Debate

With the debate today, I heard from a lot of people and there were a lot of interesting points that made me realize a few things. There was something that Colin said, about finding a middle ground, and I've been thinking about that. It's such a difficult question to answer because there's no good compromise to make both sides happy. On one side, too many people were coming in illegally or undocumented. On the other, the process is too harsh and the wait is too long that people are resorting to coming in illegally anyway. The harsher process may have caused more harm than good. Like the podcast said, people are more violent and it wasn't like this a few years ago. I'm concerned that there is no true solution to the immigration issue. Also, America shouldn't be using Mexico to hold migrating people when there is no real deal with Mexico's government. It's hard to find good sources to verify things but one easy way to tell if something is biased is to look fro adjectives in the title. If you see the words "cruel" or "unfair" then the article may be making something seem worse then it really is. If you see the words "accommodating" the article could be making something seem nicer than it really is. You want to find an article with straight facts. The podcast was a little biased because it mainly focused on the cons of President Trump's immigration system in my opinion, but it stayed factual and mainly fair. I'm genuinely surprised that Caitlin didn't speak up more because I could tell she had a lot of things she wanted to say but maybe the classroom setting made it hard to be more aggressive with political beliefs. I spoke up when I felt there was something that I really wanted to add to the conversation but I could've had more things to say here and there. I don't completely agree with the old system and I definitely don't completely agree with the new system. I am somewhere in between agreeing with some things from both sides. Everything is cause and effect. The long and strenuous wait from the new system has caused peaceful protests to turn into riots. It's causing death and more pain than it should. These people are trying to enter America to be in a safe, free, and peaceful place not to just enter another war. A change needs to be made to keep things safe for the United States' citizens and the migrating people.

Debate prep

Today in Human Geo, we talked about conducting our own debate about immigration. Mr. Schick will be the moderator. There will be one person from each group to fact check certain things that people say. Fact checkers must be neutral when they check because it's unfair to search for something and twist things around to fit your point. Facts are Facts. There will be neutrals, pro Trump, and anti Trump. I identify with a more neutral group because I respect both opinions. I see the gray area and I want to hear both sides to determine which I agree more with. I think I'll agree with points from both sides. There are certain things, like our responsibility to help those less fortunate, that reflect how I was rasied. They're my morals and it would be very difficult to not keep that in mind. I think the debate will go well because we are a mature group. There may be some moments that get a little heated, but overall it will be a good learning experience.

Packet

We read through a packet today and it matched the powerpoint pretty well. It was about immigration, migration, circulation, mobility, immigration, and Ravenstein. Sometimes, the packet was inaccurate because it was outdated. There was something strange that happened when the powerpoint said 9% and the packet said 3%. There gathered data from around the same time so it was pretty strange that the difference would be that large. The 3% was closer to being correct. There was another minor difference with the packet versus the slideshow. It was about the number of people that have moved to a new country rather than the country they were born in. The difference was not that major though. Over the course of a few years it listed 43 million, 45 million, and 42 million, so it wasn't as strange as the first mistake.

Migration

 Today in class, we talked about immigration and mobility. Mobility is a term for any movement. Permanent acts of mobility are known as migration. There are repetitive/short term acts of mobility and they are called circulation. Migration and mobility have to do with push and pull factors. These things cause citizens to leave a country or cause citizens to want to move to a new country. War would be a push factor and new job oppurtuinities would be a pull factor. War and new job opportunities could cause people to emigrate from their country and immigrate to a new one. International and internal are the two categories of migration.

Test

We reviewed the sheet from the video we watched yesterday and took a test today. I think I did very well on the test. The only thing i could have mixed up are the stages. I believe it was Stage 2 and Stage 1 but we will see how I did on it very soon. Mr. Schick stepped out for a minute to asses the scantrons or put them in a machine. I'm pretty sure you put scantrons in the machine and then the machine grades it. I'm not sure what that machine is called but I have definitely heard of it before. I'm really proud of Mr. Schick for making this test because it was reasonable and fair.

Video

We watched a video on how the countries have changed over the years by Hans Rosling. He taught a college class called Global Health. In the chart, countries in the bottom left corner are poor and the top right corner is wealthy. Some countries are still taking a lot of time to make their way to the top right hand corner due to a controlling government or health or financial issues. The video was made in 2009 and he had a very positive outlook on the future. I wonder if he would have seen things the same way if he made the video in 2018. He thought that the world would be mostly green and healthy and thriving. The world has not become very green and there are still many struggling countries. I think his outlook would be different on the future if the video had been created in 2018.

Demographic Transition

Today I made up the test from last week and I think it went well. We used the CIA World Factbook to answer the first 15 questions. Then, we answered questions based on what we already learned in class and using common sense. The last section was a series of questions based on a population graph of Sudan, The United States, and Japan. After the test, we researched the Demographic Transition which is based on past trends of the birth rate and death rate and how the population undergoes growth as the country develops economically. There are graphs that show stages of the DTM.

Human Geo

Today I missed about half of the class due to the school show. When I was in class, we talked about population pyramids, their X and Y axis, and the difference between male and female population rates. There are less females than males in developed countries because they will abort the child if it is not a male so their family name and can be carried on. Other than that, there is usually a higher population of females than males.

blogs

I was not in class on C day or D day.

Charts

I had a shadow today so I missed the middle of class for her meeting, but today we went over more charts on population and we went on a really interesting website that had the population of every country for several years. It estimates that the United States' population will keep growing. India's population is already extremely high and it is estimated to keep increasing. This would not be good for India's economy.

Pyramids and Graphs

Today we looked at different examples of pyramids and charts on populations of countries based on age. There are different shapes that these graphs can be:
Christmas Tree
Box
Cup
The Christmas Tree has a wide base to represent a developing country having a surplus of children and a very little amount of older people. The Box shape was a developed country that had even amounts of people in each age group. The Cup has a smaller base and a wider top to represent having more old people than young. This is also a developed country. This would be the share to represent Monaco or Japan.