Human Geography

  Before class started today my laptop had a loose screw that I was able to fix using Mr.Schick's screwdriver, thank you very much. For the rest of class we took notes on how Greece developed a direct democracy. After Cleisthenes was put into power he changed the government to where all citizens could debate and vote on issues. Only about 1/5 of the population were citizens because it only classified free adult male landowners. The citizens went to the agora which is a meeting place to discuss government to give arguments on how Athens should be run. After the citizens spoke there would be a vote where citizens would use black and white stones to vote. Athens started to use this form of government around 500 BCE.

    Today class was shorter because of the two hour delay. In class we learned about the Athenian government and how it developed. Around 526 to 510 BCE Hippias ruled over Athens like a tyrant. He wanted revenge for the murder of his brother. The aristocrats overthrew Hippias and ostracized him from Athens. Hippias then went to the Persian empire and made a deal to attempt to conquer Greece. After Hippias left Cleithenes and Isagoras were in contention for being the ruled. Isagoras had support from aristocrats and the Spartans, but Cleithenes had support form the people. Isagoras had won the "election" but soon after in 508 BCE the Athenian people revolted and overthrew Isagoras for the first time in human history. This raised the question of should the wealthier and smarter aristocrats rule or should the less politically skilled people decide how the government should be run. I say that the people should rule because they know more about their problems and what should be fix

Today in class we moved on to lesson two on our unit on ancient Greece. This lesson is about the Greek city-states. This lesson had a lot of definitions. A Polis is a city state, it is the fundamental unit of politics. An Acropolis is a place where Greeks come to discuss politics. The Greek Polis'  came in four forms monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy. A monarchy is a form where it is ruled by one king. An aristocracy is a form where a few wealthy land owner's ruled. A oligarchy is where a few people rule who overthrew the government using the military. A democracy is where the people vote on the laws.

Today in class we listened to the story of the Odyssey and discussed YouTube. We talked about if YouTube should be allowed in class and if it is the teacher's fault if a student is using it. My opinion is that students should never be allowed to use YouTube in class even if they are getting straight A's. If they are not in class they should be able to use it. In the rest of the time of class we listened to the Odyssey. It was very interesting how it was told in story form and was entertaining. We listened to the chapter of the Odyssey about Peloponnese. it was about how Odysseus overcame a giant cyclops on an island.i really liked listening to the audio book  and wish that we will do this again. I might even listen to them in my own time.

 This is my first blog for my new western civ class. The first day I was in class I forgot to do the blog and Friday and Saturday I was at my grandparents and didn't have my laptop. This week we have been studying ancient Greece. we have focused on the geography, the Mycenaean, the Trojan war, the Dorian and Homer. Greece is located in the Mediterranean and is made up of thousands of islands. The mainland is very mountainous and is not very suitable for travel or farming. The Mycenaean ruled from 2000 BC to 1300 BC. The Mycenaean had a seaboard trading culture with many large city states. Invaded Crete and absorbed their culture. Th Trojan war was fought between Troy ,a city state and Mycenaean over a kidnapped queen. Archaeologists now believe that this was an actual war. The Dorian invaded Greece after it had been destroyed by "Sea people". They were much less advanced and had no writing for 400 years. In that time stories were passed by word of mouth starting with a gr

  Today is the last class of human Geo. We have been working on political geography since the break and learned about world leaders. Today was the test on world leaders, I am writing this after the test and it went pretty well. I was worried because I forgot about this test until late last night when I checked veracross. I studied late last night really hard because I didn't know if the types of governments would be on the test. When I got to school this morning I studied before class started and during my mod 1 class. Because of  all of my panic studying i did really well on the test. I basically didn't even have to think about most of the answers before I wrote them. There is only one question I think I missed it was about one of the world leaders.

  Today in class we reviewed the information from yesterday . We also watched a funny video on naming all of the countries. To review we worked on political organization the tree main definitions were: Country- an identifiable land area, Nation- a group of people with a common culture, and State- a population under a single government. As for the video, I think it was supposed to wow us with the amount of countries in the world but I knew almost all of the countries and some that were not listed. Then at the end of class we were given an assignment. This assignment is pretty easy all of the information is on the world factbook. I have already complete a lot on this assignment and have put some pretty creative pictures. If we get a snow delay tomorrow I will complete the rest of the assignment then.

    Today was the dreaded first day back from break and the start of 2018. We started off the new year with a new unit on political geography. Today we focused on how the world is organized. The world can be organized into three main categories a Country, Nation or State. A country is an identifiable land area, a nation is a population with a common culture/identity, and a State is a population under a single government. A better definition of nation is groups of people . Larger than a single tribe or community, which may share common language , institutions, religion and or historical experience. This can describe many things but most countries fall under all of these rules. An Independent State has many different rules but some of them are: internationally recognized boundries, has an organized economy, and a government that provides public services. These requirements are met by all countries.