Blog #60- I deserve ....

Well I think I deserve an 85. I don’t really talk a lot, I answer sometimes. I mainly just don’t like to talk so I would probably give myself an 85. Since I answer sometimes, but not all the time, so I participate a little bit. So I help sometimes. I'm not the person who sits there quietly and doesn’t talk at all. I will be quiet most of the time. Since I don’t feel like talking, but I do answer when no one else can get it. The class this semester was good. I liked it, but in my opinion it was a little too easy. I think that the tests could have been a little bit harder. Though the tests covered most the materials, I feel like it could have gone into a little more detail with the questions, make people think a little bit more. Challenge people in the class, make them thing more. So in my opinion it was a good class, we covered a lot, but it could have been a bit more challenging. I hope the next semester class won’t be that bad.

Blog #59- fast development

Well In human geo today we watched the final part of the movie that we will watch in class for a grade. The last part just reviewed all the parts that we covered. Saying how that crops and animals shouldn’t be enough. That the people’s culture, technology, and what germs they are in contact should have something to do with how fast they advanced, so we will not know the rest since we are done with this semester basically. Then we did a little game of who could find the most important fact about developing New Guinea. So some of the facts were that 1 in 3 people are in poverty, and that they are the 12^th fastest growing country economical wise. So they are growing very fast and it is something that is important since they were so poor to begin with

Blog #58- more more more

We didn’t really cover as much of the video today in Human Geo as we have on other days. We probably got through about a part and a half. So what we watched today talked about how at some point in history the Fertile Crescent was no longer fertile. The environment changed, and the ground could not support constant growth of food that early humans were doing. Since they were no longer getting food, they had to move. They moved east and west of the Fertile Crescent. It was best for them to do this since they would be on the same line of latitude, which meant that the same plants could be grown where ever they moved. And the animals could thrive where ever they went. Since the climate is roughly the same from when they first began coming human in a way, they could continue becoming more advanced.

Blog #57- Animals

Well today in Human Geo we covered more of the Germs, Guns, and Steel movie. This one talked about how domesticated animals are very important to why civilizations could evolve faster than others. That there are over 2 million different animal species on the world and only a fraction of them could be tamed for human use. The best animals to tame would be over 100 pounds, would eat plants, and provides products other than just meat. So only 14 animals in the world meet the criteria, and have been domesticated in the past by humans. These 14 animals are Cows, Pigs, Water Buffalo, Bali Cattle, sheep, Goats, Horses, Donkeys, Bactrian Camels, Arabian Camels, Yaks, Mithans, reindeer, and llamas. 13 of these 14 animals are found in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The last animals are found in South America and it is the llama. This helps explain why New Guanine didn’t evolve too much since they didn’t have any of these important animals or any important plants. They spent all there time looking for food, while these places in the Europe, and the Middle East didn’t have to worry about food as much, so some people worked on food in society, while others could start to work on other skills. That would better their village. Then people in these regions started to make permanent houses, that they would decorate, and make it theirs. So the people the Middle East had the advantage of location, plants, and animals. So in a way they just got plain lucky. 

Blog #56- Advantages

Well today in Human Geo we continued watching Germs, Guns, and Steel. It talked about how location changed how rapidly civilizations developed. That those I'm the Middle East had wheat, which was nutritious and very healthy for you and easy to grow, and lasted for months at a time. While people in Papua New Guinea had Sago that was hard to grow, not nutritious, and only lasted for a few days, all it had going for it was it was filling. So this allowed people in the Middle East to not have to worry about food as much. Then they developed a way to keep food fresh for like a year. Then they started to domesticate the wheat by only picking the best ones and re planting them. Then over time they started to domesticate animals like sheep and goats. Which give milk, hide, meat, and fertilizer. So you can see that advantages the Middle Eastern people had compared to the new Guineans.

Blog #55- Steel, germs, and guns

The book Steel, Germs, and guns shows the why some cultures developed so much faster than other cultures. The main reason is location. Like different animals to domesticate, different plants. Another reason is that if a culture lives a farming life, they can support more people, have more food, not have to worry about food, thus making them better a surviving. That in farmland was acre of wheat and sheep holds more food than one acre of forest. Since they didn’t have to worry they could start to think, and start focusing on different things besides just food, they could develop.

The author of this book is Jared Diamond. He is a very smart man, he is so smart that when he wants to learn something, he learns it and becomes top in the field while he is at it. He has been awarded the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (Genius Award). He is mainly interested in birds though. He became interested with the different cultures when he was bird watching in Papa New Guinea. He has made 22 expeditions to New Guinea to study the evolution of birds. He has written many books, and each one has caused controversy since they state very interesting facts.

 http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/jared-diamond/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/07/0706_050706_diamond_2.html