Guns, Germs, and Steel Part 4

Today in Mr. Schick’s Human Geography class, we continued to watch the movie, Guns, Germs and Steel. We are onto part four of the documentary movie. In part four of the movie we learned about Domestication. Domesticated means that the people grew it themselves then they could grow more than needed to store it. There are three characteristics of civilization. First, is a Large Population. Second, is a Division of Labor. Lastly, are Technological Advancements. In China, they grow rice. In the United  States we grow corn. In Africa, they grow yams, millet, and sorghum. Earlier in the movie, Jared Diamond was faced with a question from a native Papua New Guinean that at the time he could not come up with an answer; however, he finally came to conclusions that some people and countries are just simply have Geological Luck, which means some people are just lucky enough to be born in a place for farming. 

Facts About Papua New Guinea

Today in Mr. Schick Human Geography class, we continued to study the country of Papa New Guinea.  Yesterday, we finished the documentary based on the book written by Jared Diamond called Guns, Germs, and Steel. In this movie, Diamond went to Papua New Guinea to study the people, geography, and culture of the country. We extended our research today by looking up what’s going on in Papua New Guinea and what the country is like. We broke into small groups and then shared our facts as a huge class .Papua New Guinea is the 12th fastest growing economy. The GPD of Papa New Guinea is .9%. There are just now starting to cut down some of the forests unlike Brazil, who have been doing it for a while now rapidly.  There Net Migration Rate is 0. The number one religion in Papua New Guinea is Christianity. There are very few paved airports in Papua New Guinea. They have an army and even a air force. They have about three million soldiers that would fight in war. 30% of the population is below the poverty line. 13% of the population of Papua New Guinea is urban. 3,100 people are active in the military. The internet hosts is 5,006 and the cell phone users is 125,000 people. The unemployment rate is 1.9%. 57.3% of the people can read and write in Papua New Guinea. There are over 800 languages spoken in Papua New Guinea. 

Guns, Germs, and Steel Movie Part 2

Today in Mr. Schick’s Human Geography class, we continued to watch a movie based on the book written by Jared Diamond called Guns, Germs and Steel. Jared Diamond started his expedition in New Guinea. He was left with a question by one of the New Guineans that caught his interest. He was asked, “Why do you white men have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little.” Diamond knew it was a simple question but he could not come up with an answer at the time. Finally, he was able to come up with a reasonable response. This was that some societies have developed a civilization faster than others. Further into the movie, they mentioned some agriculture. They have granaries, which is a place to store the grain. They put the excess grain into the granaries. Up to this point this is how people lived; they hunted and gathered.  

Guns, Germs and Steel Movie Part 1

On Friday, in Mr. Schick’s Human Geography class, we started to watch a movie, which was based off the book Guns, Germs and Steel written by Jared Diamond. We watched part one and part two of the movie. Jared Diamond has travelled the world to discover the countries power. His expedition began in the rain forest of Papa New Guinea. He still makes regular visits to New Guinea today. Diamond has a love and strong interest in birds. He was also very interested in the people of New Guinea. He got to know them better by studying their language. There have been people living in New Guinea for about forty thousand years. In his research he found that it is a very cultural diverse country. The people of New Guinea think of cargo as white men’s power. The white men, who showed up to help, viewed themselves as genetically superior.

Jared Diamond; Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jared Diamond is a scientist and author. Currently, he is a professor at the University of California in Los Angeles. He won a Pulitzer award for writing Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and went to college at Cambridge. Then, He went back to Harvard. His field experience led him to twenty two expeditions to New Guinea and many other countries neighboring Papua New Guinea. He went so he could study ecology and the evolution of birds. Also, he studies the rediscovery of Papua New Guinea. In addition, he also has many discoveries that are used today at colleges. He has a PhD in Philosophy and Geography. He wrote the book Guns, Germs and Steel.

Guns, Germs and Steel is a book that was written by Jared Diamond. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction and was a  multimillion seller. In this book, he puts forth an argument on the environmental differences in Papa New Guinea. This book was written in 1977. This book faces many arguments. For example it tries to explain the situation of why Eurasian civilization has survived and continued on to conquer other countries as well.

                                                        

Midterm Review

Recently, in class we have been reviewing for midterms. Our midterms is on Monday and is the second one of the day, Mr. Schick went over the study guide on what was going to be on the exam. We discussed all the  units that we studied and the specific things that would be on the test. The midterms is worth 20% of our grade so it is important to study hard so I can get a good grade all around. When we were reviewing, I remembered a lot about what we had learned in the past which is reassuring. I am pretty confident about ths exam and plan to keep studying and reviewing a lot.

Absent For Class

On Monday, I was absent for class.