Population Pyramids

Today we learned the last section of our unit, which are population pyramids. Population pyramids look like horizontal bar graphs that compare the ages of males and females. They analyze population growth or decline of fertility, mortality, migration, etc. Each bar goes by 5 years and the ages are grouped into kids, economically active (working parents and adults), and the elderly. There are three types of population pyramids. The first one is shaped like a Christmas tree. This means that this country or nation is a developing nation that has a high birth rate and a short life expectancy. Examples of a Christmas tree population pyramid would be the population of Namibia or Bangladesh. The second shape is a box, which means the nation is developed with slow population growth, low infant mortality rate, and a long life expectancy. An example of a box shaped population pyramid would be the USA or Sweden. From what I've learned about these pyramids, a box shape is probably ideal because everything is equal so there is enough people working to take care of the kids and the elderly. The last shape is a cup. A cup means that the nation is developed, but has a negative growth because they have a low birth rate and there won't be anyone to take care of the higher generation and work for their economy. They have a long life expectancy, like Japan or Italy. These are just the three most common shapes of population pyramids, but not every single one is a certain shape because each population is very different.

Going Over CIA Assignment and Next Test

Today we didn't really take any notes, we just went over the facts we found on the Worldbook and what the test is going to be like. I didn't share any of my facts though because they weren't as interesting as everyone else's. Maybe I didn't look hard enough or I didn't know what I was looking at, but it was cool and I wish I had better facts. There was one fact that someone had about Brazil that made me think. He said that Brazil has a high birth rate, a low death rate, and a negative migration rate, but their population is still growing. He was confused on how their population is growing but I think it is because of their birth rate being higher than their death rate even though their migration rate is falling. Their population growth rate is 0.73, which makes sense because it is still growing because of the births, but it isn't growing that fast, which is why it is under 1. We also went over what the test was going to look like. The first portion of the test is about going on the CIA website and searching for certain answers. There are 15 questions and we have 15 minutes to find them. It seemed pretty easy and as long as my computer works and I can read, I will be good. The next part is definitions and filling in the blanks for stuff like, rate of natural increase, crude birth rate, crude death rate, net migration rate, etc. I know all of those so I will be good. The last portion of the test was population pyramids, which we haven't learned yet, but they seem cool and easy. I think the test will be good and I am actually really enjoying this unit and even though I am not into the CIA, I do find the website interesting.

CIA Worldbook Facts

Today we looked at and learned about the CIA wordbook website, which is where you can look at a countries statistics, like their population and economy. One fact I found interesting was in Liberia their birth rate is much higher than their death rate. Their total fertility rate is 5.06 children per women and their birth rate is 38.3 births. Their death rate is 7.6, which is much lower. This fact is surprising to me because even though the birth rate makes sense, I would expect the death rate to be a little closer to the birth rate because of their health issues. Liberia is one of the wettest countries but they don't have the resources to provide clean water to every home and their infant mortality rate is 52.2 deaths. Another fact I found interesting was that Canada has a higher net migration rate than the United Staes. Canada's migration rate is 5.7 migrants and the United States is 3.9 migrants. This is surprising to me because a lot of people talk about how great America is and how a lot of people come here to live a better life. I have never really heard anyone talk about Canada like that and I also just didn't know that people really migrated there. Also, I found it surprising that Japan has a much higher death rate than birth rate even though they have the highest life expectancy. Their birth rate is 7.7 and their death rate is 9.8. I would expect the death rate to be lower than that because there are so many people that live for a long time. They also have 0 migrants so their deaths are from the people that were born there. Germany has the fifth largest economy in the world because of their hard work and labor but it is getting more and more difficult because they have such a low fertility rate and they have a large increase on net immigration. Their fertility rate is 1.45 children and their net immigration rate is 1.5 migrants. It is surprising that they have such a good economy because they don't have many people, which would make it seem like their economy would be struggling. Also, I didn't know that people migrated to Germany, especially not more than women have children. The last thing I found interesting on this website was that Italy has a very close net migration rate to the United States. Italy has a net migration rate of 3.7 migrants and the United States has 3.9 migrants. I thought Italy was pretty much just people who born there and then people who went there for vacation. Their economy is actually widely based on their advanced technology, which was also a surprise because I thought it would be more on tourism.

