PowerPoint Day 2

Today in class me and Rory continued to work on our PowerPoint and are making some good progress on it. We are at three slides and all of them have a good amount of accurate information on them. Rory found a good picture of a representation of France's government so we included that and I got a lot of information on the Prime Minister and President, how long they have been in office, and how long they will probably stay in office. While the class was working we also got to listen to some amazing music such as Boyfriend by Justin Bieber and Hey There Delilah. I was disappointed in Britain when I found out that the song "God Save the Queen" in Britain is basically jut a knock-off of "My Country tis' of Thee" but oh well. Rory an I will continue to work on the project tomorrow and hopefully make it even better.

PowerPoint Project

Today in class we were assigned a new task which was to create a PowerPoint presentation for a specific country that my partner and I would choose when it was our turn. I was partnered up with Rory and we decided that we do our PowerPoint on France. The assignment was all about government so once we set up the title slide to look all nice we got to work. We got information from a few sources but mostly from the CIA World Fact book which is always helpful. I also learned that many people can work on the same PowerPoint through different computers with Google which I cant believe no one else has really thought of because of how simple it makes things. Rory and I only got one slide down today but it is going to definitely going to get better.

Facts on the Leaders

More Facts on Political Leaders:

• Benjamin Netanyahu has does not have very good feelings towards Reuven Rivlin being president.
• President of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto had two families at the same time and was still elected president.
• President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff is a cancer survivor.
• Narendra Modi used to sell tea in a railway before becoming one of the most powerful men in India.
• Bashar al-Assad was chosen to take over Syria after his father, and the brother who was next-in-line to be president died.
• Xi Jinping was said to have plagiarized one of the most important papers he has ever written
• David Cameron is a descendant of King William IV
• Putin upset many people with his new anti-gay laws. He made it illegal for gay couples to adopt in Russia and placed a ban on propagandizing "nontraditional" sexual relationships to minors.
• Angela Merkel has a PhD in Chemistry

Did You Know?: Political Leaders

Enrique Pena Nieto -

Enrique Pena Nieto, the president of Mexico, is known for his repeated mistakes during public interviews or events. He even has a website which counts the days passed since his last mistake. On one of the most noted incidents, he was asked to name three books that influenced him. He was only able to correctly reference the Bible. He then "rambled, tossing out confused title names, asking for help in recalling authors and sometimes mismatching" the two others.

Xi Jinping -

Xi Jinping has coined the phrase "Chinese Dream" to describe his overarching plans for China as its leader. It is used to describe the aspiration of individual self-improvement in Chinese society. Reporters have noted that, "Mr Xi had seen the "American dream" up close, having spent a couple of weeks in 1985 with a rural family in Muscatine, Iowa. (He revisited them during a trip to America as leader-in-waiting.)".

Narendra Modi -

Modi is a vegetarian. He has a frugal lifestyle, is a workaholic and an introvert. He writes poems in Gujarati. As a speaker, he is known as a crowd-puller. Also, he emerged as social media savvy politician and since September 2014 is the second most followed leader in the world with over 6 million followers on Twitter. His interaction on Google Hangouts on August 31st, 2012 made Modi the first Indian politician to interact with citizens through live chat on the internet.

Vladimir Putin -

Vladimir grew up in a communal apartment shared by three families in St. Petersburg (then known as Leningrad), and he says he remembers hunting rats in the stairwell. He also has a black belt in Judo which he still practices today, and describes it as a life philosophy.

Angela Merkel -

In her early public life, Angela Merkel loved to brag about her cooking and baking qualities. Indeed, there is a lot of praise for her potato soup, her beef loaf and especially her plum cake. The cake soon became a measure of how much time she was able to afford her private life and her husband.

David Cameron -

David Cameron Is a descendant of King William IV, is the 12th prime minister to take office during Queen Elizabeth II's reign, and is the youngest prime minister since 1812.

Francois Hollande -

During his work as secretary of the Socialist Party, Hollande was nick-named the “pizza delivery boy” by one MP, as he used to ride to work on a three-wheeled scooter. He has also been nicknamed “Mr Normal”, referred to as the “nice guy” in French politics, “Mr Marshmallow”, and “Flanby” after a popular caramel pudding.

Dilma Rousseff -

The daughter of a Bulgarian entrepreneur, Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte. She became a socialist during her youth, and following the 1964 coup d'état joined various left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. Rousseff was eventually captured and jailed between 1970 and 1972, where she was reportedly tortured.

Bashar al-Assad -

 Bashar al-Assad initially showed little interest in politics, graduating from medical school and moving to London to study ophthalmology in his twenties.

Stephen Harper -

Harper was sworn in as Canada's 22nd prime minister on 6 Feb 2006. He immediately chose his Cabinet of 27 ministers, down from the 38 positions held by the Liberal government. The Harper government's first 2 years saw it take steps to reshape Canada's political culture along neo-conservative lines, reducing taxes, cutting funding to progressive organizations and the Canadian gun registry, taking a tough stand on crime and enlarging the military.

Shinzo Abe -

 Shinzo visited a controversial war shrine in Tokyo, igniting a firestorm of criticism and condemnation among neighboring countries. The Yasukuni Shrine is regarded by China, North Korea and South Korea as a symbol of Japan's imperial military past.

