Andrew's Western Civ Blogs

In class today, We learned about absolute location, which is a position expressed in degrees, minutes, and seconds of latitude and longitude. Relative location is the regional position or situation of a place relative to the position of another places. We also learned about latitude, which is a geographic line that specifies the north-south position of a point. This is measured in imaginary lines that run parallel to the equator. The other types of lines used are lines of longitude, which run east-west position of a point on the Earths surface, and runs through the poles. The Prime Meridian passes through Greenwich, England, and is at 0 longitude.

Today in class, we learned about situations. Situations is the locations of a place relative to other places. It is used to indicate location and compares it's location to a familiar one. If you were to ask where Bel Air is, you would give a relative location, such as north of Baltimore. It helps to understand the importance of a location, using relative, popular locations. Many locations are important because they are accessible to other locations. We also talked about where we get most of the products we have today. We looked closer on why most of the products come from third world countries. This is because of  the low amount of pay these workers get, who may get around $300 per month instead of a minimum wage job paying around $2400 per month.

Today in class we learned what a site was. A site is a physical character of a place, and how you can describe a location of a place. You can describe a site based on climate, water, topography, soil, vegetation, latitude, and elevation. An important fact about a site is that humans are able to modify the characteristics of a site. We also looked st some of examples of a site, including Manhattan, which is twice the size then it originally was. They do this by sinking ships for a sturdy foundation, then pilling trash and dirt on top. Over time, this compacts and can handle the intense pressure of buildings. Another site is New Orleans, which is a very bad area considering the dangers it faces with flooding. People keep wanting to rebuild it however, even though it is unsafe and a lot of money to keep rebuilding. We also learned that our site is directly on the other side of North Korea.

Today in class we learned about the countries North, Central, and South America.

Today we had to compare two maps, the Peters Projection Map and the commonly used Mercator map. The Peters Projection Map is supposed to be more accurate in showing the globe on a flat surface. The reason is because the poles have no distortion compared to the Mercator map. This is called equal-area projection. Greenland is the most clear example, as Greenland seems to be quite large compared to how large it actually is. Another example is Africa, which really stretches out compared to how it looks on the Mercator map. Only few have adopted the Peters Projection Map however, and some want to see it more, while others want to see it gone. Either way, it seems the Peters Projection map should be the go to map because of it's accuracy.

Today in class we learned about the Peters Projection Map. We learned how the regular map we see everyday is not quite as accurate as this map. The reason it is not as accurate is because of the increasing and decreasing ratios for longitude and latitude lines. One of those most obvious differences in the maps is the size of Africa and Greenland. These maps aren't really "wrong", they are just less accurate as the Peters Projection Map. The reason for the difficulty of making accurate flat maps is because of the fact the earth is round, and you are trying to put a sphere on a piece of paper. Only a few people use to most correct map however, but some school districts have started to teach it. We also watched a video today from The West Wing, which gave us some facts on why this map is most effective is showing the earth on a flat surface.

Today in class we took our first test, and my first test for the school year. In the test, we covered everything we've learned so far such as Arete, Socrates, and A Message to Garcia. We had two essay questions we had to answer, both about Socrates. In one, We had to explain the trail and death of Socrates. In the other, we had to act as if we were in the trial and pick if he was guilty or not guilty. I said he was not guilty because he really didn't do anything wrong. I was pretty comfortable taking the test, and tests in the future shouldn't be too difficult.

Today in class we learned about Socrates and his critical thinking skills. We learned he started out as a stonemason and also a soldier in the Peloponnesian War. He later met with young students in the angora and talked to them about what they think about things and let them think critically about certain topics, but never gave an opinion, only different points of view. Athens didn't like this however, and was charged with corruption of youth and impiety, which means you didn't believe in the gods. People thought his views were against traditional viewpoints, so they didn't like what he had to say. He had a jury of 500 men, and only 279 of the 500 found him guilty even though he confessed. Before he was killed, he had an option to escape but didn't to show his support for Democracy.

Agora is  an public open space used for assemblies and markets. It was a center point of political life Polis is  a city state in ancient Greece, where political  entities were ruled by bodies of citizens. The importance of the year 508 BC in Greece was when  Klisthenis revolted and came to power, and placed the foundations of  Athenian  democracy with serious reforms. The first time the people revolted against the government. Socrates  was a classical Greek philosopher credited as on e of the founders of Western philosophy. Socrates committed suicide after refusing to accept the Greek gods.  The Socratic Method is  a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking. In Greece, if someone calls you an idiot, you are  a person who would only deal with his  personal affairs  and not the  political affairs  of his country.

Today in class we talked went over vocabulary related to A Message to Garcia. These words were perihelion, slipshod, imbecility, stenographer, and missive. We also learned the message trying to be told in the story and it went like this, "What is Initiative? I'll tell you; It is doing the right thing without being told." and lastly, in class we learned about Arete, which is excellence of any kind, moral value, and fulfillment of purpose or function. It's most accurate definition however, is the act of living up to ones full potential. Arete only applies to humans, and its highest potential is knowledge. But if arete is knowledge, then its highest knowledge is about itself.

Recently, we finished reading A Message to Garcia, and we found out the best people to send this message, or put effort into their work, are the people who do what they are supposed to be working on when nobody is around. These people are the ones who will only work for one thing, not being fired or hurt. Employers will constantly be looking for new people because the only ones they seem to hire are the ones who will push something that needs effort off to the side. We also read the power point Excellence in class. and we found the newspaper article was so popular 40 million copies were made of the book, and was made into a movie twice! This was also remade into 37 different languages and even became a slang term.

Today was our first real day of class for Human Geography. In the first half, we talked about the challenges facing starting high school, and how it will be some of the most difficult years of learning. Some if the major changes from middle school to this is the amount of people along with the workload and the fact we have to know how to really manage our time. We also started to read A Message to Garcia, a book about the Spanish-American War in 1899. In this story, we start with Garcia, the leader of the Insurgents, a rebel group fighting with America for freedom. The president needs to send an important letter to Garcia, but they are in the middle of no where, with no hope of receiving a message. Well, at least until Rowan tells the President he can go all the way from the United States to deliver the message. I guess soon well find out if he ever does deliver his message.

I'm Andrew Cox, and today was my first day of day at John Carroll! It was a long day but I definitely accomplished a lot, and am more comfortable with being in high school. The best part of my day was probably going to my band class because I knew everyone there already, and had friends to talk to due to being with them for a week at band camp. My least favorite part of the day was all the information we got from each class. I felt like it was a lot to remember all in one day, but in the next week or so everything should start to feel normal routine. I don't really have a preference with my seat in my class. I don't need to sit up front due to poor eyesight, so my seat seems like a good fit for me. That's all for my first day of high school!