CIA World Factbook assignment

The details for this assignment were posted on Veracross on Friday, but they are also included here for your convenience.

In this 10 point assignment, you will search the CIA World Factbook (found here) to find five pieces of information that reflect our studies in Population and Migration. For each of these facts you will write a brief paragraph describing why you found this fact interesting and how it relates to work we are doing in class.  All work is to be posted to your blog, and the assignment is due before midnight Saturday night (Oct 27). 

SPECIAL NOTE TO SECTION 102: Your deadline for this assignment is midnight Monday night (Oct 29). I will discuss this assignment in class with you in class on Monday. The other sections received this explanation in class on Friday. I am posting this assignment for you now, as a courtesy, in case you want to get started on it over the weekend.

The purpose of this exercise is for you to become familiar with the CIA World Factbook, and to make connections between what we are learning in class and the way things are in the real world.

our studies of population continue...

Sections 101 and 102 met today. The presentation covered some new ground, including what would make people feel the need to leave their homes and move to a new country (push forces), or what reasons would make someone want to go to a new country like the United States (pull forces). We also discussed some useful statistics like Rate of Natural Increase (RNI), Net Migration Rate (NMR), and Total Fertility Rate (TFR), which help us understand why a nation's population might rise or fall.

In studying Population and Migration, we will be taking the geographical and map reading skills we learned in the last few weeks, and applying them to real world situations, problems, and challenges.

Terms you will need to be familiar with include:

• life expectancy
• birth rate
• death rate
• Rate of Natural Increase (RNI)
• infant mortality rate
• immigrant
• emigrant
• Net Migration Rate
• Total Fertility Rate (TFR)
• push forces
• pull forces

And, as always, there will be the Key Issues to consider:

• Where is the world's population distributed?
• Why is global population increasing?
• Why does population growth vary among regions?
• Why do some nations face health threats?

in-class assignment for Sections 101 and 102

Human Geography Class Assignment - Monday, October 15

I am unable to be in class today. Your in-class assignment is to answer the following questions in your blog. This assignment is worth 10 points, and should be completed during the class period. Obviously, you can use the Internet. Please work quietly and independently. No computer game-playing allowed. If you don’t finish the assignment in class, it’s homework.

Ancient cartography. We all know Eratosthenes made a map of the entire world. Name three other things he is known for.

1.     

2.    

3.     

Time zones. If it is 10:00 am in Bel Air, what time is it in…

4.     Portland, Oregon

5.     Greenwich, England

6.     Toronto, Ontario

7.     The South Pole

Locations and place names.

8.     List five toponyms that are named after physical features.

9.     List five toponyms that are named after Native American places.

10.  List five toponyms that are named after a person of prominence.

11.  List five toponyms that have some religious affiliation.

Latitude and Longitude. Give the latitude and longitude for the following cities.

12.  Baltimore, Maryland

13.  Quito, Ecuador

14.  Taveuni, an island in Fiji

15.  Christchurch, New Zealand

16.  Juneau, Alaska

Antipodes. (Don’t worry, this won’t be on the test. But it’s still cool.)

17.  Give the definition of Geographic Antipode.

Find the antipode for the following locations. I suggest www.antipodesmap.com.

18.  Beijing, China

19.  Bermuda

20.  Your house

context and the Key Issues

I keep bringing up the Key Issues, but it is important enough that it's worth repeating.

How do geographers describe where things are? The answer, of course, was found in the first part of this unit, when we looked at types of maps, latitude, longitude, scale, time zones, and GPS.

Why is each point on Earth unique? This can be answered through studying toponyms, places, locations, regions, and culture.

Why are different place similar? We cover this when we talk about globalization (of economy and culture) and diffusion.

Instead of just trying to memorize a bunch of definitions, I recommend thinking about these terms as ways to answer the key questions. It's called putting things into context.

Also... some of you have asked me to remind you of the cities/locations that you were supposed to put on the second set of maps I handed out. So here they are! (If you didn't finish putting them on your maps while we were in class, it would be a good idea to do that this weekend.)

Abuja, Nigeria

• The John Carroll School
• Chicago, Illinois
• San Francisco, California
• Greenwich, England
• Moscow, Russia
• Berlin, Germany
• Beijing, China
• Seoul, South Korea
• Honolulu, Hawaii
• Abuja, Nigeria  

a somewhat disjointed week

It's already Thursday, and I've only seen two classes all week. (sad face) Nevertheless, we will take a moment to review.

Monday: no school due to a holiday; Wednesday: no classes due to PSAT testing.

Tuesday and today: more discussion about regions and culture.

Just to make sure we are all on the same page, here is a brief look back at what we've covered so far this unit.

• ancient maps
• origins (Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Chinese, Islamic, Age of Exploration)
• types (Mercator, Peters, Robinson)
• round globes vs. flat maps
• problems with projection
• purposes 
• navigation (getting from Point A to Point B)
• reference tool (relative and absolute location)
• Geographic characteristics of places
• toponym, site, situation
• Map features
• scale
• latitude (parallels); longitude (meridians)
• equator, Prime Meridian, Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn
• degrees, minutes, seconds
• time zones (International Date Line, Greenwich Mean Time)
• GPS 
• Global Positioning Systems
• how it works
• what it's good for
• possible disadvantages 
• regions
• cultural landscape
• types of regions (formal, functional, vernacular) 

Hope that proves helpful. See you in class!

love these three-day weekends

After reading your blogs, it seems there is a difference of opinions regarding Friday's pop quiz. (I love differences of opinion!) Some of you hated it, saying there was not enough time to answer questions and too much pressure. Both good points. Keep in mind that it was only worth 10 points, and it will not have a monumental effect on your grade. Also, the next time you see these questions will be on a test, where the same questions will be worth more. So maybe the pop quiz was really a sneak preview.

Also, I really enjoyed last week's discussion about how we are giving GPS, Alexa, Siri, ancestry.com, and maybe even law enforcement agencies permission to track us. Again, there was a difference of opinion, with some of you saying that being tracked is creepy, some saying you have no problem with being tracked, and some believing it just doesn't happen as much as we think.

To which I offer you this story that came out at the same time that we had our class discussions.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/fitbit-apple-watch-crime-help-solve-733050/

On behalf of Siri and me, enjoy your weekend!

Return of the Tests

Now all three sections have had their tests returned to them and reviewed in class. Like I said during the review, it is recommended that you hold on to these for use as study guides when the semester exams roll around in December. I also hope you got a better idea of how to approach test-essay writing, in my class and in other subjects.

Seating has been rearranged in each of my three sections, to allow for an optimal learning experience for all students. I hope you enjoy the newly engineered classroom geography.

Speaking of (Human) Geography, be sure your notes include definitions of the following new terms:

• place
• location
• site
• situation
• toponym
• region

Also, check your notes for the Key Issues we identified at the beginning of this unit, and think about how these terms apply to these issues.

Alexa, tell me about GPS

Today's class discussion centered on the wonderful uses of Global Positioning Systems (such as getting very specific directions through our smartphones, or being able to find businesses by "telling" apps our location). But what about the potential downside to having technology track our location 24 hours a day? Do we compromise our privacy when we "allow" apps to know so much about us?

Welcome to one of the good news / bad news aspects of life in the twenty-first century!