Preparation for Debate and Asylum Notes

    In today's class we spend the first part preparing for a debate over asylum tomorrow. Mr. Schick wanted to see if we were mature enough to have this debate, and hopefully we proved to him that we are. First, we got to see who was neutral, pro, and anti before we started to get a baseline. We then decided how it was going to be run, and we decided that Mr. Schick would moderate the debate instead of leading in. I think this is a good change, because it lets us express ourselves easier, and it seems like an interesting idea. For the rest of class we talked about asylum, and what it includes. Asylum is granted to those suffering from discrimination in race, nationality, religion, political beliefs, and social groups. I look forward for our debate tomorrow, and I am excited to see how it turns out.

Tetris Dreams and Migration Schemes

   Today we started class with a life lesson from Mr. Schick. He taught us the dangers of Tetris, and how it consumes your soul for hours on end. In his quest to destroy his nephew in a game of Tetris he lost a good five hours of sleep on vacation. Today felt like a special day because we got another life lesson about the importance of meaningful punishment. After Mr. Schick misbehaved in class years ago he was assigned the punishment of writing a sentence 1,000 times. His mother thought that this was a meaningless punishment, so she wrote a heartfelt letter to his teacher, and made him write a report on a saint. For the rest of class today, we reviewed some facts on migration. This class was very informative, and I appreciate the close look and knowledge of Mr. Schick's life that we received today.

Migration Notes

     Mobility is the general term for all movement. Short term and repetitive acts of mobility are called circulation. A permanent act of mobility is known as migration. The difference between immigrants and emigrants is net migration. Ravenstein's laws for distance that migrants move include migrants that relocate a short distance within the same country, and migrants that move to another country. There are two categories in migration which are international and internal. 9% of the world's population are international migrants. The United States has more foreign born residents than any other other country. There were three main eras of immigration in the United States, colonial settlement in the 18th century, European immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and Asian and Latin America in the late 20th century to the early 21st century. 

Pop Quiz and other Shenanagins

     Today we took a pop quiz on Hans Rosling's video on population and health. The quiz had the exact same questions that were on the worksheet. We reviewed the worksheet right before taking the quiz, so it was relatively easy. Many people in the class got 100, but a few people got lower. We took another picture with the whole class. Patrick was also obsessed with singing Sicko Mode for some reason. We also saw a video on how America is not the greatest country in the world anymore. The video brought up some points like newborn death rates. Not much else happened today, but at least we got to work on our blog in class.

Population and Migration Stuff

     Today in class we were given a worksheet, and we watched a video on some countries' wealth and life expectancy. The man that made the video was named Hans Rosling, and he made the video in 2009 or so. Hans decided to create a chart that shows a country's development with wealth on the x-axis and life expectancy on the y-axis. The lower left of the graph represents the poor and the sick, and the upper right represents the rich and healthy. Each country was represented by a colored circle, and the size was of the country was determined by its population. The graph showed a trend of increasing life expectancy and wealth over a 200ish year period. Towards the year 2009 the United States of America was almost the top country for life expectancy and wealth, but a few European countries had higher numbers. The graph was very well presented, and the information it provided was very interesting.

More Notes on Demographic Transition

      There are four stages in demographic transition that help explain rising and falling RNI's over time in a country. No country has ever reverted back to a previous stage. The first stage is called low growth, and in this stage there are high birth and death rates, as well as no long term natural increase. Currently there are no countries at this stage in the world. Stage two is known as high growth, this stage is marked by rapidly declining death rates and extremely high birth rates. This stage has a high natural increase rate, and Europe and North America reached this stage during the Industrial Revolution. Stage three is called moderate growth, in this stage there is a rapid decline in birth rates, and a slower decline in death rate. The RNI of a country during this stage is moderate, and the population grows. European and North American countries reached this stage during the first half of the twentieth century. Stage four is known as low growth, and in this stage the birth and death rates are very low. A country at this stage has zero population growth, and the population mostly changes from immigration.

