the result of cultural or racial differences.  Mr. Schick told us to research him because Diamond had a great deal of contribution of our knowledge of human and animal evolution.  He has traveled all over the world to many islands to research the evolution and ecology of birds. He rediscovered New Guinea's long-lost golden fronted bowerbird.  Diamond also researched past civilizations to see if they collapsed or succeeded.  With looking at these past civilizations, Diamond determines whether or not contemporary sciences can learn from these historical examples.  He has a PhD in philosophy and geography.  Diamond went to Papua New Guinea to study ecology.  He wrote the book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society. 

Guns, Germs, and Steel is a book that Jared Diamond wrote in 1997.  It attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations have survived and and conquered others.  It argues against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority.  In this book, Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate in environmental differences.  This theory is amplified by various positive feedback loops.  When cultural or genetic differences have favored Eurasians , Diamond asserts that these advantages occurred because of the influence of geography on societies and cultures, and were not inherent in the Eurasian genomes.  This book has won the Pulitzer Prize and has had a documentary made by National Geographic.  This book won the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. 

Today's Class

Today in class we continued watching the video on YouTube, "The People's Republic of Capitalism". We are now on part 3 of the video.  This part of the video was mostly about the Chinese and their vast supply of cars all throughout the country.  Many people in China do not learn to drive until they are about 40 or 50 years old.  In America, many people learn to drive and operate cars in their teenage years, very different compared to the Chinese.  Chinese do not usually buy cars just for them unless they are in a very wealthy family.  We saw an example of this when two brothers, their wives, and their mom all bought a car together and are sharing it.  This is very odd to us Americans because we all usually buy our own cars and do not share it with four or five other people.  It is easier for the Chinese because then each person does not have to pay as much and can save their money for food and other necessities.  Also people in China pay for cars using cash.  Us Americans find that very odd because we just write out a check or use our credit card to buy a new car rarely people will bring cash to buy a new car.  Chinese life and how they do things is obviously very different from Americans.