Test friday

We took our third test today in Mr. Schicks class.  It was on Ancient Egypt, which we have been studying for the past week or two.  It was a scantron multiple choice test.  I am blogging in class right now because I want to do it and get it done instead of having to do it on the weekend.  I'll blog back to you all on Tuesday when our next class meets.

Cyber Assignment day 3

1. Where was Egyptian life centered around?  

The Nile River

The Mediterranean Sea

The desert land

Near the pyramids

2.   Who was the person who was all powerful, and was worshipped like a god?

Scribes

Nobles

Priests

Pharaoh

3.  What is hieratic?

Paper

writing words

drawing pictures

dancing to describe something

4.  What did Egyptians use to travel through the Nile River?

A paddle boat

a row boat

a sail boat 

a motor boat

5.  What were gods often portrayed as?

animal body with human head

animals

humans

animal body with another animal head

Notes from todays powerpoint

In class today we took notes off of the powerpoint that Mr. Schick presented to us.  Here is some information

Pharaoh:

• he was all powerful
• worshipped as a god
• he had multiple wives
• if things weren't going well in Egyptian life the Pharaoh could be fired
• Egyptians relied on a harmony of the balance of the universe.  
• Called Maat

gods, humans, everlasting life

• the Egyptian people believed in the afterlife
• gods were often portrayed with animal heads or bodies
• the people mummified dead bodies to preserve them for the post-death journey
• Egyptian people believe that when you reach the afterlife the dead souls would be justified at the point of death and be either sent to an after-world paradise, or the jaws of a monster

Writing of the words of God

• earliest Egyptian writing people found is around 3100 B.C. and were small pictures known as hieroglyphics
• hieroglyphics is where they drew pictures to describe what they were saying
• hieratic was when they started to use letters to write words out
• Papyrus was what they called paper

Calendar and Sailboat

• Egyptians created a calendar with 12 months, 365 days long, to make sense of the seasonal cycles
• they had a calendar for all types of seasons

Egyptian pyramid challenge

Today in class Mr. Schick gave gave us a link to a Egyptian pyramid challenge.  We had to pick out our workers, the type of food they would get to eat, the god that represented to the Pharaoh, and all sorts of other things.  The first two groups to finish the challenge got A's, the second two got B's and the rest either got a C or failed because they couldn't finish it.  Author and Alex were in my group, Author finished first and soon after Alex did too.  Sadly... I didn't get too finish because class ended before I was able to figure out how to build the pyramid.

Egyptian Inventions

This is my list of the five most important inventions in Egyptian culture.  In order of importance they are Hieroglyphics, Black Ink, Paper, Sails, and Clocks.  Below I will describe each on of these in how they are important and how they improved life.  Hieroglyphics is the writing system goes back to 6,000 B.C.  They used pictures to communicate and this was called Hieroglyphics.  They found it a lot in Egyptian tombs and other places.  Hieroglyphics tells stories of war, politics and culture that give us a great understanding of ancient Egyptian culture.  This was very important because it became the basis for their language.  It improved their lives because it gave them a common and easy way to communicate with each other.
Black ink was invented sometime after Hieroglyphics.  It was made by mixing water with soot and vegetable gums on a wooden palette.  They didn't make just black ink, eventually they found a way to make different colored ink for clothing and other purposes.  Black ink was and still is today very important or writing, for drawing, and for other useful purposes.  It improved the Egyptian life because once they invented black ink they could now write and draw better and it helped them have an easier way of communicating.
Not long after they invented ink, they invented paper.  During their time paper was called Papyrus.  This was an old school paper made from Cyperus papyrus plants found along the Nile River.  The invention of paper was and is still very very important.  Paper makes writing and drawing so much easier.  It also helps with communication to one another.  This improved Egyptian life a lot because instead of them having to draw on a wall to communicate they can write on paper and send it to one another much quicker and easier.
The Egyptian people invented sails as a way of navigation through water.  Sails came in very handy since they were so close to the Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea.  Especially since the Nile River flowed South to East, it was hard for people to use paddles going down the river.  Sails improved Egyptian life drastically, it helped them go through the Nile River much easier and quicker and it helped them as they traveled through the mediterranean.
The Egyptians were the first to invent mechanical clocks.  The most popular one that they made was the sun clock where the shadow made by the sun is used to determine what time of the day it is.  They also created a water clock for night time.  It works like an hour glass where water drips down at a predictable rate and time is told depending on the level of liquid.  The invention of the clock also helped to invent the 365 day calendar.  The clock was very important for the Egyptians to tell about what time it was so they could have a good understanding of how long they could be out during the day working and doing whatever.  This improved their life a lot by letting them know when the sun would go down and when the sun would rise so they could get more stuff done in a day.

The Usual

Today in class we went over the rest of our last test that we took.  We did some of the notes from the prezi of Egypt.  Even though we took notes in our blogs on the Prezi on our cyber day.  We discussed whether or not we were going to have school tomorrow, have a delay, or be off because of such cold weather that we will have tomorrow morning.  I also was agitating Jayla pretty badly,which was hilarious.  I really hope we don't have school tomorrow too.

