Class Participation

For my class participation grade, I think I should get a 90 % because I answer a lot of questions, but I am a distraction to the class.

LLAMAS!!!

Today in class, we continued to watch the movie about Jared Diamond’s book called Guns, Germs, and Steel.  I think we are done watching it now because Mr. Schick stopped it right after Jared Diamond said his idea.  We learned about what animals can be domesticated.  Out of over 100 animals, only 14 can be domesticated.  Some of them are horses, cattle, yak, water buffalo, llamas, and, of course, Mr. Schick’s goats.   At the beginning of class, we started talking about what teacher we have for Western Civilization next semester.  The only reason I don’t want this semester to end is because I really like my Human Geo class.  Some of the people in my class don’t have Mr. Schick again, but I do.  I hope I have most of the people from the class I have now in the class I have next semester! 

GOATS!!!

Today in class we watched more of Guns, Germs, and Steel.  Mr. Schick tried to scare our class today.  We watched the part of the movie where people are hunting deer again and Mr. Schick screamed just to scare us.  After that, we continued with the movie and found out about farming around the world.  In the Americas, people grow corn.  In Africa, they grow yams and in China they grow rice.  In Papua New Guinea, they can only grow two crops.  One of which is Sego and takes a very long to grow and harvest.  We also found out that Mr. Schick likes goats.  He kept stopping the video whenever there was a goat.  Most of the times, the goat was smiling.  I think I’m going to get Mr. Schick a goat for Christmas next year!

Friday

In class on Friday, we started watching a documentary on Guns, Germs, and Steel.  We got to see what Jared Diamond looks like and we got to hear his voice.  I think the people of Papua New Guinea are very skilled.  There is no way that people like us could survive in the wild without anything.  We are so used to being able to walk to the vending machines and buy a bag of chips that we wouldn’t be able to find anything to eat if we were stranded in the woods.  Unlike the people of Papua New Guinea, we have also had homes our whole live and we didn’t have to build them ourselves.

Guns, Germs, and Steel

I think Mr. Schick wants us to learn about Jared Diamond because he is a 75-year-old scientist.  He is from Boston, Massachusetts and went to school at Harvard University.  Now, he teaches at UCLA in Las Angeles California.  He studied Ornithology and Anthropology.  He also has a P.H.D. in philosophy and geography.  Jared Diamond wrote several books.  One of which is a best seller.  This book is called Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society.  He went to Papua New Guinea to study exotic birds.  Instead, he ended up studying the way the people there lived.  He has traveled all over the world.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society is one of the bestselling books that Jared Diamond wrote.  It was written in 1997.  This book was so good that it won the highest award that books can receive.  This award is called the Pulitzer Prize.  This book has also been made into a documentary or a movie.  The book attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations have survived conquered others.  I don’t know why the book has the title that is does.  I hope Mr. Schick will tell us tomorrow.