Final Day of Guns, Germs, and Steel

Today we finished watching Guns, Germs, and Steel. The rest of the video was about the migration form the fertile crescent. The Fertile Crescent was the origin of many strong and successful settlements. The fertile land, grown crops, and animals near by allowed for these people to have a head start at life. After a few thousand years the climate and land became too dry for the proper crops to grow and the people so the people had to leave the Fertile Crescent. This is when the people decided to move east and west of their current land. This change of latitude allowed the people to be on new land with fairly similar climate for their crops, clothes, animals, and lifestyle. This lead to great civilizations due to their region. The Europeans were the next to bring the most popular crops and animals like wheat or barley and cattle to the Americas. This is what jump started the Americas early on.

Fourth Day of Guns, Germs, and Steel

Today we continued watching Guns, Germs, and Steel. Today the main idea was Animal Domestication. This is when humans control animal breeding, feeding, and location. Animals had lots of benefits such as clothing, meat, work, warmth, fertilizer, and more. Goats and sheep were the first animals to be domesticated. The next to be domesticated were pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, bactrian camels, Arabian camels, water buffalo, llamas, reindeer, yaks, mithians, and bali cattle. These have been the only 14 animals fully domesticated for work. The bigger animals such as horses and cows were the most helpful for labor by dragging things like plows which was a major invention for farming to advance. Plant eating animals were the easiest to domesticate since they don't need other animals grown to feed them. Then we began to talk about how societies worked with trading services or items for other services or items.

Third Day of Guns, Germs, and Steel

Today we continued to watch Guns, Germs, and Steel. Today we learned about the places where farming and plant domestication started. First the Middle East had wheat and barley, then China had rice, the Americas had corn, squash, and beans. Finally Africa had Sorghum, millet, and yams. Most places who were able to start farming early ended up advanced, but this was not the case for every place. Papua New Guinea has been farming for many, many years , but still seem to be set back in time without advances. Papua New Guinea has food like bananas, sago, and even spiders. More productive crops can make more productive people. Advance places are the ones that have productive food which means it can be stores and savored for a long amount of time. They don't have to finishing it real quick so they don't have to waste it. Another thing is that most of these foods can grow quickly to be replenished. This is apart of Geographic Luck. That is what can determine the success of a location, its location.

Second Day of Guns, Germs, and Steel

Today in class we continued to watch Guns, Germs, and Steel. Today we discussed the three things great civilizations all had. The three things was a large population, a strong workforce, and a good food source. Daar was the earthliest civilization. They lived life by being the first to farm or domesticate plants. This was done around over 11,000 years ago. This is crazy to imagine such a long time ago that people were already beginning and discovering something about life that is still used to this day. An archaeologist named Ian Kite was the head leader in this discovery. They are finding the graininess where grain and wheat were stored and the early methods used to do this. It is amazing to see the early methods of life and how things were done. I cannot imagined starting from the beginning of life rather and having to learn about life rather than have everything figured out.  This is where we ended today.

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Today in class we began to watch Guns, Germs, and Steel. This video was about the development of countries depending on the geography or location. Jered Diamond came up with this theory. He thought that domesticating plants and animals advances development. The only way for a country to progress must be to have an abundance of food. Some people were convinced it was religion or God to convince people to convert to Christianity. There are haves and have nots. The haves are the things that developed places and people have. The have nots are the things that under developed places don't have.  This video began in Papua New Guinea. It was crazy to see how different people in undeveloped places live compared to developed places. Then a man named Yali asked, " Why do white men have so much more cargo than New Guineans?" This is where we left off.

Essay Day

Today we wrote our essay for exam. I feel confident about my essay. I finished with around two minutes left. I am extremely happy and thankful that we were allowed to bring in note cards for the essay. If we were not allowed to bring those in I would have been stressing out a lot more. With the note card I was able to ensure I had all the information and points I wanted to bring up before turning it in. I am also glad to have gotten a portion of the exam over with. Getting that finished lets me have more time on the actual exam without having to stress out. I believe I will need to study for the exam and the earlier content. I have time to work on studying for this exam and prepare myself. I am nervous for all my exams and I hope I can do well on them.

Finishing Exam Essay

Today I had a friend read my practice essay. I feel good about my essay and I feel prepared. A lot of stress has been lifted since we learned that we can use a note card. I took my essay and summarized each paragraph to be shortened. I am nervous for the exam since I still have lots to review and go over. I will soon bring home all my folders. The earliest exam I have is coming up this week and I am trying hard to study. I am extremely stressed out and nervous. Exams are already nervous before our break. Hopefully I can do well on these exams. Lots of studying needs to be done still and reviewing. Recently I have had lots of homework after school so its been hard to get study time in. Exams are important and can affect my semester grade which is something new to me.