Measuring Population

Birth and Death:

• Crude Birth Rate:  number of births per 100 of the population
• Crude Death Rate: number of deaths per 1000 of the population 
• Rate of Natural Increase (RNI): gives us the annual natural growth in percent from for a country or region
• found by subtracting death rate from birth rate
• if positive difference population is rising 
• if negative difference population is falling

Migration:

• Net Migration Rate: difference between number of persons entering and leaving a country during a year 
• Net Immigration: excess of persons entering a country

• written as a positive number 
• Example: 
• Canada has (2014) 5.65 immigrants per 1,000 population
• United States has 2.45 (it was 3.62 in 2015)
• Net Emigration: excess of persons leaving the country 
• written as a negative number 
• Example
• Mexico has (2015) -1.68 migrants per 1,000 population 
• (2013) -3.61
• (2014) -3.11 
• Why do people migrate?
• push forces 
• civil war 
• environmental degradation 
• unemployment or underemployment 
• religious or ethnic persecution
• pull forces 
• better economic opportunity 
• better health services 
• religious freedom 
• political freedom 

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

• TFR: average number of children born per woman 
• For population to stay same TFR must be 2.1 
• higher than 2.1 population rises 
• lower than 2.1 population falls 
• World TFR- 2.42 (2.54 two years ago, 2.47 last year)
• United States TFR- 2.01 (2.06 last year)
• Nigeria TFR- 6.89 (developing nation)
• Japan TFR-  1.40 (developed nation, aging population)
• Why is it 2.1?- certain number of babies that don't live to be child bearing age 
• WOMEN ARE HAVING LESS KIDS TODAY BECAUSE OF WORK/COLLEGE AND BIRTH CONTROL IS AVAILABLE 

Life Expectancy

Life expectancy is the average number of years to be lived by a group of people born in the same year. For example, the life expectancy for people my age who were born in 2003-2004, have a different life expectancy than people born when my grandma was born, which was 1946. I think my generation has less of a life expectancy than my grandmother's generation. Even though we have better health care and more knowledge today, we also have a lot of bad things that are making us die quicker. For example, when my grandma was a kid, there wasn't any unhealthy fast food, her mom cooked at home and most of their food was fresh. Also, people were way more active than they are now because not everyone had cars so they had to walk, and they didn't have electronics to entertain them all day. Illegal drugs are also being abused way more now. As the US keeps developing and getting more tech savvy, I think we will soon end up something like the movie "Wall-E". The US is #42 in the life expectancy rank out of like 240 countries. The average life expectancy for men is 77.32 years old and for women, 81.97 years old. Monaco is the highest with 85.63 years old for men and 93.58 years old for women. The lowest is Chad with 48.64 years old for men and 51.03 years old for women. In all of these life expectancies, women have a higher age. Some reasons why women live longer than men are because of men joining the armed forces, having more dangerous jobs, being more aggressive and reckless, committing more crimes or being involved in crimes, and not going to the doctor as much. The US could have a much better life expectancy because we do have a lot of great knowledge and technology, but our poor health choices are the reason why we are ranked
#42.

People on the Land

There is over 7.5 billion people on the Earth right now. The population increases by 73 million per year and 90% of the population growth takes places in developing countries like Africa, South and East Asia, and Latin America. This isn't good because these developing countries don't have enough resources for all of these people. In countries like the USA and Canada, they are developed so we are able to have more people and even people from different countries coming in. The population is based on births, deaths, immigration, and emigration. The world's population started growing long ago when hunting and gathering was a thing. Hunting and gathering is when a small group of people (10-14) hunt for animals and uses an area's resources for a while and then moves on to the next place. After a while, people started cultivating and domesticating these plants and animals by reproducing so they have an endless amount. This created small towns and then settlements where people started to do different jobs like, making clothes, houses, weapons, and food. This process continued all the way to today where we have a bunch of businesses, towns, cities, and states. There are more births than deaths and by the time I'm forty, it is very likely there will be 10 billion people on the Earth.

