Blog 2/26/18

Pg. 41 Work:

1. Delta - Often times when you're around rivers you may be able to find them leading into deltas.

2. Narmer - It is believed that a kind named Narmer united upper and lower Egypt.

3. Pharaoh - The god kings of Egypt were called pharaohs. 

4. Theocracy - In Egypt, it used to rule by theocracy.

5. Pyramid - There were many great pyramids built in Egypt.

6. Mummification - Important Egyptian figures were mummified before burial.

7. Hieroglyphic - If we showed the ancient Egyptians our modern day alphabet they might interpret it as a form of hieroglyphics.

8. Papyrus - Papyrus could be compared to the ancient Egyptians version of our paper.

3. Being surrounded by deserts benefited Egypt because it gave them a natural form of defense around their city.

4. The Egyptians viewed the pharaoh as almost as splendid and powerful as the Gods.

5. Egyptians mummified bodies to prevent it from decaying, and to get it prepared to live in the beautiful other world.

Test Review Day

Today in class we reviewed for the quiz/test tomorrow on Mesopotamia. The main points we covered were:

- Cuneiform
- City-State
- Ziggurat
- Polytheistic
- Dynasties
- Empire
- Cultural Diffusion
- Fertile Crescent
- Irrigation
- Silt
- Modern Day Fertile Crescent
- 282 Laws in Hammaraubi's code

I think I will be able to do well on the test tomorrow since I feel confident with all of the material featured on it. Hopefully after studying tonight I will be able to get a one hundred on this test, and it can bring my grade up a bit higher. If I could end this quarter with a higher grade than I've had the past two quarters in human geography I'd be really happy! So far I've done well with my other tests in the class and I think I'll do well on this one too.

From prehistory to civilization

2/15/18

Today in class we went through the powerpoint more and took some notes. Some things I wrote down were:

- Sumer is between the Tigris and Euphrates river
- Sumer advanced through irrigation from the river on either sides of it
- Towns in the fertile crescent began to advance to have as many as 40,000 people.
- People began to have better food storage, which could maintain a bigger population.
- Population expanded greatly from how many people used to have the hunter, gatherer lifestyle.
- Because of the population expansion, there became a greater diversity in professions. There were priests, tradesmen, artisans, politicians, and farmers.
- Kings emerged along with the idea of "City-states".
- Dynasties also appeared.
- Cuneiform was invented and put to use.
- A collection of Sumerian Gods and Goddesses emerged.
- The worlds first epic was the Epic of Gilgamesh, which told of a great flood, similar to the Bible
- Sumerians divided time into 60 minutes, 60 seconds, and they organized a calendar based on moon cycles.
- The ziggurat was a temple built on top of a "mountain" on Earth.

Test Review Day

Today in class we went over our test we took last week. It was all a little fuzzy in my brain from all of the snow days, but I got back into it quickly. I did pretty well on the test and got a 96, only missing one question! It was one of the questions about what plant came from the Middle East and I put wheat instead of Sorghum. It's good to review, since without the review I wouldn't have taken note of what I got wrong. After the review we got started on a new powerpoint and took some notes. Since class was super short we only got two slides in, but it seems like a review of what we have already been over in Germs, Guns and Steel, and the textbook pages. This makes it really convenient for us as students, since we can write less and pay attention more.

Reverse Classroom Day

Today in class we took notes out of the textbooks in our composition books. This was something new that we have never done in the class, but I found it was much easier to be productive in the classroom than at home. I often find my mind wandering off or getting easily distracted when I'm doing homework at my house, but whenever I do it either in class or in my free mods I can easily focus and tune out the other distractions from my mind. I got much more done in 55 minutes in school than I ever would have at home. We still have a few more pages to go of taking notes, and I'm looking forward to learning more about the first villages and civilizations recorded in history.

Test Day

Today in class we took our test on Guns, Germs, and Steel. I thought it was relatively easy compared to other tests we've had in human geography, and I seem to have picked up on this information easier. I studied for a while last night, and I am overall happy with my performance on the assessment today. Hopefully when we get our results back it will reflect my hard work. The topic we started with in western civilization has grabbed my attention, with how the world got domesticated. I hope to learn more on this topic next in this class, not only with Papua New Guinea, but with other places as well, where civilization really took off like Rome. I also find the information about the animals really interesting, as I’ve always loved learning more about them. I'm looking forwards to whatever we are learning next, and I can’t wait to get started.