11/29

Today we talked and discussed about class discussions on current topics and whether they were a good idea or not. I thought it was an excellent idea since a lot of  kids (including myself) don't know much about whats happening in the world today. I look forward to our first discussion tomorrow and see how it goes.

11/28

Today we learned that there were some discrepancies in our book. One instance of this was that on our packet that was handed out to us in class read that only 3% of the worlds population are international immigrants, however on the power point it read that it was 9% of the population. We also had a debate about illegal immigrants and what society has labeled them as. I think that illegal immigrants is what we should call them, however I do not think it is right to call out random people on the streets and label them this just because they're Mexican or Hispanic. The reason that I do not like calling them undocumented immigrants is because it makes it seem that the crime they are committing is not as serious as it really is, to me it has the same affect as calling a drug dealer a substance seller. Some people feel bad for the legal immigrant that are being called illegals and I do to, but that does not mean we should hold the real violators of this law be treated the same respect.

11/26

Key Issues

1. Where are migrants distributed?

2. Where do people migrate within a country?

3. Why do people migrate?

4. Why do migrants face obstacles?

Mobility is the most generalized term that refers to all types of movements. Short term and repetitive acts of mobility are called circulation. A permanent move to a different country is called migration. International migration is a permanent move to a different country. Internal migration is a permanent move within the same country. Only 9% of the worlds population are international immigrants. The US has more foreign born residents than any other country.

11/20

Today in class we reviewed our worksheet that we worked on yesterday, and then we took a pop quiz that had questions relating to the worksheet we just did. I felt that I did pretty well on the quiz but there were 2 that I forgot the answer to and probably got wrong.

11/19

Today in class we watched a video about population ad migration. The person in the video's name was Hans Rosling who used to teach a class on Global Health. There was a graph in the video with that showed life expectancy and income in countries from 1700 to 2009. On the graph the y-axis represented the lifespan of people in the country and the x-axis represented the income of people. The lower left section in the graph represented nations with poor and sick citizens while the upper right represented the citizens that were rich and healthy.

11/14

Today in class we talked more in depth about Demographic Transition or DT. We learned that there are four stages of Demographic transition and that if you go to a higher stage you can not revert back to a lower stage, for example going from stage 3 to stage 2. We also learned that the United States was in stage 3 which means it had low birth rates and low death rates, and that the population would be declining if it weren't for immigration.

11/13

The Demographic Transition or DT is when a country's birth and death rates go from being high to becoming low. This happens when a region develops from a pre-industrial era to a industrial economy. This idea was first presented by an American demographer named Warren Thompson in 1929, who saw changes in Americas birth and death rates over the last 200 years.

https://www.history.com/shows/men-who-built-america

11/7

Today in class we took a test. The test was very easy and I felt I did very well. For the test we had to look things up on the CIA world fact book which we have been using in class fro the past few weeks. One question that I found very interesting on the test that I can remember was what country uses the least amount of their GDP on military their military. The nation that uses the least that I found was Iceland which I don't know why but it came as a surprise  to me.

11/5

Today in class we talked some more about population pyramid. We went over some stranger pyramid shapes such as Ann Arbor, Michigan which had a high population of 20-30 year old's because Michigan University is located in Ann Arbor. Another strange pyramid that we discussed was Leavenworth, Kansas which had a large population of middle aged men and women, this is because there is a very large penitentiary there. What was funny about this was that I used to live in Leavenworth because my dad was stationed at Fort Leavenworth when I was around 4 years old, but I don't remember the penitentiary since I was so little. 

11/1

In today's class we talked about population pyramids. There are three basic shapes of population pyramids, which are the Christmas tree, the box, and the cup. The Christmas tree was the first and usually meant that country was under developed. The second was the box and the box meant that the country was a developed country but it's birth rate was declining. The last one was the cup and this meant that the country was developed but not many children are being born.