Drew Evans Blogs

Today in class we turned on the lights for the first time this year. It was pretty cool because I have never seen the things in the class under different lighting. We also learned about longitude. Longitude is the geographic coordinate that specifies east to west position on the World Map. The Prime Meridian is the 0 degree longitude line that passes through a place in England called Greenwich. Greenwich is weird because its pronounced Grin-Itch not Green-Itch. Longitude lines are also called meridians. Meridians are furthest apart at the Equator and get closer at the poles. All the meridians are equal in length and they are half of great circles around the globe.

Today in class we learned a lot about maps. Geography is one thing we learned about. Geography is the study of where things are found on earths surface and the reasons for locations. One of the questions we were looking to answer for the class is where are people and activities found on earth. The art of making maps is called cartography. Being a cartographer would be a very hard job in the past because arial views were not possible with that times technology. A very prominent cartographer in the past was Eratosthenes. He made a very popular map but it was terribly inaccurate. All of the countries were not to scale and it looked like everything was connected. We also learned the difference between absolute and relative location. Absolute location is when it's expressed in degrees, minutes, or seconds. Relative location is when it is a regional position relative to the positions of other places.

I was not in class today due to a game.

Today we learned about siting things. A site is a physical character of a place (water, climate, sources of material, topography, fertile soil, vegetation and the elevation. Siting is basically what makes a specific place special. One special thing about siting is humans have the ability to change/modify the characteristics of a site. For example Manhattan New York, is twice as big now as it was a very long time ago, 1626. Many things make my home a unique site. For example I have a basketball court in my backyard. Another example is that I have a shed next to my house, which nobody else in my neighborhood has. In conclusion, a site is what is special about a specific place.

Today we got our first tests back.I am very content with my test grade being an 87%. I studied every day for a few days before and I took my time on my test. The questions I got wrong was the month and year that A message to Garcia was published. I think an 86.4% class average is very good for the first test and I think we can get even better. I am going to start adding more detail to my blogs so I have more to look over for upcoming tests. Overall im not the best test taker though. I usually do good in the classwork but not the greatest on tests. I really hope my parents are content with my test grade because it brought me down to a B.

Mercator maps were founded by Geradus Mercator 1569. One thing the Mercator map is a standard map with nautical navigation. The map also has straight rhumb lines for sailing. Antartica and Greenland are larger. Some people think that larger, developed countries are favored in Mercator maps because they are much bigger compared to the other ones. Mercator maps are not very accurate when moving large areas. Peters Map Projection was first published by James Gall in 1855. At first it was called Gall orthographic and developed into The Gall-Peter Projection. People believe there is many flaws with the sizes of continents within the map. One flaw is the lack of distance equality everywhere on the map. In contrast, the sizes of the countries are very accurate compared to the Mercator map. Mental images can create long lasting effects in human minds. Africa and South America look very small on the Mercator map creating a sense of less meaning compared to larger countries. In conclusion, The

Today we analyzed maps and described maps that were shown in the front. Map A was a united states map that showed the mountains, roads, airports, capitals, rivers and oceans. This is also known as a mercator map. Map B showed mountains, islands, capitals, oceans and its also known as a mercator map. It was a world map and each country was a different color. Map C was a world map and everything seemed stretched out but it was in proportion. It was the biggest map and it showed islands, capitals and oceans. It was titled Peters world map.  In conclusion all the maps were similar and different at the same time and all were useful.

I was not present in class due to a soccer game.

Today in class we dug deeper into what Socrates did and how he got in trouble. All socrates was doing was telling the youth to think a bit differently than what they have been taught their lives. He wasn't forcing his opinion down their throat he was just encouraging thinking out of the box about the greek gods. The greek rulers heard about this and did not appreciate it. They started a trial type thing because Socrates was charged for corruption of youth and not believing the greek gods. Socrates completely admitted to everything he was charged for. In the end he lost the vote of a 500 person jury by about 30 votes. After this he was put to death by drinking poison.

agora - (in ancient Greece) a public open space used for assemblies and markets. Used for discussions. polis -a city state in ancient Greece, especially as considered in its ideal form for philosophical purposes. 508 BC  - Democracy is introduced in Athens by Cleisthenes. He establishes a constitution and is often called  the  "Father of Athenian Democracy". This is one of  the  great accomplishments of  the Greek  culture. First time in human history democracy was introduced. Socrates-  (469-399 B.C.) was a classical Greek philosopher who is credited with laying the fundamentals of modern Western philosophy.  Death of Socrates -  The Suicide of Socrates,  399 BC . On a day in  399 BC  the philosopher Socrates stood before a jury of 500 of his fellow Athenians accused of "refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state" and of "corrupting the youth." If found guilty; his penalty could be death. The  Socratic method-  also known as  method  

A message to Garcia was a very appreciated essay in the early 1900's. Over 40n million copies were sold to many people over the whole world. It was sold in 37 different languages  and they made the story in to 2 movies,  one in 1936. The movies were silent. "Take a message to Garcia was a very popular slang phrase and is still used today in the military. Hubbard wanting to brutally punish people for being lazy at work was very normal. At schools teachers would hit students with sticks and paddles. Some would take it so far as to picking children up by the ears and lifting them to yell, and drop them to the floor.

A message to Garcia relates to high school difficulties a lot.  In the beginning of the story President McKinley asks a trusted personnel (Rowan) to find a missing man named Garcia. All Rowan knows . is that Garcia is somewhere in Cuba. Rowan immediately goes out on his journey to find Garcia. This relates to high school in many ways. In any level of school ESPECIALLY high school you can not procrastinate your assignments. If you push back your assignments multiple days you will not have any time to complete them, leading in a 0%. In A message to Garcia Rowan is looking in a Cuban forest for over 3 weeks to find Garcia. This relates to high school because sometimes you will have assignments that you have more than three weeks to complete and it's up to you to stay motivated and focused to complete the task at hand. If Rowan didn't stay motivated there is a good shot he would not have found Garcia and that would be failing the Presidents commands.

Today in class we talked about how hard high school can be. One thing we talked about was time management. Time management is key to an organized, successful school year. Without proper time management you wont have time to do the most necessary things for your grade. If you participate in sports, practice takes up a lot of your time and energy to do your schoolwork. Keeping your grades up in your classes is another reason high school gets difficult. You have a very increased amount of pressure when it comes to grades. For example, your parents may punish you if you don't keep your grades at a certain level. Another part of the pressure is personal pressure. Things that go through your mind when thinking about grades is college, report cards, and just personal guilt of having bad grades. In conclusion, high school gets extremely difficult as the years go on.

My Favorite part about my first day at the John Carroll School was seeing my friends that I haven't seen all summer. It was great to catch up with them and meet new ones. Another thing I enjoyed about my first day is that you can choose how you want to organize your things. In my previous schools they forced you to do it one way and it made it much more difficult.  One thing I disliked about my first day is how chaotic the hallways get between classes so it's very hard to figure out where you were supposed to go. Overall my First day of school was great. In class, I like my seat. Im seated around people that seem very nice and I don't think I will get distracted. I can also see the board well from where i'm seated. Day one of school was very good.