Cultural Geography

Today in class we started to take notes on a powerpoint Mr. Schick made called Cultural Geography. We hardly even got through it we wre sidetracked so much! Everyone had lots of questions and comments and the answers Mr. Schick gave would lead to getting even farther off topic. Anyways, some of the stuff that we did get the chance to take notes on was about cultural characteristics. They are parts of everyday life, ideas and themes which the group will teach to all members, and those same characteristics can link or divide a region. I gave the example like how in Sudan Muslims are in the north and Christians and tribal religions in the south, which caused them to go into civil war and eventually split the countries. Some examples of cultural characteristics are language, religion, and ethnic heritage. For language, we took notes that Arabic unites the Arab world and Spanish unites the Hispanic world. We also learned that English is the world language and is the language of money. For ethnic heritage we took notes that said Yugoslavia (which is no longer a country) had many ethnic groups and were made into a country. When the strong government died out, they got into a bloody civil war and now they all have different countries. P.S. I have a new goal to put a picture that relates to each of my bog posts from now on to make it more interesting!!

Native Americans, Vikings, and Columbus, OH MY!

Today in class we presented our powerpoints. The Native American group went first, they said that 12,000 - 17,000 years ago Native Americans settled in the Americas. They got there by a land bridge in connecting Russia and Alaska. Native Americans were very spiritual and took good care of the land, they were the very first settlers of America. Then my group, the vikings, went. We said that the Vikings also took very good care of the land, they grew lots of crops. We also said that the Vikings didn't settle in the Americas very long in the Americas because of arguments with the Natives. We said that Vikings came in long, narrow ships to get easily and quietly up rivers to raid towns. They also weren't sent they were just looking for more lands to conquer. Lastly, the Columbus group went. It was so funny because they got obvious questions wrong, like one of the quests was did they settle in the land and their answer was no, which obviously isn't correct. But some of the correct information they gave us was that they first arrived in America, present day Bahamas, on October 12, 1492. They were sent to go there to try and sail to India to find a quicker way to get there. They got there by three ships and conquered the land because they thought it would be easy to take advantage of the Native Americans, and once they did, they destroyed the land.

VIKINGS RULE!

In class today we went over our tests. I got a 94 so I was glad I got an A. After that we briefly talked about blogging and Christopher Columbus. Then we got into groups of either Native Americans, Vikings, and Columbus and company. My group was the Vikings, in my group there was Kristen, Grace, Maria, Nadia, and Holly. We worked very well together and got lots of work done. Mr. Schick even came up to us and told us that we picked a good group and that we were doing a very good job of getting work done. For my group, I made the slides for how long the vikings stayed in the Americas and did they fight to conquer the Americas. My group was very organized and tried our best to get everything done in class, but we are putting finishing touches on everything tonight like organizing everything, spell check, and so on. I'm really excited to get to present our powerpoints later, we worked really hard on ours.

God Grew Tired of Us Test

Today we took a test on the movie we watched, we were allowed to use our blogs but I didn't even need mine! It was so easy! I feel like I aced it! And I hope I did. I really want to get 100% on it but I'm not sure if I will because I don't want to get disappointed if I don't get it so I'm telling myself I'm gonna get a B. But I really want at least an A. Anyways, I flew right through the test and didn't have any problems except on one question which I answered Lost Boys but after we took it people were saying that it was Parliament which doesn't make sense to me because I thought they said that was their government... But I don't know. If I get one wrong then that will be the one so, I'm kind of nervous.

We Are Actually Doing This!

Today we looked at different organizations and tried to pick one that would work best for us. I'm not sure which one we picked... When we left class I thought that we were more at a point where any of the sites were good. Anyways, I really hope that we get to do all that we "planned" during class. I put planned in quotes because they were more of ideas and not complete things that we could do. But when I talked to Mr. Schick after class about the ideas that I wanted to do he started doing this weird bowing thing which I'm pretty sure means that its up to us. So here are my ideas in case you were wondering, I wanted to go on a walk around the little town near our school and we could wear shirts and make posters in order to help inform more people about the issue in Sudan. The other thing I wanted to do would be go to other schools and talk about it (we could go to elementary, middle, and high schools) so they would know more. We could even do a thing where students collect money in envelopes like for Jump Rope for Heart and use the money collected to donate to the place of our choice. I'm not sure what rewards we could give to the students that raised money though... Maybe we could have the school promise them an after or during school activity or movie if they raised a certain amount of money, but we would need to make it appealing to all ages, which could be difficult. Maybe they could have a dance and only people who raised money could go! I don't know I'm kind of spit balling ideas.... I just really hope we can make our ideas into our actions.

What Can We Do To Help?

Today in class we talked about what we could do to help in Sudan, Mr. Schick said that we were the only class who really seemed like they wanted to do something about the problem in Sudan. I hope that we do get to do something, and hopefully John Bul Dau can come visit us in our school! One thing that I really want to do is go on a walk for Sudan, like John Dau did in Syracuse. Anyways, today we were on a Google sharing website where we added the websites of organizations that we found to help Sudan, at firs there was a lot of trouble because we all were editing one page, and a lot of people were being immature when they were editing. But after Mr. Schick talked to us, it got a lot better. It was very frustrating when people kept deleting our stuff. So after class I copied our page and pasted it in OneNote just in case someone decided to go back and be rude. Class was very fun, frustrating, but fun.

End of the Movie

Today in class we finished watching the movie. During the movie, I saw that John Bul Dau organized walks to raise awareness for the war going on in Sudan. They also all got together for a Lost Boys reunion in Michigan, and John was disappointed that some of the boys were forgetting their culture. Most of them are from the Dinka tribe, which is a large group in Africa and they are very tall. Also, John was reunited with his mother after 17 years of separation. At the end of the movie, Panther gets married to his girlfriend, gets his bachelor's degree, was reunited with his mom and brother, and is hoping to open a school up in Sudan. John continues to support his family, he has a bachelor's degree, he has a nonprofit organization for Sudan, and plans to open a medical clinic in Sudan. While Daniel works at Job Corp and is getting his degree, and unfortunately he has not been able to find any family.

One thing Mr. Schick asked us was what can we do to help, so I found John Bul Dau's organization online at http://johndaufoundation.org/. We can use this website for donations and other ways. Another idea that I had which was very unlikely but I would defiently enjoy would be going over spring break or some other time to a Lost Boys refugee camp and helping there, I know for a fact that at some point in my life I will do this.