Giovanna's Western Civ. Blog

Today was an eventful day to start off we switched seats. I really liked my old seat so I was definitely a little disappointed to switched. Many people were complaining about the whole switch as well. Then we went on to discuss site. We started talking about how New York is twice the size it was many years ago.We then went on to discuss the Hurricane Harvey and how that affected everyone. Houston has become a large city and attracts many people and businesses. Some of my classmates mentioned that they even knew people who were affected. Hurricanes are formed by warm water and hovers over the area before the hurricane hits. My class believed that the water didn't have anywhere to go. This affects not only the city it's in but the nation itself not knowing how to fix it.

Today we had an interesting class that consisted of rearranging, shadows, stories, and pop quizzes.  I thought it was going to be a normal day but Mr. Schick had something different in mind. We said our prayer at the beginning of class and he mentioned that we have a pop quiz. I was shaken by the news as I hate pop quizzes with every ounce of my body. I feel students should be given time to prepare before tests so that they can perform well. After taking the test I felt I did ok. I checked the worksheet and noticed I only got two or three wrong so I guess the quiz wasn't that bad. It was fairly easy except the fact that I had just gotten told we were going to take it five minutes before the quiz was handed out. Hopefully we won't have this often because it brought a lot of unnecessary stress to me but it quickly went away when it was easy.

Site A way that geographers describe the location of a place Physical character of a place Important characteristics: climate, water sources, topography, soil, vegetation, latitude, and elevation Physical features gives each place a distinctive character Essential in selecting locations for settlements, although people have disagreed, depending on cultural values Some preferred a hilltop site for easy defense from attack Other located settlements, near convenient river-crossing points to facilitate communication with people in other places We have the ability to modify characteristics of a site NYC's Manhattan Island is twice as large today as it was in 1626 Peter Minuit bought the island from its native inhabitants for the equivalent of $23.75 worth of Dutch gold and silver coins Additional land area was created by filling in portions of the East river and the Hudson river In 18th century lan...

Today in class we had a blog review/check. Mr. Schick called each of us up one by one to go over how our blog looks. He noted things such as: The title should not be the date change the format to make it easier to access and view posts  Since I am the last in the alphabet for this class I had time to fix mine. The change made it easier to read and I like the set up better. I changed the titles so when we have an open blog quiz or test I will know where everything is. Mr. Schick complimented mine saying he liked the layout of my blog. The next thing we did is review our map worksheets we completed last week. This worksheet made us locate continents and countries so we could get to know our world a bit better. We had a big discussion about Brazil when it came up. We discussed how much money was not gained back after they hosted the Olympics and how they destroyed many people's houses who were poor.

Why is Each Point on Earth Unique? Each place on Earth is in some respects unique and in other ways similar to other places. The interplay between the uniqueness of each place and the similarities among places lies at the heart of geographic questioning about why things are found where they are. Two basic concepts help geographers to explain why every point on Earth is in some ways unique- place and region . The difference between two concepts is partly a matter of scale: a place is a point, whereas a region is an area. We watched a video that Mr. Schick created about the fire drill. The sound of the alarm in the beginning kept being played which was almost as annoying as the actual thing Region: an area or division, especially part of a country or the world having definable characteristics but not only fixed boundaries place: a particular position or point in space (realized that Thursday I accidentally hit the save button instead of publish)

Mental Maps and Activity Spaces How do you describe where things are? How do you describe your daily routine? A mental map is a person's point-of-view perception of their area of interaction, most commonly called your activity space.  Today in class we had to make a mental map of the world and a sketch of our path/routine to school. I think I did pretty well on my mental map. Of course, it wasn't perfect because I couldn't look at a map but my routine to school was the best. I had everything labeled and Mr. Schick loved it. Then we went on to looking up our addresses to see how correct we were. Even though i didn't check mine I knew I was correct because mine was extremely detailed and I go on it everyday. I think writing it out was a really cool to see everyone's ways to school. It helped me learned something I was familiar with but did not have memorized. 

Today in class we didn't learn anything and basically had a study hall. I worked on my science homework and watched Netflix but Mr. Schick made me turn it off. We were allowed to go to our lockers to get books and such. I went up with Kelsie and wrote my name on her stick on chalkboard that's in her locker. It's crazy the difference of the hallways when there's classes going versus when there's not. We went back to class and I worked on my blog, english, and science homework. I like having these types of classes because it not only helps the teacher get things done but also students get homework done. I think we should have these classes often. Possibly every other Monday would be great. It gives us a chance to unwind during the busy day. It helped me come home from school today and not have much work to do.