2nd Test

Today we had our second test on thinking geographically. It was all multiple choice and there were 30 questions. Everything was pretty much what we had reviewed and I think I did good. I found it fairly easy, but of course like any test there were some questions that I spaced out on. For example, the one question about Texas, I didn't know at all and another question that had the definition of the word globalization, but the only answer that was close to that was globalism. I did way better on this test than the first test though. I finished my test early so I sat there for a little bit and tried to take a nap. I thought that all of my homework was on my laptop and we weren't allowed to go on our laptop until everyone was done, but turns out it was all on paper. So I got my English homework done which was easy. After everyone was done, I started to do my blog but then I decided that I was too tired and I saved it for tonight. I hope I get a good grade because I do feel like I knew the material very well.

Test Tomorrow

Tomorrow we have a test, which thank God it is multiple choice. This will be our second test and even though I did good on the first test, I would like to do much better on this one. Today we reviewed even more, with Demetri as our teacher. He wasn't there yesterday so we went over some of the same things and then we played a review game that Demetri came up with. We spilt the room into two teams and one person from each team would go against each other and try to write an answer down on the board the fastest. All of the questions were fairly easy and only one or two were from the first unit. They were about the things we talked about yesterday like, prime meridian, international date line, time zones, regions, absolute and relative location, etc. My team won by a lot. The question I answered was "what is the difference between the Mercator map and the Peters map?" I said that the Mercator is wrong and is way more distorted than the Peters map. My answer was partially right because the Mercator isn't completely wrong, but it is more distorted. The person I was going against put the same thing but without the wrong part. I wrote it down first, but Demetri couldn't read the word "distorted" on mine so we did a tie breaker. The tie breaker was "name a region that has Chinese as its predominate language", at first I wrote functional region, which makes no sense, but then I wrote Beijing and got the point. I think the game was helpful and I believe I am going to do very well on my test tomorrow.

review day for test

Today in class we went over possible test questions and helped pick out which ones would be fair to put on our test for Friday. Some of the questions were things I've never heard of, but most of them were things we know. We didn't finish all of the questions and I think we stopped at map distortion and we also did some examples for finding time zones. One thing we answered was where's the prime meridian, which is at 0 degrees longitude, and what it is on the opposite side of it, which is the international date line at 180 degrees longitude. This brought up the antipode thing that we had to do for the questions on the last blog. Antipode is the exact opposite spot from a point on Earth, and like 70% of places' antipodes are not on land because the Earth is mostly water. Next, we did what is the science of mapmaking, which is called cartography, and why do we use maps (navigation). After that, we talked about the four types of distortion of maps because the Earth is round and maps are flat. There is the distortion of a shape of an area, size of an area, distance between points, and directions between points. With distortion, there is absolute and relative location. Absolute location is the exact location of a point, using longitude and latitude, on Earth and relative location is describing a location by naming its surroundings. The last thing we talked about was time zones and how to tell the time in different areas based on what time it is in Bel Air. There are 24 time zones and every 15 degrees equals one hour ahead or behind. For example, right now in Bel Air the time is 9:21 pm. If I wanted to find out Chicago's time I would go on a map and go back or forward every 15 degrees until I get to Chicago. On my map, I only moved back 15 degrees once, so Chicago is only one hour behind, which means it is 8:21pm. I think this review day was good and I think I am going to do good on my test because I got everything right today.

In Class Questions because Mr. Schick Flaked

Three other things Eratosthenes is known for:
1. found the circumference of the Earth
2. invented easy method to find prime numbers (Sieve of Eratosthenes)
3. Armillary Sphere

Time Zones if it is 10am in Bel Air, MD
4. Portland, Oregon- 7:00am
5. Greenwich, England- 3:00pm
6. Toronto, Ontario- 10:00am
7. South Pole- 10:00pm

Location and Place Names
8. The Great Plains, The Great Lakes, Rocky Mountains, Grand Canyon, The White Mountains
9. Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Mt. Denali
10. St. Louis, Maryland, Baltimore, Carroll County, New York
11. Georgetown University, John Carroll High School, Thomas Aquinas College, Western St. Francis,  Martin Luther King Building

Longitude and Latitude
12. Baltimore MD- 39.2904 degrees North, 76.6122 degrees West