Notes on Demographic Transition

  Today three people need to take a test, so we were assigned to take notes on demographic transition. Demographic transition is the transition from high birth and death rates to lower rates as a country develops into an industrialized economy. This concept was introduced in 1929 by Warren Thompson who observed different countries economic activity for some time. Most developed countries have completed the demographic transition while most developing countries are in this process, but there are some exceptions. A few of the exceptions are in Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan, all countries that have some sort of fighting going on. I find this concept relatively interesting and I hope to see what else we learn about it.

Notes on a bunch of things relating to population

     Fertility and mortality rates vary not only spatially,but also temporally within a country. A dependency ratio is the number of people who are too young to work or too old to work, compared to the number of people in their productive years. People from the ages of zero to fourteen and sixty-five and older are considered to be dependents. Larger dependency ratios mean that there is a higher financial burden on the working class. Sex ratio is the number of males per 100 females in the population. Developed countries have more females than males since females tend to outlive men by about seven years.

Notes on Population

     Here is some information on population and where people live. Two thirds of the world's inhabitant's live in East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe. Most people on the planet live in low lying areas, fertile areas, temperate climate, and near a river or an ocean. People don't want to live in areas that are too hot, wet, cold, or high. Places considered too harsh for occupancy have diminished over time, because of advancements in technology. There are three ways to define density they are arithmetic, physiological, and agricultural. The arithmetic way is calculated by the total number of objects in an area, as well as by dividing the population by land area. The physiological way is calculated by the number of people supported by a unit area of arable land. The final way known as the agricultural way is the ratio of farmers to arable land, the way to calculate this is by dividing the population of farmers by arable land area.

Test Day

  Today we took a test on information from the world fact book, and our notes. For the first part of the test we were given fifteen minutes to find specific information on the site. I finished with four minutes left, but I messed up on one of the problems since I went with crude oil information for both of the problems instead of oil then petroleum. Once, I finished that section I moved on to the rest of the test which was simple enough. I tried my best with the extra credit, but I don't think I got any of it right. After that, we were forced to keep our tests until the bell rang. Not only that, we had to make a comic relating to what we learned. I drew a cowboy and a cactus, because that kind of relates to what we learned.

Examples of Population Pyramids in the United States notes

   Today we discussed some population pyramids from certain places in the country. The first example was Ann Arbor, Michigan, since there is a college there, most of the people living there are 20-24. The businesses there are geared toward this demographic, so the only older people living there are teachers and other people working at the college. The second example is Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, this is a military base, so it's a similar story to Ann Arbor. The people living there are mostly 20-30 year olds, there are lots of men, and no older people since they move off base when they retire. The third example is Buffalo County, South Dakota, this is an Native American reserve so there aren't too many children. The unemployment there is very high, and some of the people that grew up there come back later to start a family. The fourth example is Manhattan, New York, there are lots of high paying job opportunities, but no housing left, and the people living their don't usually start families. There were a few other examples, but I felt that these were the most important.

Population Pyramids and things like that

     Today we started to learn about population pyramids. I don't really see the point of these except to plot data instead of just reading it, but who cares what I think. A population pyramid measures the growth or decline of fertility, mortality, and migration to cities. Each age group is measured in five year age increments. Children are considered to be nineteen and below, economically active/ adults are twenty to sixty four, and senior citizen are sixty five to over eighty. Statistically, seniors cost more money than children, because when they get ill, they become extremely ill, and it costs lots of money to treat them. The basic shapes of population pyramids are the Christmas tree, the box, and the cup. The Christmas tree represents a developing nation where population growth is high, birth rate is high, and the life expectancy is short. The box symbolizes a developed country with low infant mortality, slow population growth, and a long life expectancy. The final shape, the cup, represents a developed country where the birth rate is low, the population is shrinking, and there a long life expectancy. An example of the cup is Namibia as well as Bangladesh. Two examples of the box are the Unites States of America and Sweden. An example of the cup is Japan. Hopefully if you're some random person on the internet you learned something if not, oh well.