Notes on Ancient Egypt

• Geography

• Egyptian life is centered around the Nile River

• water for drinking, for irrigating, for bathing, and for transportation

• Every July it floods

• Every October it leaves behind rich soil 

• the delta is a broad, marshy triangular area of fertile silt

• managing the river required technological breakthroughs in irrigation

• Pyramids

• The Great Sphinx of Giza

• built 2555 - 2532 BC

• a recumbent lion with a human's head

• oldest monumental statue in the world

• Daily Life
• Pharaoh
• government officials - Nobles, Priests
• Soldiers
• Scribes 
• Merchants
• Artisans
• Farmers
• Slaves and Servants

• Slaves/servants helped the wealthy with household and child raising duties

• raised wheat, barley, lentils, onions - benefitted from irrigation of the Nile 

• artisans would carve statues and reliefs showing military battles and scenes in the afterlife

• money/barter system was used - merchants might accept bags of grain for payment - later, coinage came about

• scribes kept records, told stores, wrote poetry described anatomy and medical treatments

• they wrote in hieroglyphs and in hieratic 

• Religious and Political Leader

• soldiers used wooden weapons (bow and arrows, spears) with bronze tips and might ride chariots

• upper class known as the "white kilt class" - priests, physicians, engineers

• Pharaohs

• the political and religious leader of the Egyptian people, holding the titles 'Lord of the Two Lands' and 'High Priest of Every Temple'

• as 'Lord of the Two Lands' the pharaoh was the ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt.  He owned all land, made laws, collected taxes and defended Egypt from all foreigners

• Hatshepsut was a woman who served as a pharaoh 

• Cleopatra VII also served as a pharaoh, but much later (51-30 BC) more on her when we study Greece

• Goddesses And gods 

• over 2000 gods and Goddesses

• they "controlled" the lives of humans

Test Check Thursday

Today in class we went over our first test and some of our second test.  We get to keep our tests so that way we can look over them at the end of the year for our exams.  I like that we get to keep our tests for review, that is a lot of help.  It was a pretty easy day in class because all we did was look over our tests.  That's all we did in class today so not much to talk about there.  On the bright side we have off tomorrow and have a four day weekend because of President's Day.

Test Day

In class today we had a test on the video we watched over the past week or so, called Guns, Germs, and Steel.  It was a 25 question scantron test.  I prefer scantron tests over fill in the blanks because you get to see all the answers and have a better chance, in my opinion, to get the right answer.  Of course if you studied.  I think I did fairly well, maybe an A but probably a B.  It was a good test and I feel like I did pretty good... but we will have to see once Mr. Schick grades them.  

Friday's class

In class on Friday a couple of the groups presented their power points.  The first group who presented talked about all the animals that helped uprise the people of the ancient world.  The other group that did their power point talked about the types of bad diseases people could often get back then, especially smallpox.  Mr Schick also finally graded our tests, it took him a while... but he did it.  I wasn't too thrilled with my grade but I wasn't very upset with it.  This coming Tuesday we are having a test on the Guns, Germs, and Steel video that we watched and took notes on.

Group Project

In class today I had a shadow, his name is Ben.  He seemed a little bored in class today because we started a presentation project in groups.  We didn't do any note taking which was a refresher.  Though we still had to make a powerpoint and present it.  The people in my group are Parker, Jeremiah, Steven, and Adam.  We got a good amount of work done on our powerpoint and should be ready to present it tomorrow.

Guns, Germs, and Steel summary

In class today we finished watching the Guns, Germs, and Steel video.  We saw the people that began to build homes in Jordan, not just for sleeping but for living and doing things in.  We saw how they made plaster and used it inside their homes as an insulation.
We saw the conclusion of Jared Diamond's visit to Papuanewguinea.
There wasn't much to the end except that most likely the Newguineans in the highland will keep living the way they live now and the people more in the city are starting to become more civilized and modern.
This video was a good video, it taught me a lot about the history of our earth.  It taught me how the people back then survived and how they formed us to be the people we are today.  And
I learend all the essentials that we need to live, now and back then.

Guns, Germs, and Steel video part 2

Today in class we watched the rest of the Guns, Germs, and Steel video.  We learned from the notes that it took that the reason why Papuanewguinea is still so far behind in the modern world is because of a couple things.  One: they don't have a great food supply to be able to live somewhere permanently instead of being hunter/gatherers.  Another reason that they aren't very civilized to the modern world is that they don't have the animals to collect and use for more than just eating.
The reason why all the people in the Middle East became more civilized is because they had the right food supply, such as, wheat.  Wheat and grains was their main food supply and it was a great food supply because wheat was very easy to store for long periods of time.  The other reason that the Middle East developed so quickly was because a lot of the animals that are native there are very useful to living in big tribes.  Such as sheep, and lambs.  They are great for making clothes and giving off good meat.
Plants that emerged over the world are: rice, corn, squash, beans, sorghum, millet, and yams.
Rice came from China.
Corn, squash, and beans came from America.
Sorghum, millet, and yams, came from Africa.

Dr.  Jared Diamond researched as many animals as possible, and he found 148.  He only found 14 animals out of 148 are domesticated, which means that those 14 animals can work for people and help them out.
The 14 animals are: goat, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, backtrain camels, arabian camels, water buffalos, llama, reindeer, yack, mithans, and bali cattle.

The llama came from South Africa.
The rest of the animals came from Asia, and North Africa.
Cows, pigs, sheep, and goats came from the Middle East.