13. Quito Ecuador- 0.1807 degrees South, 78.4678 degrees West 

14. Taveuni- 16.8414 degrees South, 179.8913 degrees West 

15. Christchurch New Zealand- 43.5321 degrees South, 172.6362 degrees East 

16. Juneau Alaska- 58.3019 degrees North, 134.4197 degrees West 

17. Geographic Antipode- Any spot on Earth that the point on Earth's surface that is diametrically opposite to it. 

Antipode

18. Beijing, China- 39 degrees 54' 21.5" S, 63 degrees 36' 31.5" W

19. Bermuda- 32 degrees 18' 6.6" S, 115 degrees 14' 22.7" E

20. My house- 39 degrees 28' 20.3" S, 103 degrees 41' 39.1" E 

Unique Points On Earth and Different Places Similar

In class we answered the next two key issues, why is each point on Earth unique and why are different places similar? Each point on Earth is unique because of culture. Culture is the body of customary beliefs, traits, and social forms that make the traditions of a group people. The word culture is latin and means "to care about" or "to care for". People care about ideas and beliefs like, religion. People take care of things like wealth and recipes. For example, if they have a family air-loom that gets past down through generations or if they have a family business. Different places are similar because of scale, space, and globalization. Scale and space help geographers explain why similarities among places aren't a coincidence. If a place has the same amount of space then they might have the same kinds of industries. Globalization is the process that involves the entire world and results in making something worldwide in scope. For example, fast food is considered an American thing, but it is everywhere. Even though it isn't healthy food, it is convenient, tastes good, and cheap. It has spread to places that are known for being traditional. Culture is why places are unique, but places are going to continue to become more and more similar and lose their culture.

Going Over Notes

Today we went over our notes in class and made sure that we had everything to be able to study for our upcoming test. I did have everything in my notes, but it is a lot of information and I am sort of worried I will forget some of it, so I am glad we refreshed. I know pretty much everything except for the regions and the first people to make maps, I just forget about those. But, the three types of maps are the Mercator Projection, The Peters Projection, and The Robinson Projection Map. For education we use the Mercator Projection Map, but we should actually be using the Peters Projection Map because it is not as distorted as the Mercator. All though all maps are distorted because you can't draw something that is round into something that is flat, the Peters map is much more accurate with sizes, distance, shape, etc. The purpose of maps are for navigation to get from one place to another and back. The first map of the world was made by Eratosthenes and his map did not have the Americas because they hadn't discovered and explored America yet. There is also absolute and relative location which is how accurate the position of the location is on Earth. To be absolute you would break it down to degrees and then minutes and then seconds. To be relative you are just describing the surroundings around the location and how it relates to the location. Some features on maps are keys, equator, prime meridian, degrees, and proper names. We also talked about time zones, which there are 24 time zones and every 15 degrees on a map is one hour forward or one hour back from a location. Then we got into GPS which is a great technology that can tell you the EXACT location of a place or even you, from a foot away or a thousand miles away. There is also a downside to GPS which is being tracked all the time. The last thing we talked about were the three types of regions which are, formal regions (area shares one or more common distinctive characteristics), functional regions (dominates at a central focal or nodal point that is common in an area), and vernacular regions (area the people believe exists as part of their cultural identity.

Three Different Types of Regions

A region is an area of land that has common features. There are three different types of regions, a formal region, functional region, and vernacular region. A formal region is an area in which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics. These can be defined by language, economic activity, climate, and physical features. An example of a formal region are The Great Plains because they all are flat surfaces that have about the same climate and are good growing places. Functional regions (nodal region) are areas organized by a node or focal point. They are dominated at a central focus or nodal that diminishes in importance. A functional region is The New York Times magazine because it is a common central thing that people in the city read. The last kind of region is a vernacular region (perceptual region) which is an area that people believe exists as a part of their cultural identity. Vernacular regions are based on perceptions of the people. For example, people in New York call some sandwiches hoagies and in Pennsylvania they call them grinders. Formal and functional regions are different from vernacular regions because vernacular regions are informal and local.

