Project

Today in class we spent the whole time working on a powerpoint about a specific country with a partner. We got to choose our partner and our country and we have to present our power points. I am working with Leigh, and we chose the United Kingdom. We made a slide that talks about the government of the United Kingdom. They have a constitutional monarchy and commonwealth realm. We did some research on these types of governments and put them in the powerpoint. The next thing we researched was David Cameron, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. We didn't get to finish our powerpoint but we will finish them in class tomorrow.

Pop quiz

Yesterday in class we took a pop quiz. I thought it was hard because we didn't get to study and the last couple questions were the hardest. I didn't get as good of a grade as I had hoped but I think it was okay for not being prepared for it and now knowing what kinds of questions will be asked, I can study a little bit more for the next quiz about the leaders. I knew some of the questions but most of them I knew that I was going to get wrong.

Forbes

To start class, we talked about Forbes magazine and some of the leaders that we talked about who were in it. Angela Merkel was named one of the most powerful women in Forbes and Enrique Pena Nieto was named one of the most powerful men. We spend this class looking for interesting facts again. One of them was that Benjamin Netanyahu's brother died when trying to save hostages which Mr. Schick said was important. Near the end of class, we started talking about how Mexico gets a large amount of income from selling Heroin to the U.S and one of the richest men in Mexico is a drug lord. America asks them to stop selling it and they say to tell their people to stop using it. This is where we ended class.

Interesting facts part 2

Today in class, we talked about the interesting facts again. We went around for the whole class and shared things that we found. Some people said things like how Dilma Rousseff survived cancer when she was younger and Xi Jinping is the son of one of the founding members of the communist party. Angela Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany and she is one of the most powerful women in the world. Something else we learned is that Joachim Gauck's parents were members of the Nazi party. We talked about all the facts and found some that we didn't really think were interesting but after we were finished, we left. 

Interesting Leader Facts

- Enrique Pena Nieto's mom used to squeeze lime juice on his hair to keep the style in place 
- Li Keqiang was the youngest Chinese Provincial Governor 
- Narendra Modi's parents arranged his marriage and he was engaged when he was 13 years old
- Dmytri Medvedev started dating his wife in the 7th grade
- Angela Merkel was a member of the Free German Youth
- David Cameron was the 5th cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth II
- Manuel Valls is fluent in French, Spanish, Catalan, and Italian 
- Dilma Rousseff was arrested and tortured when she was younger and survived cancer
- Wael Nader Al-Halqi survived a car bombing that was supposed to kill him but killed 6 other people instead
- Stephen Joseph Harper got involved in politics with a high school club
- Shinzo Abe's father. grandfather, and great grandfather were all involved in government 
- Binyamin Netanyahu was a combat soldier 

Assignment #1

Mexico:
Type of Government: Federal Republic
Leader: President Enrique Pena Nieto 

China: 

Type of Government: Communist State

Leader: Premier Ll Keqiang

India:

Type of Government: Federal Republic

Leader: Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Russia: 

Type of Government: Federation

Leader: Premier Dmytriy Anotolyevich Medvedev

Germany:

Type of Government: Federal Republic

Leader: Chancellor Angela Merkel

United kingdom:

Type of Government: Constitutional Monarchy and Commonwealth realm

Leader: Prime minister David Cameron

France: 

Type of Government: Republic

Leader: Prime Minister Manuel Valls

Brazil: 

Type of Government: Federal Republic

Leader: President Dilma Rousseff

Syria:

Type of Government: Republic under an authoritarian regime

Leader: Prime Minister Wael Nader Al-Halqi

Canada:

Type of Government: Parliamentary Democracy, Federation, and Constitutional Monarchy

Leader: Prime Minister Stephen Joseph Harper

Japan:

Type of Government: Parliamentary Government and Constitutional Monarchy 

Leader: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Israel:

Type of Government: Parliamentary Democracy

Leader: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu

Homework day

Today three people in our class had to take the test that we took Friday because they didn't take it yet. Since we got the whole class, so did they and we couldn't have a lesson. Mr.Schick let us do homework or play games on our laptop for the whole class. He let us go to our lockers to get books and I didm my spanish homework first so that I didn't have to take home those textbooks. That didn't take long so when I finished that, I did my intro to Bible homework and my English homework . That was all the homework I could do because my other textbooks were at home so when I was done I just played a game on my laptop.

Test day

Today, we didn't do much in class because we took a test. I thought the test was a little hard but it wasn't really hard. The front was hard because we only had 10 minutes to do it but the rest was okay. I think I did good on the front because I got all the answers down and we used the website so they should be right, it was just stressful trying to finish in time. The second part of the test was vocabulary and that part was easy because we've been talking about it. The third part was about population pyramids and I thought it was okay until it asked me which pyramid was for which country. The bonus questions were really hard and I had no idea what they were so I just guessed.

Test review

Today we went over things for our test. First, we talked about the vocabulary we need to know and about how we need to be able to navigate around the CIA fact book site. We need to know what life expectancy, crude birth rate, crude death rate, developing nations, developed nations, rate of natural increase, net migration rate, immigration, emigration, push forces, pull forces, and total fertility rate are. We also need to know things like a country that has a higher crude death than crude birth, how to figure out the rate of natural increase, how you figure out the net migration rate, push factors, and pull factors. Then, class was over.

Spotify

We didn't don much in class today. We came in and Mr. Schick told us to put away our computers so we could pay attention. He told us that we had to create an account on a music website called spotify and find a song that relates to moving. We spent most of class setting them up because Mr. Schick had to read us our codes one by one. After he did that, my computer wouldn't open spottily because i was using safari so I had to redownload google chrome and then download spottily. By the time I did that, there had been too many people registering so I had to wait till I got home. Since we didn't have that much time left in class we just played around with the website and got familiar with it. By that time it was time to leave.

The United States

Today in class we took the time researching the U.S to see if it really is the best country in the world. I found some interesting facts about America on the CIA fact book site. America is 143rd out of 233 in population growth. There are lots more countries having more kids than us. I thought it was interesting that we are number 2 in debt. We are also ranked 18 in obesity and 42 in life expectancy which isn't as bad. The U.S is a large emitter of Carbon Dioxide from burning fossil fuels. We are also the largest consumer of illicit drugs. We have air pollution resulting in acid rain and water pollution from runoff of pesticides and fertilizers. We have no official national language because we have people from all over speaking many languages. The U.S has the largest and most technologically powerful economy in the world. We aren't a terrible country but we aren't the best either.

The Newsroom

Yesterday in class, we watched a video called "The Newsroom first scene". People were asking the anchor people questions and one college student asked why America was the greatest country in the world. The man hesitated but started yelling at the girl about how America isn't the best country in the world. Then, when the video was over we talked about if we thought America was the greatest country or not. Some people said it wasn't the best because there are things wrong but it's still a great country. Most people said it wasn't the greatest. At the end of class, we talked about homeless people and everyone shared their stories about their experiences with homeless people. Then, it was time to leave.

Freshman retreat

Today i wasn't in class because I was on the freshman retreat