Reuven Rivlin -

He will be Israel’s first vegetarian president. Since the late 1960s, Rivlin has eschewed meat products for reasons of conscience. Also, the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is said to despise him.

Countries Part 3

Syria -
President:

Bashar al-Assad

Government:

Republic under an authoritarian regime

 

Canada -

Prime Minister:

 

Stephen Harper

 

Government:

 

a parliamentary democracy, a federation, and a constitutional monarchy
 

 

 

Japan -

Prime Mister:

 

Shinzo Abe

 

Government:

 

a parliamentary government with a constitutional monarchy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Israel -

President:

 

Reuven Rivlin

 

Government:

 

Parliamentary democracy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Countries Part 2

Germany -
President:

Joachim Gauck

Chancellor:

Angela Merkel

Government:

Federal Republic     
                                                                         

 

 

United Kingdom -

Prime Minister:

 

David Cameron

 

Government:

 

Constitutional Monarchy and Commonwealth Realm                           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

France -

President:

 

Francois Hollande

 

Government:

 

Republic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brazil -

President:

 

Dilma Rousseff

 

Government:

 

Federal Republic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Countries Part 1

Mexico -                                                                                        
President:
                                                                                    
Enrique Pena Nieto
 
Government:                                                                                                                                                                                                   
Federal Republic



China -
President:

Xi Jinping

Government:

Communist State

 







 
 

                                                                                            
India  -                                                                                                            
Prime Minister:
                                                                                 
Narendra Modi

Government:

Federal Republic    
                                                                                                                                 
 


Russia -
President:

Vladimir Putin

Government:

Federation

Returning of Test

Today in class Mr. Schick returned the chapter 2 on population and migration and I am pretty proud of myself for doing a good job on it. Mr. Schick set up a bell system where if you got a 90 or above he would ring it and if you got 100 or above he would ring it four times. As he called the names he finally got to me then..no ring. I was handed my test and it turned out that I got an 88 which I found to be pretty successful. I got 2 words mixed up on the vocabulary portion of the test and 2 wrong in the fill in the blank. They were silly errors but there was nothing I could do that point. Mr. Schick continued going over the test and explaining the correct answers to us when all of the sudden I realized I didnt feel to swell and had to go to the nurse. When I returned Steve was teaching the class and I just made it back in time for the bell to ring.

Test Day

Today we got took our unit test on population and migration and I thought I did pretty good. It started off with a speed challenge where we had to answer about 12 questions in only 10 minutes with the help of the CIA World-Fact book. I got through all of the questions but barely and I answered them all with what I think to be the correct answer. I continued the test with guessing the vocabulary word for each definition that was given. Thank goodness there was a word-bank or I would have probably have failed that part of the test. Then I had to answer questions about three population pyramids that were unknown and we had to try and figure out which was which. I was able to do this considering we looked at the same pyramids over and over again in class discussing all the aspects about them. Last part of the test we were told to give to push factors for a country and two pull factors for a country. The countries didn't matter so I did Syria, North Korea, United States, and Lebanon. That was the end and I feel I did really good on this test

Pull Yourself Together America.

Today in class Mr. Schick had us devote our time to supporting the video we watched the other day or going against it. We got on the CIA World-Factbook and we had to say what we thought about America's position and a good fact to back it up. I was born in the U.S. of A so naturally I defended my home and native land unlike some people. America even though not being the greatest country is pretty impressive in some categories. It is a definite fact that the United States has the greatest economy on the planet at this moment and when it comes to communication and transportation we are in the top five out of everyone on the globe. Now when it comes to debt and oil use. Not so great. It is pretty obvious that we are going to run out of oil and there may or not be a global catastrophe in my lifetime but im just taking it day by day and when Mr. Schick told us about his solar panels I thought it was a pretty cool idea, because so is saving money. Mr. Schick had it good because back in the old days no one worried about this type of stuff and everyone thought it would all be figured out. He also got to see all the cool bands in their prime.

Debate

Today in class we started off by watching a video where a man was asked why America was the greatest country in the world and he gave the best answer that he could. Which is that is wasn't, and he had more than one reason to back up his answer. Then after that Mr. Schick devoted the whole rest of the class to discussing what we thought. There were some pretty crazy thoughts and ideas but only a few made sense and were good. People who I had never even heard talk started talking and a lot of people got into it. It was kind of like the Agora in Ancient Greece we learned about except our opinions really didn't matter. Mr. Schick also got into it and asked an important question which was why we even relied on coal and oil anymore when we easily have the capabilities to move to renewable, better sources of energy. I really couldn't give an answer because I had no idea as well but in the end, I agree with the man in the video that America isn't the greatest country anymore but I believe that it definitely could be.

Spotify

Today we tested out Mr. Schick's prototype idea of using music to better educate students. We are, of course, his favorite class so we are going to be his guinea pigs in this experiment. He started off class by explaining to us this idea and I thought it was amazing considering I am listening to music through Spotify every day all the time. So he continued to go on then told us how he got codes that would give us free premium access to Spotify for a whole year. I was given mine and it turned out like everyone else it was only for three months so Mr. Schick said he would try and get more but I wasn't complaining at all, this is an awesome opportunity and I feel I could definitely benefit from it in the classroom and out.