Notes About Regions

• A place is a  particular portion or point in space
• A location is a position on Earth 
• A site is an actual place that people decided to locate a settlement 
• A situation is a location of a place on Earth relative to other places
• A toponym is a general name for any place or geographical entity 
• come from important people, physical features, culture
• A region is an area of land that has common features 
• Spanning political states
• constrained within one political state 
• Derives its unified character through the cultural landscape 
• Three common types of regions-  One is formal regions which is an area which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics 
• Ex. The Great Plains is a formal region because they all have a flat landscape, same climate and weather 
• There are also regions that are either predominant or universal 
• Ex. Japan is predominant in there language because about 80 to 90% of them speak Japanese
• Ex. America is more universal because there are more people who speak English as there second language 

Getting Tests Back and Kneeling During National Anthem

Today in class we got our first tests back. I did very well on the multiple choice and short answers, but not as good as I wanted to on the essay. I didn't do as good on the essay because I didn't write about Socrates meaning I kind of switched to Elbert Hubbard, which I understand now. After we went over the test, we started to bring up Colin Kaepernick and him kneeling during the National Anthem. While we were talking about this a lot of people said it was very wrong and he shouldn't have done it during his football game. I did say some things during the discussion, but I didn't get everything I wanted to say off my chest. I do think that it is disrespectful that he kneeled, but sometimes being disrespectful does not mean that the person is wrong or is doing something bad. Our national anthem represents America and how we have freedom. Colin Kaepernick was kneeling because of police officers being abusive or killing black people for no reason. I believe that when he kneeled he was peacefully protesting the fact that not everyone is free. America is supposed to be a free country, but when police officers are stripping black people's freedom from them because of their skin color, how is a colored person supposed to feel proud of their country? I think a lot of people who think it is totally wrong and disrespectful only think of it as Kaepernick was disrespecting our country and that's it, but there is so much more than that. I am a biracial person and even though I have not been criticized because of my skin color I know what it feels like because of my family and friends. The people who don't see it as what Kaepernick meant, which was standing up for his race and protesting against American morals that aren't so true, probably have never been shamed because of their skin color or race and so they have no other perspective. Also, some people were saying that he shouldn't have kneeled because he is only there to play football. Yes, Colin Kaepernick is there to play football, but because of that and his following he has a large platform. He used his platform as a way to get everyone's attention about a serious issue going on in America. I think that it was good that Kaepernick kneeled because it means that when he sees a problem, especially one that can hurt him or his family and friends, he knows that he can take advantage and use his platform for good. Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem may have been disrespectful, but it does not mean that he hates America; it means that he loves America's policy of freedom and he expects it to be applied to everyone.

GPS tracking and location

Today in class we learned and talked about Global Positioning System (GPS). GPS is a system that accurately determines the precise position of something on the Earth's surface. They use satellites that are placed in predetermined orbits and track and monitor them to calculate precise locations. GPS is used in vehicles (turn-by-turn) for directions, pilots and ship captains use them, and they are placed in apps on your phone. Amazing technology allows you to find the exact location and direction to any point on Earth in very little time. But, in order to see how far you are from a place you need to give your own location. If you go on Google and look up a restaurant or store, it will most likely ask you to allow Google to know your location. Of course that is good because it makes the search more accurate and can give you more information, but it also invades a lot of your privacy. When you press "allow" you are letting a whole website know where you are, where you are going to be, or where you are trying to go. You have no idea what these apps or websites are doing with your location. For example, Alexa is a new thing where you just say "Alexa" and she answers and you can give any request. It is electronic and has to be plugged in to work but it never shuts off unless you unplug it. In class we discussed how even though Alexa isn't responding, that doesn't mean she isn't listening. Alexa is only programmed to respond when you say "Alexa" but she can only respond if she can hear you, which means she needs to be able to hear you all the time. Another example is ancestory.com, which is a website where you pay a company and give them your DNA to figure out where you come from. This is a really cool concept and is something that a lot of people want to figure out, but it is also unsafe and sketchy. Once again, you have no idea what the company is doing with your DNA other than what they tell you. New and modern technology is very cool and helpful, but it is invasive of privacy and it tricks you into giving away personal information that you wouldn't just tell a random person, which is essentially what you are doing.