Immigration Discussion

Today in class, on Novemeber 29, we talked about having a political discussion on the topic of immigration. Mr. Schick was trying to decide if we could handle the possibility of having an active discussion on this topic and having different opinions. I think this idea is good for our class because there are many people who have strong opinions either pro or against trump. Also, I think we could handle managing the discussion ourselves instead of having Mr. Schick manage it. This is a good way to learn more about politics and discover your ideas more. Also, hearing other people's ideas and what they have to say. I think next class this discussion should go pretty well and we will have some interesting points.

New Packet

Today in class, on November 28, we were given a packet that further explains the powerpoint and notes we took in class yesterday. Some of the main topics were migration, immigration, and emigration. I found that the reading helped me to understand what we had learned and discussed yesterday in class. It was also interesting because we could actively highlight important pieces and compare information. For example, on the powerpoint, one of the facts stated a rate of 9% but the actual paragraph stated the same rate as 3%. We could not figure out why these numbers did not match but it was interesting to try. Also, there was a fact that said the rate goes up by 1 million each year but the numbers did not match with that fact.

November 26, 2018

Today in class, on November 26, we took some notes and reviewed some material. First, we got back our tests and Mr. Schick rung the bell. I did not get a ring the first test but I did for the second one. After he passed out everyone's tests we went over them and the correct answers. After this, we were reminded that our exams are very close and it is time to start stressing. Also, we talked about how we have a day for makeup exams if it snows or we're not at school. We started a new chapter of notes after we reviewed all this information. We started by writing key points for the unit like we always do. Then most of the slides were about migrants comparing where they lived or immigrants versus emigrants. Some stuff we already knew like the net migration rate but everything else was new.

Pop Quiz

Today in class, on November 20, we did multiple things in class. We started off reviewing the answers from the video we watched lass class. The previous class we watched a video about a graph relating countries over time with wealth and life expectancy. We were supposed to fill out a worksheet that had questions about the graph. After reviewing the worksheet we turned it in and then we heard that we had to take a pop quiz. We all did not want to take this pop quiz because we thought we would not do very well on it but it turned out that it was the same questions as the worksheet. I think I did well on this quiz and hopefully, I will get 10 points from the worksheet and 20 points for the quiz. The average grade was an 89 which was also pretty good. After we finished our quiz we were allowed to do our blogs and see our grades.

Population Notes

Today in class, on November 14, we took some notes. We had a shortened class because we were going to have an assembly after our second mod. We only had 45 minutes in the class were we could discuss different things about population. At the end of class, we got into a discussion of two ways to lower birth rates. One way is to raise education and health care policies in countries that do not have this. By doing this, women are more likely to go to college and focus on an education instead of just trying to raise a family. Also, health care can benefit women by making sure they are healthy and don't have accidental pregnancies. This concept also goes along with the second way to lower birth rates. The other way is contraception but it goes against policies of some religions. They do not believe in contraception and think it is a sin to "kill" a baby. Even though this method lowers the number of unexpected pregnancies, some religions will not accept it.

Demographic Transition

Today in class, on November 13, the people who were in the play finished their tests. While they were doing this, the rest of the class researched information about the demographic transition. This is what I have found:
Demographic transition, or DT, is the transition of a high birth or death rate to a lower birth or death rate. This change is due to a developing country becoming a developed country with an industrialized ecosystem. This theory was founded in 1929 by Warren Thompson, an American demographer, a person who observes birth and death rates in developed countries over the previous 200 years. Most developed countries have completed the demographic transition and have low birth rates but most developing countries are only in the process of this. The demographic transition model can be used to predict that birth rates will continue to decrease due to countries becoming wealthier. Recent data contradicts this and suggests that at a certain point past becoming of development, the birth rates will increase. Also, in the long term, demographic transition may be reversed due to the pressure of society for higher fertility and mortality rates.

Moreee Notes

Today in class, on November 9, we took more notes in class. Mr. Schick had to leave the room for an about 15 minutes at the beginning of class so we had some free time. Mrs. Zurkowski was watching us so we did not misbehave. We took a class selfie and emailed it to the whole class. Then Mr. Schick came back into the room and we started out reviewing the notes we took last class. We reviewed some of the maps that we talked about last class also. Then, we took more notes about population. Some of the notes we took included population structure.

More Notes

Today in class, on November 8, we took some notes regarding population. Many people in our class were still out because of the play, "Hello Dolly." I think we should have gone to watch the play because it would have been fun but it's ok I guess. The class was shortened because we were following a D day schedule. Anyways, we were taking notes about population clusters and how different factors affect the number of people living there. For example, if an area has easy access to water, like an ocean or river, it is more likely to be highly populated. In contrast, if an area is surrounded by land there will not be as many people living there. An example of this is the midwest because this area is not close to water and is not highly populated. In the powerpoint, there were many slides with different maps that showed you population density versus arable land or farmer versus arable land. These maps were interesting to look at and see the difference in the area.

Test Day

Today in class, on November 7, we took a test using the CIA Factbook and our brains. The first part of the test was using the CIA World Factbook. We had 15 minutes to do 15 questions about different facts in the CIA World Factbook. They were of different places and different topics. For example, we had to find the total fertility rate for Mexico. This part of the test was pretty easy even though it was stressful because we had a time limit. The only questions I had trouble with, asked about the ranking of some countries. I finished all the questions within the allotted time except for one because I could not find the answer. The next part of the test was the written part where we had to remember facts from our notes we took in class. We had a section where we had to match different rates, like total fertility rate or natural rate of increase, with their definitions. When we got to the end of the test, we were not allowed to turn in our test until the bell rung. Mr. Schick gave us a page to draw cartoons about the stuff we learned in this unit. 

Population Patterns

Today in class, On November 5, we discussed more irregular shapes of population pyramids. For example, usually, there is a pattern of a Christmas tree, a box, or a cup in the population of a country. We looked at smaller groups of people, like towns, and noticed the difference in patterns. We were able to see more detail when looking at a smaller town. For example, we looked at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and we could see that there were a lot more men who were in the age range of 15-30 than any other age or gender. We discussed why this was and we came to the conclusion that it was a military base so there would be a lot of young men. Even though there are more and more women joining the military, the men were almost double the women still. We looked at other cities and discussed the differences. Some examples were colleges and retirement homes. The places with colleges had a high population of 20-24-year-olds. Retirement places like small towns in Florida have a very high population of old people and few college-age kids.

Population Pyramids

Today in class, on November 1, we had a shortened class because of mass that was going to take place third mod. We did not start taking notes right away in class so it felt very short. We started talking about the three different types of population pyramids. The three types were the Christmas tree, the box, and the cup. Each version was a general graph of the population growth or decline in different countries. The Christmas tree had many kids and the number of people decreased with age. This is for developing countries for the most part like Nambia. The box was mostly equal in population for all ages and represented developed nations like the United States. Last, the cup had fewer children than elderly people. This is also for a developed nation like Japan, for example, but the population of this type of country would be declining. This is true because the generation of fewer kids will grow old enough to have kids of their own but there will still not be many of them.